Journal of Nutrition Science Research
Open Access

Research Article

Nitric Oxide/Arginine: Is Cardiovascular Modulation Effects in Athletes Supplementation?

¹Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

²Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences of the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

³Sports Medicine and Cardiology, Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

*Corresponding Author:

Rosinha IM
Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto
Praça de Gomes Teixeira
4099-002 Porto, Portugal
Tel: +351 22 040 8000
E-mail: inesmendrosinha@gmail.com

Received Date: December 16, 2016; Accepted Date: December 23, 2016; Published Date: December 30, 2016

Citation: Rosinha IM, Teixeira VH, Costa OP (2016) Nitric Oxide/Arginine: Is Cardiovascular Modulation Effects in Athletes Supplementation? Sports Nutr Ther 1: 118. doi: 10.4172/2473-6449.1000118

Copyright: © 2016 Rosinha IM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Dietary nitrates and L-Arginine have been increasingly recognized to play a promising role as sport dietary supplementation, getting more and more popular as ergogenic aids, namely, substances used with regard to performance enhancement. Inorganic nitrate (NO3-) is abundant in numerous foodstuffs and is convertible into nitrite (NO2-) following ingestion. Nitrite, in turn, can be metabolized into nitric oxide (NO), one of the most widespread signaling molecules, taking part in virtually every cellular and organic functions, most notably blood flow regulation and vasodilation, mitochondrial respiration, platelet function and metabolic homeostasis. L-Arginine is a conditionally essential amino acid that has been target of considerable attention as the main precursor of NO, revealing other promising potential effects on growth hormone (GH) release, promotion of creatine synthesis, all leading to possible exercise tolerance and muscle efficiency benefits, impairment of O2 uptake (cost of submaximal exercise) and rise in workout duration before fatigue. Accordingly, the purpose of this review is to provide an overview on the accumulating evidence concerning not only the importance of NO and its associated precursors in exercise and sports performance, but also the inherent cardiovascular modulation during workout, as well as ascertain the possible benefits and hazards, never despising the crucial role ascribed to sports nutrition professionals.

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