New Study Says Pickle Juice May Relieve Muscle Cramps
Posted on June 10, 2010
Leg cramps can be very very painful. But scientists don't really know what causes them. Dehydration was a prime suspect, but a new study shows that it's not the culprit, after all. Scientists now think it's some kind of chemical reaction where neurotransmitters misfire. So what's the cure? Why, pickle juice, of course.
The scientists put some exercisers through what sounds like a most unpleasant test in which they induced excruciating muscle cramps in their big toes. That's how they found out that dehydration wasn't the problem. They then tried various cures, but the guys that chugged pickle juice got the cramp relief. So why do the muscles cramp up, if it isn't from lack of hydration? The New York Times reports:
Dr. Miller suspects that that mechanism is exhaustion, either directly or through biochemical processes that accompany fatigue. Certain mechanisms within muscles have been found, in animal and limited human studies, he says, to start misfiring when a muscle is extremely tired. Small nerves that should keep the muscle from overcontracting malfunction, and the muscle bunches when it should relax. Pickle juice may work, Dr. Miller says, by countermanding the malfunction. Something in the acidic juice, perhaps even a specific molecule of some kind, may be lighting up specialized nervous-system receptors in the throat or stomach, he says, which, in turn, send out nerve signals that somehow disrupt the reflex melee in the muscles.None of the research is conclusive, but it's certainly intriguing. And if you're up for chugging some vinegar when you get a leg cramp, well, more power to you. If we chugged vinegar for muscle cramps, we would then be having to find a remedy for the violent nausea that would immediately ensue.Dr. Miller suspects that ultimately, it's the vinegar in the pickle juice that activates the receptors. In a recent case report by other researchers, a single athlete's cramping was relieved more quickly when he drank pure vinegar (without much pleasure, I'm sure) than when he drank pickle juice.