Overview of functional ingredients in sports nutrition food

March 12, 2024

Sports can be divided into professional sports and mass sports. Professional sports require maximizing the potential of individuals in terms of physical fitness, physical fitness, and athletic ability, and conducting scientific and systematic training and competitions. So, sports nutrition food has become an essential food for professional athlete training and competition.

In 2016, the State Council issued the "National Fitness Plan (2016-2020)", which pointed out that implementing the national fitness plan is an important development strategy of the country.

By 2020, the number of people participating in physical exercise once or more per week will reach 700 million, the number of people regularly participating in physical exercise will reach 435 million, and the total scale of sports consumption will reach 1.5 trillion yuan.

Based on this background, sports nutrition food experts and industry representatives generally believe that the Chinese sports nutrition food industry will usher in the best opportunity to grow from small to large, from serving professional sports to catering to mass sports.

01
Concept and classification of sports nutrition food

Sports nutrition food is a type of functional food related to sports. In recent years, sports nutrition food has become popular worldwide and has developed rapidly.

According to the National Food Safety Standard General Rules for Sports Nutritional Foods (GB 24154-2015), sports nutritional foods are divided into three categories for different energy and protein needs, namely energy supplementation, energy control, and protein supplementation. For special needs of different sports, they are divided into three categories: speed and strength, endurance, and post exercise recovery.

02
Overview of functional ingredients in sports nutrition food

Adding a certain amount of functional ingredients to sports nutrition foods can effectively alleviate energy exhaustion, accumulation of metabolic products such as lactic acid, free radical damage, and central nervous system fatigue that occur during exercise. It plays an important role in regulating body functions, accelerating fatigue elimination, and promoting functional recovery.

2.1 Peptides and branched chain amino acids

In recent years, research has confirmed that many active peptides obtained through enzymatic hydrolysis of proteins have better functional characteristics than original proteins. There is also evidence to suggest that small molecule peptides are more easily absorbed than proteins or amino acids, which can quickly restore and enhance physical strength during exercise, and reduce the negative balance of skeletal muscle proteins.

The metabolism of branched chain amino acids is closely related to exercise induced fatigue, and prolonged exercise can cause changes in the plasma amino acid profile, leading to central fatigue.

Supplementing a certain amount of branched chain amino acids during exercise can delay fatigue, promote the utilization of amino acids in muscle tissue, save muscle glycogen, and reduce muscle breakdown.

In addition, studies have shown that branched chain amino acids can alleviate free radical damage caused by exercise, reduce blood lactate concentration after exercise, have a certain effect on physical recovery after exercise, and can improve the body's exercise ability.

Glutamine is a non essential amino acid, but it has attracted much attention from the medical nutrition community and is widely used in sports nutrition.

Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the brain, muscles, and blood, and it is a precursor to various amino acids. Therefore, glutamine has a high utilization rate and is consumed quickly during exercise. Timely supplementation at this time can help athletes recover their physical strength.

At present, research has confirmed that soy peptides, peanut peptides, maca peptides, rice residue peptides, glutathione, etc. all have anti exercise fatigue effects.

2.2 Plant active substances

In recent years, many plant active substances have been found to have anti exercise fatigue functions and can be applied to sports nutritional foods.

In terms of plant polysaccharides, chestnut polysaccharides can significantly improve exercise endurance, reduce the content of blood lactate and blood urea nitrogen after exercise, and increase the content of muscle glycogen and liver glycogen; Jujube polysaccharide can prolong the swimming time of mice under load, increase liver glycogen content, reduce serum urea nitrogen content, and lower blood lactate content; Yangqicai polysaccharide can prolong the weight bearing swimming time of mice, increase liver glycogen content, enhance serum SOD activity, and reduce serum MDA, muscle lactate, and serum urea content. In addition, polysaccharides extracted from Ganoderma lucidum, Cordyceps sinensis, and aloe vera have been confirmed to have anti exercise fatigue activity.

In terms of anti fatigue properties, beet red pigment can prolong the swimming time of mice under load, reduce blood lactate and serum urea nitrogen content, accelerate their clearance rate, increase liver glycogen and muscle glycogen content, and have anti fatigue effects; Rose pigment can significantly prolong the time for mice to swim to exhaustion, increase the activity of SOD and GSH-PX in their serum and skeletal muscle after exercise, and reduce the blood lactate content in their serum and skeletal muscle.

In terms of flavonoid anti fatigue, soy isoflavones significantly prolonged swimming exhaustion time in mice, increased serum free fatty acid content, and reduced blood lactate and urea nitrogen; Houttuynia cordata flavonoids can significantly prolong the weight-bearing swimming time of mice, eliminate blood lactate accumulation, slow down the decomposition of nitrogen-containing substances after exercise, increase the reserve of liver glycogen in exercise mice, and have anti fatigue activity; Gannan navel orange peel flavonoids can prolong the swimming time of mice under load exhaustion, reduce the content of serum urea nitrogen and liver tissue malondialdehyde, significantly increase the activity of superoxide dismutase, and orange peel flavonoids have strong anti fatigue activity.

In terms of polyphenol anti fatigue, the polyphenols in the seed coat of Euryale can increase the liver glycogen and muscle glycogen reserves of fatigued mice, reduce serum urea nitrogen levels, and increase the content of lactate dehydrogenase in serum and liver. The polyphenols in the seed coat of Euryale have the effects of anti fatigue and improving hypoxia tolerance; Tea polyphenols can prolong the exhaustion time of rats, reduce the urea and blood lactate content after exercise, increase the activity of blood lactate dehydrogenase, and have the most significant anti fatigue effect at a dose of 300 mg/kg.

2.3 Taurine

Taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid in the human body, which can maintain the stability of membrane structure and regulate osmotic balance. It has a preventive effect on lipid peroxidation reactions in cell membranes and is an important cell protective agent.

The production of free radicals during physical activity increases, which can cause lipid peroxidation reactions in the body's biofilm, thereby reducing exercise ability. Taurine can enhance the activity of the antioxidant enzyme system in the body, thereby enhancing the body's antioxidant capacity and enhancing exercise ability.

In addition, taurine can effectively regulate Ca2+homeostasis disorders. Exercise induced fatigue can lead to lipid peroxidation and Ca2+homeostasis disorders, and taurine has a good effect on them. Therefore, taurine is often added as a functional ingredient to sports nutrition foods.

In summary, in addition to peptides and branched chain amino acids, extensive research has also been conducted on functional components such as polysaccharides, polyphenols, and pigments in sports nutrition food in recent years. With the continuous deepening of research work, it is believed that more functional components will be applied to sports nutrition food to serve the general sports population.

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Overview of functional ingredients in sports nutrition food

01 Concept and classification of sports nutrition food

02 Overview of functional ingredients in sports nutrition food

2.1 Peptides and branched chain amino acids

2.2 Plant active substances

2.3 Taurine

01
Concept and classification of sports nutrition food

02
Overview of functional ingredients in sports nutrition food