How Popular Allergy Medicines Can Affect Your Muscle Gains

The same meds that staunch your allergy symptoms or heartburn might also diminish your gains at the gym: Over-the-counter antihistamines may hamper your muscle recovery after exercise, a new study from the University of Oregon suggests.

One hour before a 60-minute strength training workout, the participants took strong doses of two antihistamines, fexofenadine (Allegra, which treats hay fever symptoms) and ranitidine (Zantac, which treats heartburn).

After they completed their workout, the researchers tested their muscles to gauge their recovery.

Normally after vigorous exercise, 3,000 genes work to aid recovery by boosting the blood flow to the tiny tears in your muscle fibers that occur when you light weights. This increases muscle-protein synthesis, which repairs and reinforces the fibers so that they’re more resistant the next time you lift weights.

How His Childhood Eating Habits Affect His Boner

As you're probably well aware, there are quite a few reasons why a guy might not be able to get hard. From his relationship with his mom to weird masturbation habits, you might think you've heard it all—but you would be wrong. His erection troubles might also be to blame on how much sugar he ate as a kid, according to a recent study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

For the latest boner-killing study, researchers gave newborn male rats water spiked with different dosages of fructose (the type of sugar found in fruit). The control group drank regular water, a second group drank water with five percent fructose, and the third group drank water with 10 percent fructose. After eight weeks, researchers tested the rats' blood-glucose levels, testosterone levels, and erectile function.