Improve Your Exercise Performance With Algae?

When you exercise, you burn a lot of stored energy as calories.

The main fuel components used during exercise are carbohydrates stored in your liver, blood, and muscles, and fats stored in your adipose tissue (FAT).

Research has shown that during strength training you utilize a high amount of glucose which could lead to a buildup of lactic acid.  This buildup of lactic acid may cause cramping and a decrease in exercise performance.

However, during aerobic exercise, it has been shown that the main energy source for exercising is fat, which is stored in your fat cells.

This could lead to a large supply of calories that could help you sustain aerobic metabolism and prolong your activity.

However, due to normal cellular metabolism, there could be an increase in reactive oxygen species, which could inhibit fatty acids from being used as an energy source.

Antioxidants have been shown to trap and eliminate reactive oxygen species, which may lead to a greater usage of fats during aerobic exercise.

In fact, a study published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, could show that the powerful antioxidant Astaxanthin may, in fact, improve fat metabolism during aerobic exercise.

Let me explain…

Astaxanthin and Exercise Performance

Astaxanthin, which is a powerful antioxidant that is found in algae, fish, crustaceans, and krill, has been shown to be a more potent antioxidant than vitamin E and beta carotene.

Astaxanthin has been shown to possess anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-hypertensive, and anti-diabetic neuropathy effects in your body.

According to some research, fish such as salmon and trout have high levels of astaxanthin in their muscles, which they theorize, may lead to the strong performance of the fish.

With this information, researchers aimed to see the effects that astaxanthin has on energy metabolism during exercise.

They used ICR mice that were eight weeks old and separated them into four groups:

• A sedentary group

• A sedentary with astaxanthin group

• A running exercise group

• An exercise and astaxanthin group

They supplemented the astaxanthin groups for a period of four weeks, then had them exercise by performing treadmill running.

The researchers showed the group treated with astaxanthin increased fat utilization during exercise, more so than the normal diet group.

Also, they showed a longer time period of exercising until exhaustion.

Blood markers for metabolism showed that in the astaxanthin group, there was an increase in the colocalization of fatty acid translocase with CPT-1 during exercise.  

Plus, they showed that hexanoyl-lysine modification of CPT-1 was increased with exercise, however, it was not increased in the astaxanthin group.

In a separate experiment (on the same mice), they showed that the astaxanthin group showed a decrease in body fat accumulation during exercise.

From their work, the authors concluded that astaxanthin could promote fat metabolism, while sparing glucose metabolism during exercise.  Also, they concluded that astaxanthin was able to improve endurance and lower adiposity with exercise training.

The Power of Astaxanthin

Astaxathin, a red-colored carotenoid, has been shown to be a powerful antioxidant which has been linked to many improvements in health.

In fact, it has been shown to improve insulin secretion of the pancreas, improve weight loss, and now, improve exercise performance.

According to the authors of this study, astaxanthin has been shown to improve both endurance and fat utilization during exercise.

Including astaxanthin into your daily nutrition, either through supplements or from whole food sources, could help improve your exercise performance plus improve your utilization of nutrients (fat vs. glucose) during exercise.


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