As almonds are a good source of unsaturated fatty acids, antioxidants and some micronutrients, Selumetinib they may help maintain and/or enhance exercise Adriamycin manufacturer performance by modulating fuel utilization and strengthening antioxidant defenses. For example, quercetin [19–22] and arginine [23–27] present in almonds may help augment the training effectiveness on exercise

performance by up-regulating mitochondrial biogenesis and oxygen sparing capacity and facilitating oxygen delivery to skeletal muscle, and decreasing ammonia liberation. As of today, the effect of almond consumption on elements of exercise performance in trained athletes remains unknown. We hypothesized that almond consumption could improve exercise performance in trained endurance athletes. The main objective of the study was to investigate whether consumption of almonds would improve elements related to ASK inhibitor exercise performance as compared to isocaloric cookies in trained athletes participating in annual winter training. Methods Subjects Ten trained, male professional athletes (8 cyclists

and 2 triathletes) from the same sports team (club) were recruited to participate in the study throughout winter season training in a training camp in the south of China following their training in the north of China. The biometrics of the training subjects are shown in Table 1. Their mean training period was 6.3 ± 1.6 years. They ranked in the top 20 percent of national competition records, and even were champions in Asian games. As professional athletes they trained for 5-6 days a week, and basically participated in national and Asian competitions such as Taiwan/Hong Kong/Hainan/Qinghai Lake bicycle races each year. Table 1 Biometrics of the training subjects Biometrics Participants (n = 10) Cyclists (n = 8) Triathletes (n = 2) Age (years) 22.3 ± 1.6 23.2 ± 0.8 20.3 ± 0.6

Height (cm) 180.6 ± 7.2 184.0 ± 2.0 172.7 ± 0.6 BM (kg) 74.2 ± 7.7 77.5 ± 2.3 Erastin in vitro 66.5 ± 0.5 VO2max (mL/kg/min) 70.3 ± 4.6 70.4 ± 5.6 70.2 ± 0.6 Training years 6.3 ± 1.6 7.2 ± 0.8 4.3 ± 0.6 Key: BM, body mass. Age (years), height (cm), BM (kg), VO2max (mL/kg/min), and Training years (years) for cyclists and triathletes separately and combined. The study was approved by the Ethical Board of National Institute of Sports Medicine (NISM) and was in compliance with the WMA Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was approved by the Review Board of NISM. All athletes signed the consent form before the study. Study design, VO2max test and food consumption A 10-week self-controlled, crossover design with two 4-week phases of consuming whole almonds and isocaloric cookies in a randomized feeding trial fashion and a 2-week washout period between two phases was conducted (Figure 1). Eight cyclists and two triathletes were randomly assigned to almond- (ALM) and cookies-consuming (COK) groups with equal athlete number after the baseline (BL) performance test. Figure 1 Study design.