Nutritional and Supplementation Strategies to Prevent and Attenuate Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage: a Brief Review

Exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) is typically caused by unaccustomed exercise and results in pain, soreness, inflammation, and reduced muscle function. These negative outcomes may cause discomfort and impair subsequent athletic performance or training quality, particularly in individuals who have limited time to recover between training sessions or competitions. In recent years, a multitude of techniques including massage, cryotherapy, and stretching have been employed to combat the signs and symptoms of EIMD, with mixed results. Likewise, many varied nutritional and supplementation interventions intended to treat EIMD-related outcomes have gained prominence in the literature. To date, several review articles have been published that explore the many recovery strategies purported to minimize indirect markers of muscle damage. However, these articles are very limited from a nutritional standpoint. Thus, the purpose of this review is to briefly and comprehensively summarize many of these strategies that have been shown to positively influence the recovery process after damaging exercise. These strategies have been organized into the following sections based on nutrient source: fruits and fruit-derived supplements, vegetables and plant-derived supplements, herbs and herbal supplements, amino acid and protein supplements, vitamin supplements, and other supplements

One, two, three phytoliths: assessing the minimum phytolith sum for archaeological studies

The number of phytolith studies has increased steadily in the last decades in palaeoecological as well as archaeological research, and phytolith analysis is currently recognised as a proper area of expertise within archaeobotany. This has led towards a strengthening in the standardisation of the different steps involved in analysis; e.g. sampling strategies, laboratory extraction or processing of plant material/soils for the creation of reference collections. In spite of this, counting procedures remain one of the areas that could be further developed. The aim of this paper is to assess representativeness of phytolith count size in archaeological samples and specifically to assess whether an increase in total number of individuals counted influences the number or distribution of morphotypes observed. Two statistical tests are performed to evaluate the representativeness of count size: phytolith sum variability analysis (PSVA) and morphotype accumulation curve (MAC). The analyses show the relationship among the number of counted phytoliths, the variability (that is, the number of different morphotypes identified) and the stabilisations of the MACs. Results allow us to support the standard count size in phytolith studies, which ranges from 250 to 300 particles. Together with a quick scan, this strategy should produce a precise and clear phytolith assemblage for archaeological studies.The author would like to acknowledge the directors of both sites El Mirón (L. Straus and M. González Morales) and La Bauma del Serrat del Pont (M. Saña and G. Alcalde) for their essential collaboration as well as to J. Elvira (Institute of Soil Science, Spanish National Research Council ICTJA-CSIC) for running the X-ray diffraction analyses.Peer reviewe