If that last run left your knees a little cranky or your feet seeking relief, it doesn’t have to come from a pill bottle. Oregon researchers found dramatic and surprising pain relief from a key ingredient in one of your grandmother’s favorite pies.
Lisa Ann McCall has been running since the early 80’s and still loves it.
“You can see different sights,” McCall said. “You can go different speeds. You see the world on your feet.”
But now when she needs some post-race pain relief, McCall reaches into the refrigerator, not the medicine chest, for tart cherry juice.
“I recover from my workouts much better from being on tart cherry.”
Oregon researchers tested whether tart cherry juice could replace nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories and their dangers.
“They are the most widely used medication in the world but they come with side effects, including gastrointestinal bleeding,” Kerry Kuehl, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon said.
They chose Oregon’s hood-to-coast relay that stretches 193 miles and more than 24 hours to test the effectiveness of tart cherry juice. Those who took it had a 66 percent reduction in pain compared to those who didn’t.
“It was equivalent to taking six to 800 milligrams of ibuprofen,” Dr. Kuehl said.
That’s because the peel of the fruit contains the same anti-inflammatory enzyme as over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen, making the natural remedy a clear winner for McCall.
“What I like is the fact is that the long-term effects are going to benefit me versus hurt me,” McCall said.
Tart cherry juice is also effective in reducing chronic inflammation. Women with osteoarthritis who drank 10 ounces of tart cherry juice twice a day for three weeks saw a significant reduction in C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation in the blood.
Contributors to this news report include: John Hammarley, Field Producer; Amber Sumpter, News Assistant and Brent Sucher, Editor.