NEW YORK: In a study of healthy older adults lifting weights regularly, for three months, taking recommended daily doses of ibuprofen (like that in Advil) or acetaminophen (like that in Tylenol) led to substantially greater increases over inactive placebo in quadriceps muscle mass and strength.

Dr Chad C. Carroll, a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr Todd Trappe in the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, reported the study results this week during the annual meeting of the American Physiological Society, part of the Experimental Biology 2008 scientific conference in San Diego.

Taking ibuprofen or acetaminophen regularly during resistance training seems to induce chances within the muscle that enhance the metabolic response to resistance exercise, which promotes additional muscle building and strength gains in the elderly, the researchers found.

During 12 weeks of supervised knee-extensor weight training, performed three times per week for 15 to 20 minutes, 36 men and women, between 60 and 78 years old, were randomly assigned to ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or placebo in doses mimicking what chronic users of these pain relievers were likely to be taking on a daily basis.

“We used 1200 milligrams a day for ibuprofen and 4000 milligrams per day of acetaminophen, which is the maximum over-the-counter daily dose,” Dr Trappe explained in an interview.

As expected, resistance training alone (placebo group) increased quadriceps muscle mass and muscle strength. However, the increases were far greater in the ibuprofen and acetaminophen groups.

“The muscles of the ibuprofen and acetaminophen users got 40 to 60 per cent bigger than the placebo group and their muscle strength also went up higher than the placebo group,” Trappe said.—Reuters