Effects of Six Weeks of β-alanine Administration on VO2 max, Time to Exhaustion and Lactate Concentrations in Physical Education Students

Abstract

Supplementation with β-alanine has been proposed to improve performance in some exercises such as cycling and running. Also, it has been demonstrated that great deals of proton ions are produced in the skeletal muscles during exercise that result in acidosis, whereas β-alanine may reduce this effect. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess the effects of alanine supplementation on VO(2) max, time to exhaustion and lactate concentrations in physical education male students.
Thirty-nine male physical education students volunteered for this study. Participants were supplemented orally for 6 week with either β-alanine (5*400 mg/d) or placebo (5*400 mg dextrose/d), randomly. VO(2) max and time to exhaustion (TTE) with a continuous graded exercise test (GXT) on an electronically braked cycle ergometer; and serum lactate and glucose concentrations were measured before and after supplementation.
Supplementation with β-alanine showed a significant increase in VO(2) max (P<0.05) and a significant decrease in TTE and lactate concentrations (P<0.05). A significant elevation in lactate concentrations and a non significant increase in TTE were observed in placebo group. Plasma glucose concentrations did not change significantly in two groups after intervention.
It can be concluded that β-alanine supplementation can reduce lactate concentrations during exercise and thus can improve exercise performance in endurance athletes.

Full text

Int J Prev Med. 2012 August; 3(8): 559–563. PMCID: PMC3429803
Effects of Six Weeks of β-alanine Administration on VO max, Time to
Exhaustion and Lactate Concentrations in Physical Education Students
Reza Ghiasvand, Gholamreza Askari, Janmohamad Malekzadeh, Maryam Hajishafiee, Pooya Daneshvar,
Fahimeh Akbari, and Maryam Bahreynian
Department of Community Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Food Security Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Department of Nutrition, School of Health, Yasouj University of Medical Sciences, Yasouj, Iran
Esfahan Sport Medicine Association, Isfahan, Iran
Correspondence to: Dr. Reza Ghiasvand, Assistant professor, Department of Nutrition, School of Health, Isfahan University of Medical
Sciences, HezarJerib Street, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail: ghiasvand@hlth.mui.ac.ir
Received December 27, 2011; Accepted December 27, 2011.
Copyright : © International Journal of Preventive Medicine
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Objectives:
Supplementation with β-alanine has been proposed to improve performance in some exercises such as
cycling and running. Also, it has been demonstrated that great deals of proton ions are produced in the
skeletal muscles during exercise that result in acidosis, whereas β-alanine may reduce this effect.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess the effects of alanine supplementation on VO max, time to
exhaustion and lactate concentrations in physical education male students.
Methods:
Thirty-nine male physical education students volunteered for this study. Participants were supplemented
orally for 6 week with either β-alanine (5*400 mg/d) or placebo (5*400 mg dextrose/d), randomly. VO
max and time to exhaustion (TTE) with a continuous graded exercise test (GXT) on an electronically
braked cycle ergometer; and serum lactate and glucose concentrations were measured before and after
supplementation.
Results:
Supplementation with β-alanine showed a significant increase in VO max (P<0.05) and a significant
decrease in TTE and lactate concentrations (P<0.05). A significant elevation in lactate concentrations
and a non significant increase in TTE were observed in placebo group. Plasma glucose concentrations
did not change significantly in two groups after intervention.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that β-alanine supplementation can reduce lactate concentrations during exercise
and thus can improve exercise performance in endurance athletes.
Keywords: β-alanine, supplementation, performance
INTRODUCTION
Ingestion of some amino acids has presumable roles in performance improvement in athletes.[1–3]
Among them, β-alanine supplementation has been suggested to improve performance during
high-intensity exercises.[4,5] On the other hand, it has been shown that large amounts of H are
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produced in the muscles during high-intensity exercise and result in pH reduction.[6] There are many
cellular pH buffers defend against exercise-induced acidosis,[7] which include phosphocreatine,
inorganic phosphates and histidine-containing dipeptides. Carnosine (β-alanyl-L-histidine) is the main
histidine-containing dipeptide in humans.[8] Additionally, Hill et al.[5] and Harris et al.,[9] showed that
28 days of β-alanine supplementation increased intramuscular levels of carnosine by nearly 60%.
Antioxidant function[10], muscle contractility regulation,[11] and pH buffering,[12,13] are the possible
physiological roles of carnosine in skeletal muscle. Thus, the possible role of carnosine could be
prevention of skeletal muscle acidity in improving exercise performance.[4,14]
Prolonged exercise can result in oxidative stress and muscle fatigue,[15] which may be prevented by
carnosine due to its antioxidative properties.[16] On the other hand, β-alanine administration could
increase carnosine content of skeletal muscles by 40–80%.[17–19] Increase of carnosine concentrations
in muscle results in altered buffering capacity,[18–19] and thus affects performance. Furthermore, some
studies have shown that carnosine acts as a Ca sensitizer for the sarcomeres in muscles[20–21] and
thus could prevent fatigue.[22] However, synthesis of carnosine in muscle is limited by the availability
rate of β-alanine, which can be overcome by β-alanine supplementation.[19,23,24]
Although it has been estimated that carnosine is responsible for nearly 10% of the total buffering
capacity in human muscle,[19] the importance of acidosis control in exercise performance is still
controversial. There are few studies on β-alanine supplementation and its possible effects on endurance
exercise; therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess the effects of β-alanine administration on VO
max, time to exhaustion and lactate concentrations in male physical education students.
METHODS
Thirty-nine male physical education students volunteered for this investigation. These students were fit
(BMI<25) and active (physical activity≤2 hr/d), but not involved in professional sports. Participants’ age,
weight and height were 21.1±0.7 years, 71.8±8.8 kg and 178±7 cm, respectively, for β-alanine (n=20)
group and 21.9±1.5 years, 74.9±8.3 kg and 180±5 cm for placebo group (n=19), respectively (NS). Before
initiating the study, all participants were informed of all procedures of the study and signed an informed
consent. None of the participants had ingested β-alanine, or any other nutritional supplements, for a
minimum of 3 months before the initiation of the study. Participants were asked to abstain from exercise
24 h before trial initiation and to maintain their current physical activity and dietary patterns.
Participants were asked to fill a “food record” for the 2 days before intervention. After pre-testing, the
participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups: a) β-alanine (2 g/day), b) placebo (2 g
dextrose per day).The supplements had the same appearance, and ingested four times per day for 42
consecutive days before post-testing. All participants completed all experiments, and there were no
complaints of side effects of the supplements.
This study was a placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial. Participants were supplemented orally
for 6 weeks with either β-alanine (Ajinomoto, USA, Inc) or placebo (dextrose). The study was approved
by the Ethics Committee (Esfahan Sport Medicine Association, Iran). Supplements were provided in
capsules of 400 mg and were administered each day as five divided single doses, with at least 2 h in
between ingestions. Thus, daily doses consisted of 2 g/day during the study. Venous blood samples were
obtained from all participants between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m, after intensive endurance exercising, at the
baseline and after intervention. All measurements were done before the start of the supplementation
(pre) and after the intervention (post).
Prior to and following the supplementation protocol, participants performed a continuous graded
exercise test (GXT) on an electronically braked cycle ergometer (Lode, The Netherlands) to determine
VO max and time to exhaustion (TTE).
For each GXT, the primary power output was set at 30 W and elevated 30 W every 2 min until the
participant could not maintain the required power output at a pedaling rate of 70 rpm due to fatigue.
Plasma samples were obtained for the determination of plasma lactate and glucose concentrations
immediately prior to each GXT and 2 min post-exercise.
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Glucose and lactate were analyzed using YSI auto-analyzer (Yellow Springs, OH).
Dietary analyses were performed using Nutritionist IV software.
Statistical analyses were conducted using the Statistical Program for the Social Sciences (SPSS version
13, Inc, Chicago, IL) computer software package. Data are presented as mean ± standard deviation.
Independent t test was used to analyze the differences in performance between the trials. Paired t test
was used to analyze before and after test data for each group differences. An alpha level of P<0.05 was
considered statistically significant.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the mean ± SD values of exercise performance indices for the pre-and
post-supplementation. Supplementation with β-alanine demonstrated a significant increase in VO max
(P<0.05). On the other hand, TTE and lactate concentrations decreased after 6 weeks of
supplementation with β-alanine (P<0.05). The placebo group showed a significant increase in lactate
concentrations (P<0.05), but a non significant increase in TTE. No significant changes in plasma glucose
concentrations were detected after exercise in two groups.
The post-exercise concentrations of plasma lactate were significantly higher (P<0.05) than baseline in
two groups. However, the post-exercise concentrations of lactate were significantly lower (P<0.05)
during the alanine supplementation compared to the placebo group. Dietary intake before each trial was
similar for energy and macronutrients [Table 2].
DISCUSSION
The findings of our study suggest that supplementation with β-alanine may improve the endurance
exercise performance as measured by the VO max, TTE and plasma lactate concentrations. Several
studies support our findings.[17,25–27]
Also, Harris et al.,[18] showed that supplementation with creatine + β-alanine resulted in significant
increases (P<0.01) in muscle carnosine content. The increased muscle carnosine content was
accompanied with an improvement in VO max and TTE in response to a maximal graded exercise test
performed on a cycle ergometer. Their results were consistent with ours.
Another study demonstrated that supplementation with both β-alanine and creatine improved cycling
performance (TTE).[5]
However, β-alanine administration alone improved performance just in the first minute of exercise.[4]
They concluded that this was due to H buffering by carnosine during this transitional period.
Our data demonstrate that the significant improvements in the performance indices with β-alanine
supplementation were due to pH reduction.
The improvement in TTE seen in the placebo group participants might be due to the encouragement
provided by our staff and also the participants’ psychological status.
Also, the findings of the present study might have been influenced by the fluctuations in the skeletal
muscle response to oral supplementation with β-alanine.
Our data suggest that supplementation with β-alanine may delay the onset of fatigue and thus improve
performance during incremental cycle exercise in men.
The glucose concentrations did not change significantly in our study, due to different individual response
and insufficient dose or duration. The participants in this study, however, were male physical education
students rather than untrained participants.
We did not measure the muscle carnosine content. However, according to the hypothesis, β-alanine
supplementation would prevent the drop in intracellular pH during high-intensity contractions and
result in less circulating acidosis finally due to elevation of myocellular carnosine content. It has long
been suggested that acidosis limits muscle contractility.[28] Furthermore, several studies have shown
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the importance of pH regulation on performance during endurance exercise, by a pre-exercise alkalosis
intervention.[29]
This suggests that the difference between groups is related to the presumable enhancement of muscle
carnosine content.[18,30]
Future studies should examine muscle carnosine levels along with VO max and plasma lactate
concentration during strenuous exercise with variable quantities of β-alanine supplementation Also,
further investigations are necessary to determine the effects of β-alanine supplementation during more
prolonged and submaximal exercise.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from this study that β-alanine administration can reduce acidosis during
high-intensity exercise and thus can improve exercise performance in endurance athletes. Also it is
found that six weeks of supplementation with β-alanine at the mentioned prescribed dose did not result
in significant changes in glucose concentrations.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was financially supported by grants from the “Esfahan Sport Medicine Association”. There are
no conflicts of interest. The contribution of Mr. Mohammad Khoshnevisan, Mr. Ehsan Bayat and Mrs.
Fatemeh Shahryarzadeh is greatly acknowledged.
Footnotes
Source of Support: Nil.
Conflict of Interest: None declared.
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Figures and Tables
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Table 1
Comparison of exercise performance indices, pre-and post-supplementation (mean ±SD)
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Table 2
Dietary intake of subjects for 2 days before intervention (mean±SD)
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