Online research and science for athletes

Research is paramount for developing greater physical conditioning or shifts in body composition; such as building up muscle mass or dropping unwanted body fat. The human body is such a complex organism – people spend their entire lives trying to master the art of human performance. Given the evolving state of the internet, it is difficult or even inappropriate to assume every link is a credible source for information. However, there are many online sites providing approved clinical research from scientific journals. The Internet is a researcher’s haven; full of credible resources accessible from any online computer terminal. The following is a list of helpful Internet resources – useful for anyone searching for ways to maximize performance and better understand the human body.

Publishers participating in PubMed electronically submit their citations to NCBI prior to or at the time of publication.

http://www.pubmed.com

Medscape offers specialists, primary care physicians, and other health professionals the Web’s most robust and integrated medical information and educational tools. After a simple, 1-time, free registration, Medscape automatically delivers you the specialty site that best fits your profile. You can also change your Medscape homepage to any of our other specialty and profession sites at any time. http://www.medscape.com

AMEDEO was created to serve the needs of healthcare professionals, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, administrators, other members of the health professions, and patients and their friends. They can easily access timely, relevant information within their respective fields. http://www.amedeo.com

Since 1971, the center for Science in the Public Interest has been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science. Its award-winning newsletter, Nutrition Action Healthletter, with some 900,000 subscribers in the United States and Canada, is the largest-circulation health newsletter in North America. http://www.cspinet.org

A portal of free and subscription scientific databases. ChemFinder is their most popular offerings. ChemFinder has been providing free chemical searching to hundreds of thousands of scientists since 1995. ChemINDEX, adds power user features to this popular search engine. http://chemfinder.cambridgesoft.com

World Health News offers a combination of original reporting and a digest of news stories and commentaries from newspapers and magazines worldwide on pressing issues in public health. http://www.worldhealthnews.harvard.edu

MedlinePlus will direct you to information to help answer health questions. MedlinePlus brings together authoritative information from NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations. Preformulated MEDLINE searches are included in MedlinePlus and give easy access to medical journal articles. MedlinePlus also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus

OMD is a searchable dictionary created by Dr Graham Dark and contains terms relating to biochemistry, cell biology, chemistry, medicine, molecular biology, physics, plant biology, radiobiology, science and technology. It includes: acronyms, jargon, theory, conventions, standards, institutions, projects, eponyms, history, in fact anything to do with medicine or science. http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/omd

Scirus is the most comprehensive science-specific search engine on the Internet. Driven by the latest search engine technology, Scirus searches over 415 million science-specific Web pages, enabling you to quickly: Pinpoint scientific, scholarly, technical and medical data on the Web. Find the latest reports, peer-reviewed articles, patents, pre prints and journals that other search engines miss. Offer unique functionalities designed for scientists and researchers. http://www.scirus.com

The NLM Gateway is a Web-based system that lets users search simultaneously in multiple retrieval systems at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). It allows users of NLM services to initiate searches from one Web interface, providing “one-stop searching” for many of NLM’s information resources or databases. It is being developed by the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/gw/Cmd

ChemIndustry.com is the leading comprehensive directory and search engine for chemical and related industry professionals. Our databases of Web sites include more than 45,000 chemical industry related entities and contain the full text of millions of pages. ChemIndustry.com provides specialized search services for chemical names, jobs, market research and consultants. http://www.chemindustry.com/chemnames

Discover the latest news and video about health at CNN. CNN covers diet, fitness, parenting, conditions and more, including expert insights from Dr. Sanjay Gupta and the CNN Medical Producers. http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH

The Food and Drug Administration’s official Web site and search portal. The FDA Web site received a “Bronze” Award in the Fall/Winter 2005 World Wide Web Health Awards competition. The award cited FDA in the class Health Promotion/Disease & Injury Prevention Information. http://www.fda.gov

NIH is the nation’s medical research agency – making important medical discoveries that improve health and save lives. http://www.nih.gov

NewScientist.com is updated throughout the day, the global network of specialist correspondents provide comprehensive coverage of science and technology news. Search over 60,000 articles from the last 15 years of New Scientist print edition and NewScientist.com. http://www.newscientist.com/news

A peer-reviewed journal and Web site for sport research. Will Hopkins, the editor, will welcome contributions to the site; but they have to be original, well written, and relevant to sport scientists. http://www.sportsci.org

HighWire Press is a division of the Stanford University Libraries, which produces online versions of high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly content. The Web site received the ALPSP Award for “Service to Not-for-Profit Publishing.” HighWire partners with influential scholarly societies, university presses and publishers to create a collection of the finest, fully searchable research and clinical literature online. Together, these partners produce 71 of the 200 most-frequently-cited journals publishing in science. http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/largest.dtl

EBSCO has served the library industry for more than 60 years. EBSCO is the only company to provide customers with an integrated service that combines, reference databases, subscription management, online journals, books, linking services and A-to-Z solutions. Always at the leading edge, they continue to work to identify new challenges and combine technology with data to meet the information needs of our customers worldwide. http://www.sportdiscus.com

JCI online includes full text of each issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, going back to 1924 – the complete text of all articles plus all the figures, tables, references, and any supplementary data. Text is available in two forms, HTML and Adobe Acrobat PDF (which is nearly identical in format to the printed version of the Journal). http://www.jci.org

The National Academies Press (NAP) was created by the National Academies to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, all operating under a charter granted by the Congress of the United States. The NAP publishes more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health, capturing the most authoritative views on important issues in science and health policy. The institutions represented by the NAP are unique in that they attract the nation’s leading experts in every field to serve on their award-winning panels and committees. This is the right place for definitive information on everything from space science to animal nutrition. http://www.nap.edu

WebMD provides valuable health information, tools for managing your health, and support to those who seek information. The content is timely and credible. http://www.webmd.com

NICE is an independent organization responsible for providing national guidance for promoting good health and preventing and treating ill health. http://www.nice.org.uk

Nobelprize.org provides comprehensive, first-hand information about the Nobel Prize and Nobel Laureates in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace starting in 1901, as well as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel and the Economics Laureates starting in 1969. http://nobelprize.org

If you would like to see a Web site added to this list, please log in and comment to this article. Only Web sites containing clinical research and medical science.