Micronutrients and Supplements

Why Vitamins and Minerals are Needed

● Vitamins and minerals are needed in the body for several important processes:
○ Growth and repair of body tissue
○ As cofactors in enzyme-catalyzed metabolic reactions
○ Oxygen transport and oxidative metabolism
○ Immune function
○ As antioxidants
Vitamin Deficiencies and Toxicities
● Takes months or years to develop
○ Mild deficiency
○ Subclinical deficiency
○ Clinical deficiency
● Non-specific medical signs and symptoms
● Widespread use of self-prescribed vitamin supplements
○ Treatment is to stop consumption of the supplement
● Homeostasis
○ Low to moderate absorption, excretion is low
● Maintained by adjusting absorption and excretion
○ If storage is high, absorption decreases
○ If storage is low, absorption increases
● Mechanism include
○ Hormones
○ Altered metabolism
○ Storage capacity
Vitamins/Minerals: Is More Necessary?
● Micronutrients play an important role in:
○ Energy production
○ Hemoglobin synthesis
○ Maintenance of bone health
○ Adequate immune function
○ Protection of body tissues from oxidative damage
○ Build and repair muscle tissue following exercise
● Theoretically exercise may increase or alter needs for vitamins and minerals
● Exercise stresses many metabolic pathways in which micronutrients are required
○ Exercise training may result in muscle biochemical adaptations that increase
needs
● Exercise may also increase turnover of micronutrients, thus increasing loss
● Increased micronutrients may be required to cover increased needs for the repair and
maintenance of lean tissue mass in athletes
● Scientific evidence is lacking
● Some athletes will benefit from more micronutrients
● Athletes at high risk are those that:
○ Consume too few calories
 ○ Eliminate food groups
○ Eating disorders
○ Disordered eating
○ Consume high CHO, low micronutrient diet
○ Travel frequents

Vitamin Deficiencies That Cause Fatigue

● Cofactors of enzymes in CHO metabolism
○ Thiamin (B1)
○ Niacin (B3)
● Cofactors of enzymes in fat metabolism
○ Riboflavin (B2)
○ Thiamin (B1)
○ Pantothenic acid (B5)
○ Biotin (B7)
● Needed for red blood cell and heme synthesis
○ Folic acid (B9)
○ Cobalamin (B12)
Sources of Vitamins and Minerals
● Occur naturally in food, added during processing manufactured as supplements
● Food first
○ Advantages
■ Excellent source of single or several vitamins
■ Contains other nutrients, good absorption
■ Total diet approach may prevent chronic diseases
○ Disadvantages
■ Variety of nutrient dense food essential
■ Adequate energy intake needed
 ■ Time and effort required
● Food processing
○ Advantages
■ Excellent source of certain vitamins
■ Prevents widespread deficiencies
■ Well absorbed
○ Disadvantages
■ Not all vitamins lost are replaced
■ Not necessarily as nutritious as original product
● Concentrated source; amount in supplement may be more than could be consumed from
food
● Bioavailability may be high
○ Advantages
■ Excellent source of one or more vitamins
■ Prevents or reverses deficiencies
■ Insurance policy
○ Disadvantages
■ Excessing amounts needed or beneficial
■ Insurance doesn't cover macronutrients or fiber
Why Athletes Take Supplements
● Maintain health
● Promote tissue growth and repair and injury management
● Boost immune function and reduce illness risk
● Gain muscle, burn fat, and manage weight
● Improve recovery and sleep
● Improve cognitive performance
● Improve exercise performance
Why Athletes Believe They’re Needed
● Supplements more effective than diet
● Can prove a quick fix whereas the positive effects of a balanced, healthy diet take a
long time
● Their diet is already balanced and healthy therefore the next step is use of supplements
● Their diet is unbalanced anyway, so supplements needed to compensate
● Other athletes are using supplements to get an advantage
Regulation of Nutrition Supplement
● Definition: “vitamins, minerals, herbs, and botanicals, amino acids, and other dietary
substances intended to supplement the diet by increasing the total dietary intake or as
any concentrate, metabolic, consistent or combination of these ingredients” (Dietary
Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994)
● No strict regulation apply to testing advertising and promoting
● Few supplements have proved benefits
Supplements with Good to Strong Evidence
● Caffeine
● Creatine
 ● Nitrate
● Beta- Alanine
● Sodium Bicarbonate
Caffeine
● Mechanism:
○ Adenosine receptor antagonism
○ Increased endorphin release
○ Improved neuromuscular function
○ Improved vigilance and alertness
○ Reduced perception of exertion during exercise
○ Increase FFA mobilization
● Protocol of Use
○ 3-6 mg/kgBW (pill or powder) 1 hr prior
○ < 3 mg/kgBW (~200 mg) before and during with CHO
● Performance impact
○ Improved endurance capacity- time to fatigue and TT from
○ 5-150 mins
○ Improved task completion time, mean power output and peak power
● Considerations
○ Larger doses do not help and can hurt performance
○ With CHO for improved efficiency
Creatine
● Mechanism
○ Increases muscle creatine stores, augmenting the rate of PCr resynthesis
○ Increases FFM and strength
○ Serves as a buffer that helps to regulate acid-base balance
● Protocol of use
○ Loading phase: ~20g/day (4 doses) for 5-7 days
○ Maintenance phase: 3-5 g/day (single dose)
○ Taken with ~50g PRO/CHO source
● Performance impact
○ Enhanced max isometric strength and acute performance of single and repeated
bouts of HI (<150 sec), most robust with <30 sec
○ Lean mass gains and improved strength and power
○ Possible increased/improved PRO synthesis, glycogen storage and
thermoregulation
○ Potential anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects
● Considerations
○ No negative effects up to 4 yrs when loading is followed
○ Water retention
● Specific foods have creatine content such as Beef and Cod (.45 and .30g/100g)
Nitrate
● Mechanism:
○ Enhances NO bioavailability
 ○ Modulation of skeletal muscle function
○ Enhances function of type II muscle fibers
○ Reduces ATP cost of muscle force production
○ Increases efficiency of mitochondrial respiration
○ Increases blood flow to the muscle
○ Decreases blood flow to VO2 heterogeneities
● Protocol of use
○ 310-560 mg bolus 2-3 hrs prior
○ > 3 days of supp beneficial for elite athletes
● Performance impact:
○ 4-25% improvements in time to exhaustion
○ 1-3% in sport-specific TT performances <40 min in duration
○ 3-5% improvement in HI-intermittent team sports of 12-40 min in duration
● Considerations
○ Few side effects or limitations
○ May cause GI upset in susceptible athletes
○ Upper limit of 1,041 g
○ Elite athletes have less performance gains
Beta-Alanine
● Mechanism:
○ A rate-limiting precursor to endogenous intracellular muscle buffer, carnosine
○ The immediate defense against proton accumulation in working muscle
○ Increases skeletal muscle carnosine content
● Protocol of use:
○ Daily intake of ~65mg/kg BW split 0.8-1.6 g every 3-4 hrs over an extended
supplement time frame of 10-12 weeks
● Performance Impact:
○ Small but potentially meaningful benefits (~0.2-0.3%) during both continuous and
intermittent exercise of 30 secs to 10 min
● Considerations:
○ Large interindividual variations in muscle carnosine synthesis
● Benefits harder to obtain in elite athletes
● Possible skin rashes and/or transient paraesthesia
Sodium Bicarbonate
● Mechanism:
○ Acts as an extracellular (blood) buffer aiding intracellular pH regulation by raising
the extracellular pH, and HCO3-concentration
○ Leads to efflux of H+and La-from exercising muscles
● Protocol of use:
○ Single acute NaHCO3-dose of 0.2-0.4 g/kgBW consumed 60-150 min prior
○ Split doses taken over a 30-180 min time frame
○ Serial loading with 3-4 smaller doses per day for 2-4 consecutive days prior to
event
● Performance Impact:
 ○ Enhanced performance (~2%) of short-term, high intensity sprints lasting ~60sec
in duration
○ Reduced efficacy as the effort duration exceeds 10 min
● Considerations:
○ Well established GI distress
○ Methods to minimize GI distress:
○ Use with CHO rich meal (~1.5 g/kg BW CHO)
○ Use of sodium citrate as alternative
○ Split dose or stacking strategies
○ Practice prior to competition
Beta-Hydroxy Beta- Methylbutyrate
● Proposed Mechanism:
○ HMB is a metabolite of the AA Leucine
○ Enhanced adaptive response to exercise via decreased PRO breakdown,
increased PRO synthesis, cholesterol synthesis, growth hormone and iGF-1
mRNA
○ Increased proliferation and differentiation of satellite cells and inhibited apoptosis
● Protocol of use:
○ 1.5 - 3g/day
● Potential Performance Impacts:
○ Potential small increase in strength and decrease in fat free mass
○ May reduce recovery time
○ May have no benefits beyond normal PRO intake from food or whole protein
supplements
● Considerations:
○ No negative effects on organ function, emotional perception, or gastrointestinal
tolerance have been reported with doses of 3.0 g/day of HMB for up to 8 weeks.
○ Slight increase in LBM from Nissen et al. (1996) data
AA Supplements
● Technological advances have made it possible to manufacture food-grade ultrapure AAs.
● The individual AAs are mostly produced by bacterial fermentation.
● Individual AAs are now marketed as supplements for athletes and claimed to improve
exercise performance and have a variety of other positive effects
What Scientific Evidence Tells Us
● Arginine infused intravenously in large quantities can have anabolic properties in
patients, but oral ingestion does not result in increased secretion of human growth
hormone and insulin
○ Large oral doses of arginine cause gastrointestinal distress
● BCAAs are among the most popular nutrition supplements
○ No convincing evidence from manufacturers about performance improvement
and DOMS reduction
● Leucine may enhance the anabolic response to exercise.
Leucine
● Mechanism:
 ○ Stimulates MPS and suppresses PRO breakdown
○ Acts as a signaling molecule to stimulate translation–initiation pathways, resulting
in increased rates of MPS
○ Stimulates the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex-1 (mTOR), a key
signaling protein, and triggers a rise in MPS
● Protocol of use:
○ ~3 g per meal
○ Food vs pill shows higher balance in natural food sources than pills
Additive Effects of Combining Supplements
● Combined caffeine and carbohydrate ingestion provides a significant but small effect to
improve endurance performance compared with carbohydrate alone
● Combined caffeine and beetroot juice appears to improve performance more than intake
of either one alone
Critical Evaluation of Supplements Studies
● Does the study have a clear hypothesis?
● Was the study on cells, muscle, animals, or humans, and was the population for which
claims are made comparable to the population in the study?
● Were external variables controlled, and was the study placebo controlled? Were
adequate techniques used?
● Were the trials randomized? Was a crossover design used?
● Was the assignment randomized and was the paper peer reviewed? Do other studies
confirm the findings?
● Have several scientific studies supported its use as an ergogenic aid?
● What intensity and mode of exercise was used?
● Were the study participants athletes, well trained, recreationally active, or untrained?
● Has it also been shown to be effective in real sport?
● What is the effective dose?
● What is its mode of action?
● What are its side effects?
○ Was diet taken into consideration