Playing sports or general exercising can cause pain and inflammation. Many reach for a sports drink or an over-the-counter drug for relief. But, what if there was a food that can help both issues?
Initial research conducted at the North Carolina Research Campus has found that bananas can relieve pain and inflammation just as well. Bananas eaten during exercise are equal to sports drinks and they contain metabolites that function like ibuprofen. Dopamine is one primary molecule that acts like a COX-2 inhibitor, but there are other compounds that are adding to this effect. They also found that banana peels contains 50 times more dopamine and could be incorporated into food products. More research is needed to verify these results.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29566095
