Conor C. Carey

Introduction: Sports nutrition is a rapidly growing sector with increasing demand for evidence-based nutritional products to support competitive and healthy lifestyles. The product development process for novel foods should rely heavily on end-user engagement to facilitate future success, however there is a dearth of published information available. An understanding of the practices and self-reported nutritional priorities of athletes and active individuals is required for the development of new food products, facilitating evidence-based product formulation.Methods: Participants were at least 18 years of age, actively participating in competitive sport or structured physical activity on at least two occasions per week. Participants were asked to undertake a comprehensive online survey assessing their nutritional practice, perceived nutritional priorities and preferences for product characteristics. Questions were developed on the basis of critical evaluation of the current scientific literature and the hosting of two scoping focus group sessions with prospective end-users.Results: 405 individuals (29 ± 9 years) completed this questionnaire. 295 participants reported active participation in competitive sport while the remaining 110 participants undertook structured physical activity exclusively. When asked to rank their top three most sought-after product claims in sports nutrition, “enhanced muscular recovery” was the most prioritised receiving 101 first choice preferences (25%) and 295 top 3 preferences. Fifty-eight percent of participants reported taking nutritional supplements. Caffeine containing functional foods (excluding caffeine supplements) were the most commonly used functional food group. A very low incidence of functional food usage was reported otherwise. When asked to rank the importance of various food product attributes, “nutritional profile” was ranked as the most important with rating of 3.37 ± 0.7 out of 4 followed by “taste” and “accessibility”. Whole food nutritional products received the most first preference selections and most top 3 selections when presented with a number of popular performance and recovery products on the market.Conclusions: The transition towards a food first approach in sports nutrition is vital for athletes and active individuals to achieve their goals; with the development of evidence-based functional foods, particularly with a focus on muscle recovery, endurance, and strength enhancement at the forefront for new food product design and innovation.

Background Flavonoid polyphenols are bioactive phytochemicals found in fruits and teas among other sources. It has been postulated that foods and supplements containing flavonoid polyphenols may enhance recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) through upregulation of cell signalling stress response pathways, particularly the nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 (NRF2) pathway. Objectives This study aims to investigate the ability of polyphenol treatments containing flavonoids to enhance recovery of skeletal muscle strength, soreness and creatine kinase post EIMD. Methods Medline (Pubmed), Embase and SPORTdiscus were searched from inception to August 2020 for randomised placebo-controlled trials which assessed the impact of 6 or more days of flavonoid containing polyphenol ingestion on skeletal muscle recovery in the 96-h period following a single bout of EIMD. A total of 2983 studies were screened in duplicate resulting in 26 studies included for analysis. All meta-analyses were undertaken using a random-effects model. Results The pooled results of these meta-analyses show flavonoid polyphenol treatments can enhance recovery of muscle strength by 7.14% (95% CI [5.50–8.78], P < 0.00001) and reduce muscle soreness by 4.12% (95% CI [− 5.82 to − 2.41] P = 0.00001), no change in the recovery of creatine kinase concentrations was observed. Conclusion These results indicate that ingestion of polyphenol treatments which contain flavonoids has significant potential to improve recovery of muscular strength and reduce muscle soreness in the 4-day period post EIMD. However, the characterisation of polyphenol dosage and composition of study treatments should be prioritised in future research to facilitate the development of specific guidelines for the inclusion of flavonoid-rich foods in the diet of athletes and active individuals.