Faster Running, Dust is Unhealthy, ?Creatine

Dr. Gabe Mirkin's Fitness and Health E-Zine
October 24, 2004
Faster Running Improves Performance in Many Sports
If you want to improve in baseball, football, basketball or
hockey, learn to run faster. To run fast in competitive sports, you
have to run fast in practice and lift heavy weights to become
stronger. Run a series of short fast sprints with a short rest
between each. Do resistance exercises because stronger
muscles drive you forward with more force.
No coach should ever require players to run sprints at
the end of every practice or lift heavy weights more often than
twice a week. Every time you run fast or lift heavy, your muscle
fibers are damaged and feel sore on the next morning, and take
at least 48 hours to heal. If you try to run fast or lift heavy when
your muscles feel sore, you are at increased risk for tearing them
and not being able to play at all. In the preseason,
knowledgeable coaches have their players scrimmage hard and
run sprints on one day, then practice plays and take it easy on
the next. During the season, they play so often that players
should not be asked to do much additional hard training.
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Dear Dr. Mirkin: Can you help me persuade my spouse that a
dusty house is unhealthy?
Large amounts of inhaled dust can damage your lungs
permanently. When a germ gets into your body, cells called
stimulatory macrophage rush to attack the germ. Your body
produces chemicals that cause blood vessels to widen and fluid
to leak into the area to cause swelling, pain and redness. Then
when the germs are conquered, suppressor macrophage stop
the reaction. Normal lungs contain ten times as many
suppressor macrophage as stimulatory ones. In people who have
inflammatory lung diseases such as asthma and chronic
bronchitis, the ratio is only three to one. When people are
exposed to common house dust, suppressor cells die, in effect
removing the brakes on swelling and redness. Living or working
in a place that is full of house dust can cause lung damage in
healthy people. Those who have chronic lung disease such as
asthma or chronic bronchitis should try to keep their exposure to
house dust as low as possible.
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Dear Dr. Mirkin: My son's coach wants him to take creatine.
Does it really build larger muscles, as he claims?
Creatine can help to strengthen muscles, but athletes
who take these supplements need to know how much they can
take safely before they harm themselves. When you exercise
and your muscles get as much oxygen as they need, they burn
carbohydrates, fats and protein for energy. When you exercise
so intensely that you cannot get all the oxygen you need, your
muscles use creatine and ATP. So when you exercise so
intensely that you can't get enough oxygen, you can delay fatigue
by taking creatine and it allows you to do more work, which
makes you stronger.
The body of a 160 pound man contains 120 grams of
creatine and he takes in and uses about two grams a day. No
good studies have been done to show what amounts are safe to
take beyond what your own body makes, so let the buyer
beware. Creatine may allow you to lift more weights and make
you stronger, but it may harm you. Taking too much creatine can
cause weight gain, increased insulin production and possibly
kidney damage. High levels of insulin constrict arteries to cause
heart attacks and affect the brain and liver to make you fat. The
chemical process of extracting creatine in the laboratory forms
toxic contaminants called dicyandiamide and dihydrotriazines,
that have to be removed before humans can take them safely.
The industry that distributes creatine is unregulated and you
have no way to know what you are actually buying.
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