Special issue of Current Advances in Nutrition: SPORTS NUTRITION

Nutrition plays an important role in sports performance and allows athletes to reach their peak performance. Macronutrients, carbohydrates and fats serve as fuel for muscle contraction, while protein is essential for building and maintaining skeletal muscle mass. Micronutrients, as well as fluid intake, play an important role in hydration. There may also be certain supplements that give athletes an advantage. As a result, nutritionists and health care providers working with professional and recreational athletes must carefully consider their clients’ dietary choices to optimize performance.

Despite many research achievements, in general, what constitutes the right nutrition for athletes remains unknown, making food choices difficult. Proper sports nutrition, for example, can vary from one sporting event to another. Furthermore, men and women may have different sports nutrition needs, and athletes of different age groups may also have different sports nutrition needs. In response, Current developments in nutrition published Sports fooda special edition that presents the latest scientific evidence on what constitutes effective sports nutrition and performance.

This special issue features three expert guest editors:

• Professor John Buckley, University of South Australia, Areas of expertise: exercise, nutrition, sports performance and recovery
• Professor Stuart Phillips, McMaster University, Areas of expertise: exercise, nutrition, muscle protein turnover, and body composition
• Dr. Jess Gwin, Division of Military Nutrition, US Army Institute of Environmental Medicine. Areas of Specialization: Nutrition, Dietary Protein, Skeletal Muscle and Body Composition

The 18 articles in this special issue explore a wide range of sports nutrition issues:

• Nutrition and sports performanceincluding four papers on the effects of coffee or caffeine on exercise; two on the effects of polyphenols or anthocyanins; and one about the effects of creatine monohydrate.
• Nutrition and clinical outcomesincluding two articles on the role of n-3 fatty acids in ameliorating the effects of head impacts, brain injuries, and concussions; one on associations between dietary protein intake and indicators of bone health in endurance athletes; one on the use of resting metabolic rate as an indicator of relative energy deficit risk in sports; and one on nutritional strategies to aid recovery from injury and return to play.
• Nutritional information and diet qualityincluding two documents on sports nutrition information delivery methods; three on food choices and diet quality among sportsmen and military women; and one on nutritional knowledge and prevalence of nutritional supplement use among Iranian bodybuilders.

Overall, this special issue identifies nutritional strategies for improving athletic performance and mitigating adverse clinical outcomes associated with injury. Furthermore, it identifies key sources of nutritional information for athletes along with strategies to improve the quality of this information. As a result, the Guest Editors believe that “this special issue will make an important contribution to our progress on a number of factors related to improving the results of sports nutrition.”

We invite you to review in full Special issue. Clinical nutritionists and health care practitioners will find valuable information to advise on dietary choices for athletes of all ages who participate in a wide range of athletic activities. Furthermore, researchers will find new findings that serve as a springboard to guide their sports nutrition research.

All articles in this special issue Current developments in nutrition available for free to all readers regardless of subscription status.

Eric Graber

Eric Graber is a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant who works primarily for publishers and professional associations in science and medicine. He holds a BA in Spanish Literature from Columbia University and an MBA in Marketing from NYU Stern School of Business.