teen health Archives - Page 2 of 2

Exercise, Ibuprofen and Your Gut

Published on January 9, 2013

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Ibuprofen and NSAIDs of other brands are used frequently by athletes around the world. Commonly referred to as Vitamin I, many athletes believe ibuprofen improves performance by extending the duration of pain free training or competition, despite evidence to the contrary.

A recent flurry of studies on male athletes indicates exercise induces a type of gut injury commonly seen in patients post surgery called splanchnic hypoperfusion or inadequate blood flow to the gut, kidney and liver. The abdominal distress common with intense training or competition, is really a state of reduced blood flow to the gut. The reduction in blood flow makes sense given the biological predilection to funnel energy away from digestion and metabolism during periods of fight or flight, even those that are self-induced.

GI hypoperfusion causes all sorts of mostly minor injuries, including general GI dysfunction, increased inflammation, increased permeability of endotoxins, but also, can cause more severe ischemic events – the complete cessation of blood flow to a particular abdominal region. Repeated periods of hypoperfusion may cause more damage.

To counter the pain associated with GI hypoperfusion and training in general, athletes often self-dose with ibuprofen. Research indicates that ibuprofen increases the GI damage and does not improve performance. In fact, ibuprofen users often experience more pain, abdominal and otherwise, and perform more poorly.

Consistently, the research on ibuprofen use by athletes is conducted with male athletes. What about about female athletes? More specifically, how does regular, though cyclical, often high dose ibuprofen use to relieve menstrual pain, affect GI function and athletic performance in female athletes? Are female athletes more susceptible to splanchnic hypoperfusion and the ensuing endotoxemia? Does the use of ibuprofen worsen the abdominal injury or perhaps even worsen the menstrual pain as time passes? Research on pain tolerance suggests that ibuprofen does not work at all for many women, despite the fact that women are the largest users of ibuprofen for a range of predominantly female conditions. Similarly, research on analgesic response across the menstrual cycle demonstrates clear cycle-related changes in analgesic effectiveness. Given the high usage rates of ibuprofen in women, especially athletic women, it would seem relevant to investigate gender differences in ibuprofen effectiveness and gut damage.

If you have research on these topics, please send them to us. We’d like to know and our readers would like to know.

Photo: by Dirk Hansen (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Relating to Teens with Chronic Illness

by Jordan Davidson

Published on January 7, 2013

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A hallmark of being a teenager is rebellion. Puberty turns a once nice kid, into a hormonal, rebellious nightmare. No one enjoys puberty – one morning you wake up and the body you have been living with your whole per-pubescent life is no longer yours; it’s hairy, it smells, it’s awkward, your skin is constantly breaking out and half of everything you once loved is now uncool (your doll collection, your old friends, your parents, wearing matching outfits with your siblings, etc). Now add to this mix of hormonal hell, a chronic illness. Teens by nature want to rebel; but how do you rebel from a body that has rebelled against you.

It’s hard to treat teens, especially teenagers that have been dealing with illness the majority of their lives. Along with waking up one morning and hating everything, when dealing with a chronic illness that body hatred is one thousand times magnified. I have worked with young people with chronic illness before, and the overwhelming response is

“I want to be normal. I’ve had x condition my whole life and I’m going to have it for the remainder of my life. It’s not fair and I don’t want it.”

Just like any other teen, teens with chronic illnesses don’t want to be told what to do. Personally, when I was a teenager and in the hospital, I would disregard the advice of any doctor who tried to parent me. Chronically ill teenagers want to be treated like adults. If you are a doctor working with an ill young adult, talk to the patient – don’t direct the conversation towards the parents. At the end of the day it is the patient taking the pills and maintaining their care. All younger patients want is respect. They know their bodies better than you think and they just want to establish control in a relatively control free time of their lives. Treat the teen patient with respect and you’ll have much better results.