Mediterranean diet enhances endurance training adaptations 🫁
The best base diet for performance?
Mediterranean diet enhances endurance training adaptation through gut microbiota-derived short-chain fatty acids
Study Details
This new study recruited 60 competitive endurance athletes to a 12 week randomised controlled trial where they were assigned to consume either…
🥗 Mediterranean diet
🍽️ Maintain normal diet (control)
Endurance adaptations and gut microbiota were assessed pre- and post-intervention 🔍
Here is what they found ⬇️
Key Findings
🫁 VO2max improvement was greater in the Mediterranean diet group vs control group (2.4 ± 1.6 vs. 1.3 ± 1.4 mL/kg/min)
🦠 The Mediterranean diet showed a significant increase in alpha diversity (Shannon index: +11.2%)
🧫 Plus increased abundance of Faecalibacterium and Roseburia
🩸 Plasma propionate (+42.1%) and butyrate (+57.9%) also increased significantly in the Mediterranean diet group
👉 Both of these changes correlated significantly with improvement VO2max
🔥 Mediation analysis indicated plasma propionate accounted for 23% of the dietary effect on VO2max
Conclusion
A Mediterranean diet intervention alters gut microbiota composition, increases plasma SCFA concentrations, and improves endurance exercise adaptations 🥗
The only thing to be aware of is increased fiber intake in and around high-intensity exercise‼️
But apart from that it makes an excellent base diet for athletes ✅
Reference
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41958913/
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