Newsweek reported that in 1999 scientists at the Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine made athletes run 5,000 meters, and afterward had some of them sit for acupuncture treatments before they had a chance to catch their breaths. The heart rates of the ones who received the treatments recovered more quickly than those in the control group. It may have been due to an increase in blood flow although Chinese tradition attributes the effects of acupuncture to its regulating of qi, an energy that flows through the body along established channels, or meridians.