Pacific Standard March-April 2013 Cover

Convincing the Public to Accept New Medical Guidelines

They call it "vitamin I." Among runners of ultra-long-distance races, ibuprofen use is so common that when scientist David Nieman tried to study the drug's use at the Western States Endurance Run in California's Sierra Nevada mountains he could hardly find participants willing to run the grueling 100-mile race without it. Nieman, director of the Human Performance Lab at Appalachian State University, eventually did recruit the subjects he needed for the study, comparing pain and inflammation in runners who took ibuprofen during the race with those who didn't, and the results were ... Read More