Dietary Nitrate Food Supplementation and Exercise Performance
Dietary Nitrate Food Supplementation and Exercise Performance
There are certain issues that families and young athletes most often face, such as late-night practices, inconvenient school lunchtimes, demanding tournament schedules, distant leagues and a lack of sleep. In order to boost performance through sports nutrition, you’ll find a collection of easy recipes on the internet for smoothies and sport drinks, all with common ingredients and nutrition information. Weight management, supplementation, fuelling and hydration in a sports diet — it’s all there. But while doing so, have you found out how Dietary Nitrate as a food supplementation can boost exercise and performance? Sounds unique and interesting, doesn’t it? Read further to understand it more and know how it really works. So, let us get started with some with some key points.
What are Nitrates?
Nitrate has several roles in the body but importantly acts as a vasodilator, which means that it opens the blood vessels and allows more blood and oxygen to be delivered to muscles. When included in sports nutrition, nitrate may also reduce the energy cost of exercise and positively affect muscle contraction.
What is Dietary Nitrate and How Does it Work?
Dietary nitrate supplements help to increase the concentration of plasma nitrite, that, in turn reduces blood pressure. As a nutrition supplement, nitrate, can also improve endurance and performance during physical exercise.
Are Nitrates As Effective as Performance Enhancers for Young Athletes and Bodybuilders?
Several studies suggest that nitrates can improve physical performance, particularly during high-intensity endurance exercise and are of great benefit in an athlete diet.
The primary reason behind the effectiveness of nitrates as a performance enhancer is that they are natural inorganic components of plant foods. Researchers revealed that nearly 80 percent of human dietary nitrate intake comes from vegetable consumption.
Nitrates may affect various physiological functions that are key to health and exercise performance. Studies indicate that nitrates form nitric oxide as functional molecule and regulates several skeletal muscle functions including blood circulation, force production, glucose homeostasis and mitochondrial respiration, making them important in sports and nutrition.
Several studies have already suggested that dietary nitrate when converted to nitric oxide may derive some beneficial health effects, such as protection from stomach diseases, keeping off infection and preventing vascular disease. Nitrates also serve as essential nutrients for having optimal cardiovascular health.
Potential Benefits in Sports Nutrition of Young athletes
§ Muscle Efficacy
The body converts nitrates into a short-lived gas called nitric oxide.
Nitric oxide regulates the delivery of oxygen to the muscles.
This relaxes and opens blood vessels, improving blood flow.
Better blood flow translates into lower blood pressure.
Decreased demand on your heart and skeletal muscles.
§ Oxygen
Reduces the oxygen cost of sub maximal exercise and enhance exercise tolerance.
Dietary Supplementation — Growing in popularity as a sports nutrition supplement
ü Recommendation
No doubt that dietary nitrates are a popular sport supplement, a safe bet is to always include a wide variety of vegetables in your diet (high and low nitrate). It has proven health benefits and try to consider increasing the proportion of high nitrate containing vegetables closer to important training blocks or events. For non-beet options, eat pre-event meals that are rich in nitrates (e.g.: big salads, greens, tabbouleh and spinach lasagne).
ü Health Risk
Ø Young athletes should be ideally discouraged from the uncontrolled use of nitrate and nitrite dietary supplements in sports nutrition.
Ø A small percentage of nitrate is also converted to N-nitrosamines in the human body, which have been implicated in certain cancers, such as gastric, pancreatic and thyroid cancers
Ø Negative side effects are commonly associated with consumption of nitrate salts, such as those found in cured meats. It is not a good idea to consume meat before your event, as it is heavy to digest unless you have exercised properly and the digestion has taken place.
Ø Young athletes who wish to use the ergogenic properties of nitrate supplementation are advised to use natural vegetables or vegetable juices as the preferred source of nitrates and should be consumed daily 4–6 days prior to competition.*
*(consume only post consulting a sports nutritionist or a dietitian).
Vegetables high in nitrates include:
- Rhubarb, arugula, spinach, celery, cress, chervil, lettuce, beets, Chinese cabbage, endive, fennel, kohlrabi, leek and parsley.
6 Top Foods in India that Contain Dietary Nitrates
1. Beetroot
Beetroot has become a popular sports supplement. Commercially available beetroot juice is the most popular source of nitrate used by participants in experimental trials and athletes in competitive sport.
2. Pomegranate
Pomegranate is available across most states and cities in India throughout the year. Health experts highly recommend including pomegranate in the sports diet for having a substantial level of nitric oxide production. This fruit has been found to be effective in increasing testosterone levels by 22 percent.
3. Spinach
Spinach is another vegetable that is available in different geographical regions of India with varied levels in terms of accumulating nitrate. An extensive study has shown that the percentage of nitrate levels is higher for people having lesser body weight than for those having more body weight. This may result from the consumption of spinach.
4. Garlic
Studies show that garlic can activate nitric oxide synthase i.e. NOS. One study noted that garlic was able to decrease systolic and diastolic blood pressure significantly. Garlic is found to work even better than most high-blood pressure medications in the market. It should be included in a diet for sports person.
5. Honey
Did you know that honey can significantly increase nitric oxide production in humans? Studies claim that the high enzyme or the high nitrate content may cause this spike. It is suggested to look for honey in its pure form rather than the processed versions, for maximum benefits.
6. Watermelon
Watermelon contains a lot of the amino acid L-Citrulline, which is a natural compound and effectively increases nitric oxide. Particularly, during the summer, watermelons are widely available in India. As they are also high in water, they make for an excellent addition to sports nutrition.
Summary
To summarise, youth athletes should steer clear of Nitrate supplements and instead focus on increasing their intake of dietary nitrates that are available naturally. Vegetables such as spinach, arugula, beetroot and celery have high concentrations of nitrate. Carrots and other root vegetables are good sources too. Because the concentration of nitrates in soil varies, it is hard to determine on the exact amount for any vegetable. Organic beetroot crystals, although very expensive, are available for purchase and can be used to make smoothies or mix into other foods.
Because studies of the long-term risks associated with higher levels of nitrate are limited, caution should be taken while considering nutrition supplements suggested above, in addition to what would be consumed through a regular balanced diet. One side effect to watch out for is beeturia, the passing of pink or red urine after consuming beetroots or foods colored with beetroot extract or pigments. This does not happen with everyone, but it can be quite alarming when not expected. There is no evidence that increasing nitrates in the diet of youth athletes will result in improved athletic performance but encouraging youth athletes to eat more nitrate-rich vegetables is a sound advice. Beetroot juice can be made at home with a juicer or powder or crystal forms can be purchased at health food stores.
We hope this article has given you in-depth and satisfactory information about dietary nitrates and supplementation for sports nutrition that will help in the planning of an athlete diet.
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WYNIT has evolved to provide world class sports nutrition consultancy services to aspiring and promising young athletes around the world.
We focus on a holistic approach between the coach, parent and sports nutritionist.
The panel of Sports Nutritionist is mentored by Chief Nutritionist, Harpreet Pasricha.