Since weeks I wanted to write a scientific outline about this subject. My searches have been frustrating, the papers I finally retrieved are not very concise reflecting a situation of not-knowing a lot.
The studies available look at the various parameters we usually measure, if we design a study in sports and experience science. I just want to list some of them here: maximal oxygen uptake, resting and maximal heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output and other cardiac functions, erythropoiesis, hemolysis, energy expenditure and balance, blood ammonia, muscle glykogen, creatine kinase, cortisol, testosterone, catecholamines, different ratios, cytokines, growth factors, immune parameters, sleep patterns, mood scores and many more. Each study picks another focus, but the whole picture is missing. Continue Reading →
Many of you have been receiving race packages during the last months in return for taking little biests on the road and through races. Therefore we once again want to outline what the booster actually is and how you can take it to get the optimum out of it. And please, read about the experiences our Biest Athletes have made with the Biest Booster!
Periods of rest are highly active phases for body build-up
You probably urge yourself as often as your coach does to take a rest? You can hardly stand the breaks and tend to carry on training again much too early, and you have a bad conscience when you are not training?
How are we supposed to judge our needs of the own period of recovery in a reliable way? Or put it another way: which criteria should you choose in order to make the decision to take a rest both rationally and with a good conscience? Even though science has tried to define parameters or body conditions such as heavy legs syndrome or heart rate the decision to get on is in the end primarily made by feel. Continue Reading →
Since the racing season is in full swing I hear from many athletes that they suffered from exercise-associated muscle cramping (EAMC) during the race, be it on the bike or in the swim, but first of all on the run or beyond the finish line. It became an unquestioned state-of the-art approach to relate cramps to dehydration and a salt deficit. But if you measure the electrolyte levels of these individual you will rarely find a deterioration of electrolytes. If this were the case, cramping would be a generalized phenomenon that would affect muscles that are not necessarily under strain during the respective work-out. Continue Reading →
Many thanks for the participation in our survey about pollen allergy. Your responses correlate with the prevalence mentioned in the respective literature. One third of all adults suffer from a pollen allergy with an upward trend. Among 288 persons who took part in this survey we counted 246 (85%) with an acute pollen allergy.
More than one third of all allergic persons are unhappy with their treatment, this figure in fact applies to our survey as well.
Only 60 people (24%) are happy with their treatment and experience an improvement of symptoms. 76% of those replying are searching for other treatment options. Continue Reading →
Since several weeks the gastrointestinal infection with enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) is unsettling Germany and other European countries. I don’t want to add more of the same to the pulp of words and breaking news on air every day. Opinions and propositions from experts of various kinds use this microorganism to follow their agendas, and irritate us, the so-called public. Currents of medical, epidemiological, microbiological, demographic, political etc. discourses coalesce and turned into a dirty flood overwhelming us. Continue Reading →
The guys from the Science of Sport blog posted a smart video on the placebo effect. I love this topic, because for me it shows clearly the dilemma of natural science. The scientific work and its discourse is all about what is true and what is false, and how to prove it. Science is permanently pursuing the goal of proving a proposition to be true or false. Within this mindset a placebo is a weird creature, it involves feelings and perception, and effects seem to evolve from the void. A placebo is obviously efficacious, but the scientific proof of its efficacy is missing, at least if science is applying its own rules. Continue Reading →
Spring is in full swing on the Northern hemisphere, and so is allergy. From LA to Frankfurt thousands of people suffer from the various symptoms connected with allergies. For this reason I would like to say a few words about the relation between allergies, the immune system and stress. In many ways I got the impression over the years that there are lots of misleading views about the cause and effect relation of allergies out there.
The condition of your immune system determines the course of your allergy
What about the scientific thought model, that it is not the pollen that causes the allergy, but that it is the immune system that’s not able to deal with the pollen? Continue Reading →
