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A red-coated buck, its broad spread of antlers in velvet, bounded easily down the logging trail ahead of me recently on a morning run. Watching the graceful animal as it disappeared into the woods, I compared it to my own plodding gait. I had helped a neighbor move the day before and I was still a little bit fatigued. My butt, as they say, was dragging.
Maybe, I thought, it was time for some quercetin.
I’d just read about the substance, a flavonoid found in the skins of red apples, red onions, berries, red wine and grapes and in vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage, in a news release from the University of South Carolina announcing “the powerful antioxidant/anti-inflammatory compound found in fruits and vegetables significantly boosts endurance capacity and maximal oxygen capacity (VO2max) in healthy, active but untrained men and women.”
I particularly recalled the words of the lead scientist, Dr. Mark Davis, a professor of exercise science, who said the fatigue-fighting and health properties of quercetin (pronounced KWER-se-tin) had “implications not only for athletes and soldiers whose energy and performance are tested to the extreme, but also for average adults who battle fatigue and stress daily.”
Being an average adult who was about to turn 68, he had my undivided attention at that point. But I’m a skeptic when it comes to taking supplements, so when I got back from my run I turned to the Internet to see what others have to say about quercetin. It turns out, quite a lot.
The Mayo Clinic reported in 2001 on research that showed quercetin might have a role in the treatment of prostate cancer. And mice given quercetin were less likely to contract the flu, according to a study published by The American Physiological Society in 2008.
And Dr. Davis has been given a National Institutes of Health grant to investigate on quercetin’s effects on colon cancer.
The American Cancer Society offers the following on its Web site: “Quercetin appears to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. It has been promoted as being effective against a wide variety of diseases, including cancer. While some early laboratory results appear promising, as of yet there is no reliable clinical evidence that quercetin can prevent or treat cancer in humans.”
There are other comments about Dr. Davis’ research in a July 3 blog by Katherine Hobson in U.S. News and World Report. She reported that the body’s ability to use quercetin requires complementary supplements, which are under study by other researchers.
Hobson cites other researchers advising a wait-and-see attitude as other research proceeds on what could be a major breakthrough in diet and health.
The advice is still out there on getting the benefits of quercetin and other good stuff the natural way — by eating lots of fruits and vegetables, which I do anyway.
But Davis says you’d have to eat 100 apples a day to get the amount of quercetin (1,000 milligrams) that was given to the subjects in his research.
The advantage suggested by Davis from his research — a boost in performance that could mean the difference between first and last in some competitions — will surely have athletes paying close attention to future developments.
Meanwhile, I’ll be dreaming of the magic pill that will have me leaping along like the red-coated buck. But I’ll probably grow antlers in velvet before that happens.
Dave Skoloda, former editor and co-owner of the Onalaska Community Life and Holmen Courier and an adjunct journalism professor at Winona State University, can be reached at dskoloda@earthlink.net.
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