Ibuprofen
Provides No Benefit After Injury, Study
Says
In
two studies which have ramifications for
everyone from goalies to gardeners, two
non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs --
ibuprofen and flurbiprofen -- provide no
detectable therapeutic benefit to relieve
swelling or pain following muscle injury,
according to research conducted by
Ohio
University College of Osteopathic
Medicine
(OU-COM) scientists.
The
findings were presented June 5 in Seattle
at the American College of Sports
Medicine's annual conference by lead
researcher, John Howell, Ph.D., OU-COM
associate professor of physiology and an
expert on post-exercise muscle injury and
recovery.
In
one study, researchers found that
flurbiprofen brought no therapeutic
benefit over a two-week period following
injury induced in the elbow flexors by
eccentric contraction. The researchers
also found that flurbiprofen may slightly
retard recovery of muscle strength after
exercise.
In
a follow-up ibuprofen study, the
researchers monitored subject-reported
post-exercise muscle soreness and measured
maximum voluntary, contractile strength,
muscle swelling, muscle stiffness and
relaxed arm angle and found that the use
of ibuprofen, even at the maximum
permissible dose, caused no changes in any
of these.
"The
failure of ibuprofen to reduce objectively
measurable swelling and stiffness -- as
well as soreness -- suggests that the
widespread use of ibuprofen may involve a
significant placebo effect at work,"
Howell says.
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full
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