Abstract
Backgroundchicken meat extract is a popular functional food in Asia. It is rich in the bioactive compounds carnosine and anserine, two histidine-containing dipeptides (HCD). Studies suggest that acute pre-exercise ingestion of chicken extracts has important applications towards exercise performance and fatigue control, but the evidence is equivocal. This study aimed to evaluate the ergogenic potential of the pre-exercise ingestion of a homemade chicken broth (CB) vs a placebo soup on a short-lasting, high-intensity cycling exercise.Methodsfourteen men participated in this double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover intervention study. Subjects ingested either CB, thereby receiving 46.4 mg/kg body weight of HCD, or a placebo soup (similar in taste without HCD) 40 min before an 8 min cycling time trial (TT) was performed. Venous blood samples were collected at arrival (fasted), before exercise and at 5 min recovery. Plasma HCD were measured with UPLC-MS/MS and glutathione (in red blood cells) was measured through HPLC. Capillary blood samples were collected at different timepoints before and after exercise.Resultsa significant improvement (p = 0.033; 5.2%) of the 8 min TT mean power was observed after CB supplementation compared to placebo. Post-exercise plasma carnosine (p < 0.05) and anserine (p < 0.001) was significantly increased after CB supplementation and not following placebo. No significant effect of CB supplementation was observed either on blood glutathione levels, nor on capillary blood analysis.Conclusionsoral CB supplementation improved the 8 min TT performance albeit it did not affect the acid-base balance or oxidative status parameters. Further research should unravel the potential role and mechanisms of HCD, present in CB, in this ergogenic approach.
Highlights
Chicken meat and its extracts have long been recognized as a source of bioactive molecules that can potentially improve health status in general, and exercise performance in particular
In a follow-up study using the same supplementation strategy for a single set of similar repeated sprints, no improvement on performance was found, a positive effect on exercise-induced acid-base balance was present [15]. Informed by this emerging evidence for an acute effect of pre-exercise supplementation of pure histidine-containing dipeptides (HCD) on exercise performance, we evaluated the effect of a similar dose of HCD in a functional food approach, i.e. through a home-prepared chicken broth (CB) vs a placebo soup (PLA), in a cross-over nutritional intervention study
Mean relative power output was 5.2% higher following CB supplementation compared to placebo (5.0 W/kg ± 0.7 vs 4.75 W/kg ± 0.7, respectively)
Summary
Chicken meat and its extracts have long been recognized as a source of bioactive molecules that can potentially improve health status in general, and exercise performance in particular. Chicken meat extracts contain high concentrations of carnosine (β-alanyl-L-histidine) and anserine (β-alanyl-π-methyl-histidine) in a 1:2 to 1:3 ratio [2, 3]. Harris et al [4] demonstrated that long-term administration of β-alanine - one of the constituent amino acids - is able to raise muscle carnosine concentrations, which leads to enhanced high-intensity exercise performance [5, 6]. The chronic use of chicken breast extract, containing carnosine and anserine, is shown to enhance muscle carnosine levels in humans [7] and to improve high-intensity endurance performance by attenuation of muscle fatigue [8], demonstrating the same mechanism of action of the β-alanine supplementation approach
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