We all know the famous cartoons with Popeye the Sailor Man, right? Each and every time he was in trouble he had a secret weapon to boost his strength – spinach! You might say those are only cartoons, however The Daily Telegraph recently reported that those cartoons were not lying at all when it comes to spinach and by eating 300g of spinach the amount of oxygen needed to give strength to muscles went down to 5% when doing daily exercises.
This study was not based solely on spinach but on the fantastic properties that nitrate (a spinach compound) has when taken as supplement. 14 volunteers were tested and all of them needed less oxygen when doing the exercises, after taking the nitrate supplement for three days. One thing has been proven thus: nitrates have a beneficial effect, however we do not know for sure whether this is on long or short term. Lesson that should be learned from this study is that vegetables and fruits contain important nutrients that should definitely be a part of our daily diets.
The study was published in Cell Metabolism – a scientific journal – and took place in Sweden, at Karolinska Institutet and it was not solely based on spinach properties but on nitrated ones, nitrates that can be found in tea, leafy veggies and some meats. The main purpose of this study was to demonstrate that mitochondrial function is improved on people that consume nitrate supplements.
How was the study made? 14 non-smokers volunteers participated and some of them received nitrate supplements while other received placebo supplements for three days. After three days they did the test than a 6-day break period followed and they repeated the process afterwards. After the test ended, the results were quite concludent: those taking nitrate supplements were using less oxygen to produce energy while the ones with placebo pills remained at the same level.
Researchers’ conclusion was that “nitrates have a profound effect on mitochondrial function” and “these findings may have implications for exercise physiology – and lifestyle-related disorders that involve dysfunctional mitochondria”.
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nitrates effects, spinach and muscles
On 17 April, champions Tsegaye Kebede and Liliya Sjobukhova will have to defend their marathon titles against two fantastic athletes announced by the organisers. However, these two athletes are not the only one that will be great competitors while all six medal winners from this year will be at start line in 2011, so gaining a medal will be a tough job.
Ethiopian Kebede and Russian Shobukhova are the best runners at this years’ marathon and they will face Olympic and World champions; race director Mr Bedford said that next year’s marathons will be the toughest ever, for both men and women.
Sammy Wanjiru – Olympic champion from Kenia – will be Kebede’s main competitor. He managed to beat him in Chicago this October and is keen to repeat this in 2011 as well. Moreover, he set the course record at 2:05:10 while Kebede arrived 9 seconds after him. Wanjiru is not the only one to be afraid while among the competitors we will see big names like Bazu Worku – 3rd in Berlin, Bouramdane Abderrahime – 4th in London, Marilson Gomes dos Santos- two times winner in New York and Victor Rothlin – European title winner in August.
On the other hand, next year’s favourite is Russian Shobukhova for women – Chicago Marathon and World Marathon Majors winner. Her top competitors will be Irina Mikitenko – champ in 2008 and 2009 and China’s Zhou Chunxiu – champ in 2007. From China as well, World champion Bai Xue will compete as well, from Romania Constantina Dita, for her 10th London run, Tafa and Bekele from Ethiopia and Aberu Kebede, winner in Berlin.
Other competitors returning back to London Marathon are Liz Yelling – UK Olympian and Andrew Lemoncello – 8th place in 2009. This competition should be a tough one with strong competitors, big names returning and many vanities among contestants.
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athletes, london marathon 2011
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