A new BMJ Open paper highlights an important problem: fluent answers are not always accurate answers. People are turning to chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini to get health advice, athletes and practitioners use it to get nutrition advice or updates… or performance advice. But how reliable are these chatbots when the topic is health, nutrition or performance? I was fortunate to be part of a group of established researchers that aimed to address exactly that question. In a stud

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in sport has not only transformed workflows; it has triggered an emotional response. Excitement, curiosity, scepticism and fear coexist in equal measure. Among nutritionists, coaches, sport scientists and performance staff, one question has come to dominate the discussion: " Will AI replace sports practitioners?".  The question is understandable. When software can automatically generate fuelling plans, detect performance trends o

Over the past decade, sports nutrition has quietly become one of the most technologically driven areas of performance support. Sports nutritionists, sports dietitians and athletes now interact with artificial intelligence (AI) every day, often without realising it: readiness scores pushed to their phones upon waking, automated messages interpreting training data after a ride or run, and wearable-generated summaries telling athletes whether they recovered “well” or “poorly.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly become one of the most frequently referenced concepts in high-performance sport. It is discussed in recruitment, in training planning, in tactical decision-making, and increasingly in sports nutrition. Yet although the term is used widely, the understanding of what AI is, how it works and what the underlying mechanisms are, is often limited. To practitioners sitting in the applied performance space (coaches, sport scientists, nutrition

Vitamin D remains a recurring topic in sport because low vitamin D status is common in athletic populations, particularly during winter at higher latitudes, and because vitamin D has well-established roles in calcium–phosphate homeostasis and skeletal health. Interest has expanded beyond bone, driven by mechanistic evidence that vitamin D receptors are expressed in multiple tissues (including skeletal muscle and immune cells) and by observational reports linking low vitamin D

Supplements are a multi-billion-dollar industry, with the majority of athletes using supplements to support training performance and recovery. However, it is also clear that many supplements are based on wishful thinking rather than evidence, and some supplements on the market have quality issues. Supplements may not contain what you expect, they may also contain ingredients you don’t expect. The label doesn’t always describe accurately what a supplement contains (or the cont

Inflammation has long been portrayed as something inherently bad; a process that needs to be fought or suppressed. In popular media, it’s associated with pain, chronic disease, and poor health. Yet, within the body, inflammation is also an essential initial component of the immune response. Inflammation is a tightly regulated system that evolved to protect us from infection and promote healing. The problem is not inflammation itself, but when this finely tuned biological mech

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, can reduce pain sensations. In a previous blog , we discussed the mechanisms of NSAIDs action. This blog discusses the use, as well as contraindications to the use of NSAIDs in an athletic arena. When used in a sport setting, such as during endurance running, NSAIDs can compromise gut integrity, kidney function and cardiovascular health. Despite these risks, many athletes still use them. Below we outline the risks and describe