Supplementation: Tart Cherry Juice

by Patrick Vaughan

            Personally I am a strong believer in the fact that one doesn’t need supplementation, and that they can get all of the nutrients that they need through a proper and well-thought out diet. However I am a strong believer in supplementation for any areas that one can be seen to have a deficit in nutrients/vitamins. 

In my quest to become fit, I began to deplete my internal nutrient stores which caused my bones to become brittle and weak. Well low and behold, one soccer game and an unfortunate collision later, I had broken my femur – the biggest/strongest bone in the body. As I came back to health after that incident, I took fish oil supplementation, a multivitamin supplement, and a calcium/magnesium/zinc pill and I attribute much of my rapid healing to this regiment. Now that I have fully recovered from breaking my leg, I no longer take these supplements.  

Recovering from an injury isn’t the only time that I would promote supplementation, especially natural forms of supplementation. During a workout you produce micro-tears in the muscles (which is how you build bigger and stronger muscles as your body repairs itself post-workout) and micro-fractures from the pounding done on the bones from heavy weight-lifting or running during a workout. While showing ones productivity for the day, these "gains" are what one associates with the soreness and aches that may come following a good workout. 

This brings me to the topic of today, which is Tart Cherry Juice Supplementation. I currently work in a Tart Cherry Genomics lab under the Breeder/Cultivar Amy Iezzoni. While she is not directly involved in any studies on the matter, she is the leading producer of Tart Cherries in the United States with cultivars from all over the world. On the subject she stated that, “The darker the skin pigmentation of the Tart Cherry, the greater the levels of anthocyanins”. The interest in the anthocyanin pigment revolves around the possible health benefits as dietary antioxidants. Some have even come to hail the tart cherry as a Super-Antioxidant. 

                Numerous antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents have been identified in the tart cherry (Connolly). The benefits provided by such agents include mediating stresses that the body encounters daily such as efficiently breaking down food, protecting the body from environmental hazards such as UV radiation, and most interestingly may aid in preventing the symptoms of exercise-induced muscle damage. This means that for every cherry you pop, you could be reducing the muscular damage and fatigue from your previous workout, enabling you to maximize your gains from that last workout. 

                In a study by D A J Connolly, 14 male college students drank 12 fl oz of tart cherry juice twice a day for eight consecutive days prior to and after weight-lifting sessions. Post-lifting, it was noted that strength losses were only at about 4% in the Tart Cherry Juice group, as opposed to the control group which experienced a 22% loss in their average strength following the session. This evidence supported the hypothesis that strength loss and overall levels of pain were diminished in the tart cherry juice supplementation trials. 

                In another study by G. Howatson, twenty recreational marathon runners were assigned to consume either tart cherry juice or a placebo 5 days before a race, and for the 48 hours following a marathon run. For those of us who are crazy enough to run long-distance recreationally, or what others may call “for fun”, we are opening up our bodies to muscle damage, inflammation, and oxidative stress which occurs in response to our “fun” habits. From this study, the recovery time was significantly quicker over the first 48 hours after the race, than in the control group. However despite this elevated recovery rate in strength, there was no other significant difference between the two groups other than the increased antioxidant capacity noted in the tart cherry juice group, which was identified by measuring plasma/serum levels and by the blunting of uric acid levels. 

                So we’ve heard a lot about oxidative damage so far, but what exactly is it? Oxidative stress is the result of an imbalance within the body’s natural biological systems. Most commonly, peroxides or oxygen free radicals are released as highly reactive molecules, meaning that they will usually react with the first thing that they come into contact with. This can disrupt the flow of other chemical messages traveling throughout the body, or just simply damage the surrounding tissues. Now as you age, your body’s natural buffering capacity begins to weaken, which is one of the current health theories as to why we physically grow older [because of this oxidative stress]. Therefore in the elderly health study populations of Tinna Traustadottir, she has experimented with tart cherry juice supplementation in older adults, in order to reduce the effects of oxidative damage. The results of her study indicated that a dietary intervention using a commercial tart cherry juice was able improve antioxidant defenses in older adults as shown by an increased capacity to constrain an oxidative challenge [blood cuff constriction] and reduced the overall oxidative damage to nucleic acids.

So in a quick recap on Tart Cherry Juice Supplementation:

    1.) Has demonstrated an increased muscular recovery rate after heavy lifting/running

    2.) Significantly reduces losses in strength following an eccentric work-out

    3.) Works as an antioxidant to lower overall oxidative stress in the body
             a.) Reduces potentially damaging effects of exercise
             b.) Reduces overall oxidative damage to nucleic acids (giving you that "healthy" look)


Conclusion:
             The research on Tart Cherry Juice supplementation is young. However the results/impact of this form of supplementation look promising in terms of muscular recovery, in the potential to see muscular gains at a faster rate, and of course in the knowledge that you may be holding onto that youthful appearance just that much longer. So ultimately it may be tart, but hey, it’s not going to kill you to try it.

Sources:

Connolly, D A J. "Efficacy of a Tart Cherry Juice Blend in Preventing the Symptoms of Muscle Damage * Commentary 1 * Commentary 2." British Journal of Sports Medicine 40.8 (2006): 679-83. Print.

Howatson, G., M. P. McHugh, J. A. Hill, J. Brouner, A. P. Jewell, K. A. Van Someren, R. E. Shave, and S. A. Howatson. "Influence of Tart Cherry Juice on Indices of Recovery following Marathon Running." Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports (2009): n. pag. Print.

Traustadottir, T., S. S. Davies, A. A. Stock, Y. Su, C. B. Heward, L. J. Roberts, and S. M. Harman. "Tart Cherry Juice Decreases Oxidative Stress in Healthy Older Men and Women." Journal of Nutrition 139.10 (2009): 1896-900. Print.