Aidan:
Welcome to the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. My name is Aidan Muir. I’m here with my co-host, Torwen Eerkens. And this is episode 258. We’re going to talk about whether athletes should care about anti-inflammatory diets. This includes recovery, performance, and all of those kinds of things. We’re going to cover how it theoretically can help. We’ll cover how much of a difference it might make. We’ll also cover where it’s worth implementing.
Torwen:
General anti-inflammatory eating focuses on a few core food groups. This includes things like omega-3 fatty acids. These are mainly found in fatty fish, salmon, sardines, and mackerel. There are also plant-based options, like flaxseeds and walnuts. It also includes polyphenols and antioxidants.
These are found in colourful fruit and vegetables. It includes whole grain carb sources and healthy fats. These include olive oil, avocado, nuts, and seeds. And it also generally includes having a lower intake of ultra-processed foods or refined sugars. So, we know these changes have positive effects on longevity and heart health. They also reduce the risk of chronic disease. But as Aidan said, what we’re looking at today is whether athletes should care about this.
Aidan:
If I was looking at it from a food-first approach, the first thing that comes to mind is Mediterranean-style eating. Then there are many tweaks I would make towards an athletic-style diet. I think we did a podcast on this previously. It could include slightly higher protein intake. And a slightly higher carb intake in certain cases. We also know the microbiome can play a role from an anti-inflammatory perspective. So focusing on that as well. But yeah, we can talk about supplements as well.
Talking supplements, you mentioned antioxidants earlier. Those antioxidant supplements, specifically vitamin E and vitamin C, fall into this category as well. They have been shown to have an anti-inflammatory effect. Tart cherry extract falls into that as well. Fish oil too, and then curcumin as well.
Torwen:
So, how could it theoretically help athletes? If we start with injury recovery and prevention, athletes potentially have a higher baseline inflammation. And they may also be more vulnerable to injuries if this inflammation stays chronically high.
Aidan:
Then there is also muscle soreness, or just soreness in general. There is an inflammatory component there. So theoretically, if you lowered that, people would be less sore. And they might be able to continue training harder or competing harder.
Torwen:
And specifically, I’ve had a look at a bit of research in this space. Anti-inflammatory foods like omega-3s have been shown to consistently help with this. Fish oil specifically seems to help at around two to three grams per day. That helps reduce C-reactive protein, which is a marker of inflammation. And it also helps reduce self-reported soreness.
Aidan:
Before we talk about how much this matters, we’ll talk about why athletes might not be following this. And there are two categories that we’ll cover here. I’m going to start with the first one, which is high energy needs. So, in many cases, athletes are aiming for really high energy targets. Sometimes it can be hard to eat quote-unquote, super clean. There are many cases where people eat quote-unquote super clean to their own detriment.
They underconsume calories, their body weight drops off, and they have fatigue. There is low energy availability, and all of these kinds of downsides. Sometimes people consume more calories through less ideal sources to tick that box. Which, in some cases, could actually be the priority. The other angle here is an endurance athlete doing super high volumes of endurance training. Sometimes they could be having heaps of gels and sports drinks.
Those typically would not fall into the anti-inflammatory category. But if they did not do that, they would be underfuelling their training. They would also be performing worse in training. There is probably a longer list than that. But there are many reasons why people might not do it from an energy perspective.
Torwen:
The other angle there is training adaptation specifically. So, it is one that maybe we do not think about all the time. But it is pretty important. Inflammation in athletes is not inherently bad. Exercise-induced muscle damage and the acute inflammatory response are what follow training hard.
That is the process that drives adaptation. So if you suppress that inflammation too aggressively, you might actually blunt that adaptation. And you might not get the training adaptations, or the gains, that you are training for. This might be particularly true with high-dose antioxidant supplementation too close to training.
Aidan:
Yeah, and there is plenty of research showing that high-dose antioxidant supplements reduce soreness. And I might talk about that a little bit as well. But there is plenty of research showing that. It is tricky being like, well, what if this is reducing adaptations? I think I shared this many years ago on the podcast.
There is a Charles Poliquin story I heard many years ago. Because we can only absorb so much vitamin C orally, he was injecting vitamin C into his athletes. They were getting way less sore. It is interesting being like, if we did not have this adaptation problem, that is a genius kind of thing. They are getting less sore.
They can train harder, so on and so forth. Then it becomes a question of how much blunting of the stimulus there is. We do have clear evidence, particularly in endurance athletes, that it does seem to blunt things a little bit. We do not have as much evidence in strength athletes. But it is potentially a factor as well.
We are now going to talk about how much this matters. So, I’ve got a few things on my list. I’m going to start broad before we go more specific. A lot of research shows improvements in markers like C-reactive protein and other inflammatory markers. I do care about that stuff. But I also want to link it back to being an athlete. I’d probably care more about injury, soreness, and performance. I would care about those more than just the markers themselves.
Torwen:
Yeah, and there are a fair few reviews that summarise inflammation in athletes. Most look at the fact that persistent inflammation matters. When you combine dietary strategies, it can help with a broad range of these things. These are the things that we’re going to talk about.
Aidan:
So, the first one I want to start with is being specific on how much one thing matters. Tart cherry juice, on average, has led to people feeling three times less sore. And that is well documented in the research. I’m focusing specifically on the outcome of soreness. This research is literally done by asking people how sore they are. Because we have research showing inflammatory markers improving, I’m more open to that question.
They ask, how sore are you? What they do is give people tart cherry juice before intense activity. This is normally a novel stimulus that is likely to make people very sore. Then they give tart cherry juice after. They ask them how sore they are. And the other half of the people get a placebo. There is a noticeable difference.
So three times less sore is pretty meaningful. You could think about that as having applications for competing multiple times in a weekend. If you are doing a marathon or Ironman, it is likely to make you very sore. If you do not have to worry about adaptations after, tart cherry juice is super handy.
Torwen:
It is especially useful for multi-day events, like cycling tours. You cannot be sore the next day because that will blunt your performance. That is a really good strategy there too.
I seem to have put this one in twice. But like I mentioned before, omega-3s also seem to help with soreness. That seems to have quite a meaningful difference. And again, it seems to be the two to three gram dose of fish oil. That dose makes the most difference in self-reported soreness.
Aidan:
I’ll add one on there as well with fish oil, or just omega-3s in general. That is reducing joint pain a bit as well. We have spoken about soreness through muscle soreness. But if we’re looking at injury recovery, or just how your joints feel, omega-3s have positive evidence there. Is it a huge benefit? No, absolutely not.
If somebody is training in a way that makes their joints hurt, it is probably not going to stop that. But it does have a noticeable improvement versus placebo.
Torwen:
Another thing broad research suggests is that athletes can potentially have an altered gut microbiome. This is caused by the change in long-term inflammation. A more anti-inflammatory style diet can potentially support a generally healthier microbiome. That can reduce inflammation there.
Aidan:
Yeah. Do you have much more on your list?
Torwen:
You keep going with yours.
Aidan:
I’m basically done on mine. I was going to wrap up by saying a lot of other anti-inflammatory approaches are pretty similar. They have similar outcomes to what we have spoken about. I do think I have cherry-picked tart cherry juice. That is the most impressive one. But it is also worth noting what I see in the research.
If you do things that are going to make you sore, you will be sore regardless. I’ll use the marathon example. Like if you have never run a marathon before, you will still be sore. That applies even if you have tart cherry juice before and after. You will just be a little bit less sore than if you had not done that.
These things just help a little bit. It is similar for injury recovery. These things might just help a bit. For example, in the show notes, I’ve added a review on nutrition for tendinopathy. That is a form of injury. It is clear that it matters, but it is a small benefit. And I’m going to use tendinopathy specifically because I have gone deep down the rabbit hole in this. If somebody has a rehab protocol in place so they can recover from this injury.
And get back to peak performance and stuff like that. You implement all this nutrition stuff, and they get back to peak performance a little bit quicker. If they have a rehab plan that keeps flaring up their tendons, nutrition is probably not going to stop that. So this stuff does matter. It is just one piece of the puzzle.
Torwen:
I think that leads us into what we actually practically recommend to athletes. It makes sense to implement at least some aspects of anti-inflammatory diets as an athlete. My recommendation would be to build a generally good nutrition foundation. That includes things like aiming to include fatty fish and lots of colour.
It also includes using things like olive oil and focusing on whole grain carbs where possible. And then, like we said, add more processed foods after that for energy needs. This can help meet energy requirements and carb requirements at certain times.
Aidan:
Yeah, I love that. And I view it through the hierarchy of total calories, then macros, then micros. In general, those matter more. This anti-inflammatory stuff is another thing that also matters. When I look at it through that lens, we have to work backwards. We have got to get enough calories in. And we have got to reach our macro targets and stuff like that.
Then I’m thinking, are there any easy swaps within that? For example, the olive oil one is a great one. If somebody was having olive oil, fish oil, avocado, or something else like that. Versus, say, animal fats, it is going to lean in favour of being slightly more anti-inflammatory.
Another example would be a nutrient-rich juice of some kind. That could be used versus something like Gatorade or soft drink. That is particularly outside of a training session. There could be so many swaps like that. You can start talking about the dark chocolate example. That is something super calorie-dense and stuff like that. There are so many things we could go through. But I think there are easy swaps that can keep you on track with calories. While slightly being more anti-inflammatory as well.
Torwen:
Then potentially add in supplements as you see fit or as needed. A few of those ones we mentioned may fit more around races or competition day. Then there are daily supplements like omega-3s, if that is what you are missing.
This has been episode 258 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. As always, if you enjoyed today’s episode, we would hugely appreciate you leaving a positive review. Thank you.