The Effects of Quercetin Supplementation on Body Composition, Exercise Performance and Muscle Damage Indices in Athletes

Background: flavonoids comprise a large group of plantmetabolites, 6,000 of which have been identified to date. somestudies have shown the increased aerobic performance and maximaloxygen consumption (vo2max) and therefore fitness followingquercetin intake as a result of elevated number of intracellularmitochondria caused by the flavonoid.methods: this double?blind clinical trial comprised 60 malestudents having an athletic history of at least 3 years. bodycomposition, exercise performance, and some blood biomarkerswere analyzed. the individuals were selected by convenientsampling, and then were assigned into four groups of equal numberby using permuted block randomization. the first to fourth groupsreceived a 500 mg supplemental quercetin capsule plus a 250 mgvitamin c pill, a 500 mg supplemental quercetin capsule plus a250 mg placebo vitamin c pill, a 500 mg placebo quercetin capsuleplus a 250 mg vitamin c pill, and a 500 mg placebo quercetincapsule plus a 250 mg placebo vitamin c pill, respectively, dailyfor 8 weeks. the participants were asked to continue their routinediet and physical activity during the study and they were monitoredthrough phone calls or text messages.results: lean body mass, total body water, basal metabolic rate,and total energy expenditure increased significantly in the quercetingroup after intervention. on the other hand, vo2max increased inthe “quercetin” and “quercetin + vitamin c” groups following theintervention, non?significantly.conclusion: our findings suggest that supplementation withquercetin in athletes may improve some indices of performance.