Massage Benefits: 9 Healthy Reasons To Make An Appointment Today (curtesy of Huffington Post !)

The Huffington Post reports , what we already know , but it’s always nice to hear it confirmed by science :

“Last week, a new study found that massage really does work to ease those sore muscles after a tough workout. Just 10 minutes can reduce inflammation, which can help your body recover.

However, the health benefits of touch extend beyond simply soothing aches and pains. Of course, the stressed-out have been proponents of the anxiety-busting procedure for decades. But a growing body of research suggests that a rubdown is even better for you than you think.

A new study published in Science Translational Medicine found that a short, 10-minute Swedish-style massage session can reduce inflammation, which can help your muscles recover after a hard workout.

“What massage seems to do is … it reduces the inflammatory response as a function of the damage you incurred while you’re exercising,” explained one of the study’s authors Simon Melov, a molecular biologist at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

He and the other researchers, including lead author Dr. Mark A. Tarnopolsky of McMaster University, had 11 healthy young male participants work out to their maximum capabilities on a stationary bike. They took muscle tissue samples from the legs of each study participant before and after the intense workout. They also took a third sample from one of the legs, after it had been subjected to a 10-minute massage.

They found that the post-workout tissue samples from massaged leg muscles were vastly different from those that didn’t receive the massage. Namely, the massaged samples had less of a protein called NF-kB, which plays a role in creating an inflammatory response to exercise.

Reported the Los Angeles Times:

Massage also seemed to help cells recover by boosting amounts of another protein called PGC-1alpha, which spurs production of new mitochondria — tiny organelles inside cells that are crucial for muscle energy generation and adaptation to endurance exercise.’