Can tart cherries help reduce inflammation and pain? - WaPo [View all]

The question:
Is it true that tart cherries or tart cherry juice can help reduce inflammation and pain?
The science:
Many athletes say they drink tart cherry juice to help with inflammation and muscle pain. Members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team drink it for exercise recovery.

Tart cherries, particularly Montmorency cherries, and their juice contain antioxidants and have anti-inflammatory properties. And studies have shown that tart cherry juice may help prevent muscle damage after excessive or prolonged exercise, reduce pain for some people with fibromyalgia, and decrease inflammation for some people with osteoarthritis.

One randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 54 healthy runners showed that athletes who drank tart cherry juice — one 12-ounce bottle twice daily for seven days before a race — to help prevent pain from muscle exertion had “a significantly smaller increase in pain” than those in the placebo group.

“The equivalency of the pain reduction was … about 800 milligrams of ibuprofen,” said Kerry Kuehl, an internist and chief of health promotion and sports medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, who led the study.

(snip)

The bottom line:
Small studies suggest that when used preventively, tart cherries — more specifically, tart cherry juice — may help with inflammation and muscle damage associated with muscle exertion after strenuous exercise. Experts say, however, that more comprehensive studies are needed.

https://wapo.st/49qOkho