Effectiveness of antioxidant supplements in the improvement of athletic physical performance: Review article

• Main Authors: Lidia Guillermina de León Fierro, Judith Margarita Rodriguez-Villalobos, Ramón Candia-Luján, Claudia Esther Carrasco-Legleu, Liliana Aracely Enriquez del Castillo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana 2019-04-01
• Series: Revista Habanera de Ciencias Médicas
• Subjects: elementos de respuesta antioxidante, sistema antioxidante total, rendimiento atlético, antioxidantes endógenos, rendimiento deportivo.
• Online Access: http://www.revhabanera.sld.cu/index.php/rhab/article/view/2250

<p><strong>Introduction:</strong> At present, the use of antioxidants in the sports field has increased.  However, there is no conclusive evidence of the effect of these substances in improving the physical performance of athletes.</p><p><strong>Objective:</strong> To determine the effectiveness of antioxidant supplements in the improvement of athletic physical performance.</p><p><strong>Material and Methods:</strong> A bibliographic review was carried out through the search on online databases such as Pubmed, Scopus, the Web of Knowledge and Google Scholar search engine. Only original double-blind studies related to the intervention of an antioxidant supplement were included. The review period was from 2009 to December 2017.</p><p><strong>Development:</strong> A total of 1053 articles were identified, of which 33 met the inclusion criteria for the review. Regarding the type of supplement, 2 of them corresponded to vitamins, 9 to polyphenols, 11 to commercials, and the remaining 9 ones to several types. The historic period of the articles analyzed was 4.8 ± 2.4 years in terms of obsolescence, which was determined by the Burton and Kleber half-period and the Price index (5.5 and 61.0%, respectively).</p><p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> To date, there is no solid evidence that the intake of antioxidant supplements improves physical athletic performance. There are few positive results in some of the evaluated variables; for this reason, more evidence is required to elucidate the effect of antioxidant supplements.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Antioxidant response elements, Total Antioxidant System, athletic performance, endogenous antioxidants, sports performance.</p>