High Carb Intake After Intense Resistance Training Increases Inflammation

A study in this month's European Journal of Applied Physiology has shown that consuming a high carbohydrate diet soon after an intense weight training session results in more of an elevation of various inflammatory markers than does consuming a low carbohydrate diet.  I only have access to the abstract, so I do not know how the researchers defined the high carb and low carb diets, but I think it's safe to say that people may want to think twice about downing a high sugar "recovery" drink after a strength training session. 

Regardless of diet, moderate to intense exercise causes some degree of inflammation and oxidative stress.  It's been shown that the body produces endogenous anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant factors to deal with these events.  And it's obvious that these factors do their jobs well since physical activity is almost always associated with beneficial effects on health and not with inflammatory diseases like atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes.  But could a high-carbohydrate intake interfere with the body's natural defenses against exercise-induced physiological stress?  This study suggests that it very well could but more research needs to be done before we can say for sure.