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ByJillU.Adams TheWashingtonPost. Sleep. Oh, to sleep. A good night's sleep is often a struggle for more than half of American adults. And for occasional insom- nia, there are good reasons to avoid using medications, whether over-the-counter or prescription. We've all heard about home remedies such as warm milk, chamomile tea with honey,ora shotof bour- bon or brandy as a nightcap. On the Internet you can find claims about all kinds of foods that help with sleep: fish, cherries, lettuce, miso, yogurt, bananas, almonds, eggs, edamame, pineapple, jasmine rice, potatoes, ce- real, to name a few. Is this just click-bait for insomni- acs staring at their screens at 11:30 p.m.? What does the science say? Michael Grandner, a sleep researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, says the best way to start adjusting your diet is to eliminate foods that inter- fere with sleep. "The obvi- ous one is caffeine," he says, "but people forget about it." They'll drink a soda at din- ner or have a cup of coffee with dessert. Caffeine typ- ically stays in the body for four to six hours, he says, "but some people are more sensitive and the effect might last twice that long." Alcohol is also bad for sleep. While it may make it easier to doze off, it makes your sleep more shallow, Grandner says. "It sup- presses REM sleep early in the night, which can lead to REM rebound later," which can wake you up. Also, as alcohol is metabolized, one of its byproducts has stim- ulant action. Grandner also says to avoid nicotine, large meals and spicy foods at dinnertime. Notsofast, tryptophan Are there any foods that promote sleep? There is some science behind these supposed dietary sleep aids, but it's piecemeal at best. For example, turkey con- tains tryptophan, which is a building block for serotonin, a chemical involved in sleep. But there's nothing special about turkey, as all meat contains tryptophan — as does warm milk. Further, tryptophan is a big molecule that has trou- ble crossing into the brain, so improving your sleep is not as simple as eating a tryptophan-rich food and getting more serotonin. And, serotonin has multi- ple functions in the brain, including some that pro- mote wakefulness, so more serotonin does not automat- ically mean better sleep. Studies that found a tryp- tophan effect relied on doses that would require eating a pound of meat at a sitting, Grandner says. "If you're eating so much food to get the tryptophan effect, you might suffer the too-much- food effect." Shi the rhythm Other foods, most nota- bly tart cherries, contain melatonin, which does affect sleep. Still, melatonin is not necessarily a sleep aid, says Wilfred Pigeon, a sleep re- searcher at the University of Rochester. "Studies show it has a very minimal impact on insomnia," he says. "On the other hand, melatonin is a wonderful circadian rhythm shifter." So if you're a night owl whose body prefers to sleep from 2 a.m. to 9 a.m. but you have to wake up at 7 a.m. ev- ery day, melatonin may help you alter your sleep sched- ule. Pigeon and Grandner say that to get that effect, it would be best to take mela- tonin at dinnertime rather than at bedtime — and that lower doses (1.5 to 3 mil- ligrams) are better than higher ones. That allows the substance to work with your body's internal clock, start- ing the long wind-down pro- cess that's tied to sundown. Pigeon conducted a small study with a tart cherry juice that had been devel- oped as a sports drink. The participants — 16 elderly adults with chronic insom- nia — reported less wake- fulness during the night (by an average of 17 minutes) and more total sleep time (eight minutes) when they drank the juice than when they drank cherry Kool-Aid, which did not contain the melatonin and other phyto- nutrients found in the sports drink. "It was not a huge effect," Pigeon says. Indeed, the participants still had signif- icant sleep disturbance af- ter two weeks on the tested juice. But Pigeon says the effect was nonetheless on par with what some studies have found with the herbal supplement valerian and with melatonin in pill form. Sleep regulation What about other sup- posed remedies? Dairy is a good source of calcium, and nuts and grains contain magnesium. Miso soup, fish and yogurt contain B vita- mins, such as B6. "These are all molecules important in sleep and sleep regulation," Grandner says. That means that B vita- mins, calcium and magne- sium can be linked to some of the biochemical pro- cesses involved in sleep. But merely eating them doesn't mean the nutrient goes di- rectly to sleep pathways in the brain. A comprehensive review of studies testing foods or nutrients on sleep confirms the inconsistency of food as a way to promote sleep. One study might show that milk helps sleep, but the next finds no effect. The same for chamomile tea, B6 and magnesium. That said, sleepy-time foods don't have any worri- some side effects. And the ritual of drinking something before bed may be condu- cive to sleep, Pigeon says. "Anything that is soothing or relaxing can help." DIET In so mn ia o n th e me nu ENTERPRISE-RECORDFILEPHOTO Cherries contain melatonin, a circadian rhythm shi er that may help people alter their sleep schedules. Researchers say 'sleepy-time' nutrients can help — maybe By Stuart Gray The Washington Post I am always amazed by the wide range of sports nutrition products on sale in gyms. There are health benefit claims all over these products, including en- hanced recovery, increased muscle mass, fat burning, better muscle definition and improved "well-being." With so many of these messages out there, people are obvi- ously interested in separat- ing the good products from the bad. As a sports scien- tist, I am often asked which ones people should consume when training. My general opinion is that supplements are unnecessary. You should be able to satisfy all your nu- tritional requirements with an appropriate diet. But since this answer never seems to satisfy, here is a look at some of the most common supplements. It is aimed at people who work out a few times a week. PROTEIN The main reason for con- suming protein is to increase muscle mass, because it stimulates the body to pro- duce muscle protein. This is well established, but what is often debated is how much protein is sufficient, what type to ingest and the best time to do so. The best type appears to be whey protein. It is ab- sorbed into the gut more than 70 percent faster than other options, such as ca- sein and soy protein supple- ments. This means it gets to the muscles more quickly, which increases the rate at which the body builds mus- cle protein by more than 20 percent compared to the other options. Many gym-goers swear by something called the "an- abolic window," a claim that the protein needs to be con- sumed within minutes of stopping exercise for any gains to be realized. Put sim- ply, this is pretty much hype. The window is likely 24 to 48 hours, rather than a few min- utes. As for how much protein to consume, a recent study found that in young men be- tween 176 and 187 pounds who weight-train regularly, it took 20 grams of whey pro- tein to achieve the best pos- sible result — what we in the trade call "maximal stimula- tion." Any more than 20 grams appears unnecessary, in this population, anyway. It just leads to a lot of extra protein being excreted in the urine. CREATINE Creatine has been a pop- ular supplement for many years, though it also occurs naturally in red meat, eggs and fish. Quite a large body of scientific evidence sup- ports its use to gain muscle mass and enhance recovery. When creatine is taken up into the muscle, it helps to generate energy. This al- lows the muscle to contract and exercise to continue. This can help enhance gains in muscle mass and strength in response to weight train- ing. But creatine's effects on sport performance are less convincing. It increases body water storage, which increases body mass. In sports where body weight is important, this counter- acts the muscle benefits and means there are unlikely to be benefits overall. VITAMINS It is often assumed that vi- tamins are good for health. That is true, but when vita- mins are taken in excess the opposite can be true. In particular vitamin C and E, which act as antiox- idants, have actually been shown to hamper the body's adaptation to exercise train- ing. Two recent studies found that people who took large amounts of the two vi- tamins (1000mg/day of vita- min C and 267mg/day of vita- min E) showed no improve- ment in aerobic fitness or exercise performance. This level of consump- tion is 250 times the recom- mended dietary allowance for vitamin C and 80 times that for vitamin E, though well within the range of com- mercially available supple- ments. The study produced an- other important finding. Two benefits of regular ex- ercise are that human bod- ies become more sensitive to insulin, meaning the per- son is less likely to get di- abetes, and they can pro- duce more energy by creat- ing more of the "work horse" units in cells known as mito- chondria. The people in the study who took the vitamins found that these benefits were at- tenuated to some extent. This suggests that these supplements may do more harm than good, certainly if you take them in large quan- tities. CAFFEINE People don't consume caf- feine to help adapt their bod- ies to training but rather for improved performance dur- ing a single bout of exercise, such as a competition. Taking caffeine supple- ments will indeed prolong your endurance during ex- ercise. You can get the same benefits from coffee con- sumption. ENERGY DRINKS Carbohydrate-based drinks have been around for a long time, and have long been seen as worth- while because of the way they increase the delivery of energy to the body and pro- vide hydration. But in recent years the evidence support- ing their ability to improve acute exercise performance has been called into ques- tion. While I am confident these drinks are useful dur- ing prolonged, intense exer- cise of about two hours, they are often consumed during shorter duration exercise when they are likely to have little benefit. These drinks also often contain caffeine, which is not recommended for children. If the question is, "What supplements should I take to enhance my exercise train- ing?" the simple answer is: Nothing. Exercise, have a balanced diet and enjoy it! Stuart Gray is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Medical Sciences at the Uni- versity of Aberdeen in Scot- land. A version of this post first appeared on the Web site The Conversation. https://theconversation. com/uk EXERCISE Just eat well; most exercise supplements aren't worth the cost The Associated Press SPOKANE, WASH. A fun- gus that can launch a fatal illness has been found for the first time in the soil of Washington. Officials for Washing- ton State University say the fungus can cause an illness called valley fever. The fungus is normally found in semiarid parts of the Southwest. Valley fe- ver occurs when the soil- dwelling fungus becomes airborne, releasing spores that get lodged in the lungs of humans and certain ani- mals, especially dogs. The Centers for Disease Control estimates it kills 160 people a year. Three unre- lated cases were diagnosed in Eastern Washington in 2010-11. Scientists for Washing- ton State say that soil sam- ples taken recently from the vicinity tested positive for the fungus, proving it can survive here. 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