The Effects of Vitamin E and Vitamin C Supplementation on Bioenergetics Index

Abstract

In order to study the effects of vitamin E and vitamin C supplementation on the bioenergetic index, 36 male physical education students were selected nonrandomly and assigned to a different supplementation protocol. The average age, weight, height, and fat percentage were 22.48 ± 1.84 years, 64.93 ± 7.84 kg, 175.4 ± 5.66 cm, and 10.94 ± 5.29%, respectively. The period of supplementation lasted 3 weeks. The subjects from group 1 consumed a daily dose of 400 mg of vitamin E, subjects from group 2 ingested 1000 mg of vitamin C, subjects from group 3 ingested 400 mg of vitamin E along with 1000 mg of vitamin C, and subjects from group 4 (control group) consumed a placebo. The tests applied were the running anaerobic sprint test (RAST) and the Cooper 12-min run test. The results indicate that there were no significant differences between groups during the study in anaerobic power assessed by RAST. We found a significant difference between group's, however, in aerobic power (p < 0.05). We concluded that daily consumption of vitamin E, vitamin C, and a combination of vitamin E and vitamin C for a period of 3 week significantly improved aerobic power.

Keywords:

• antioxidant
• free radical
• aerobic power
• anaerobic power

This work was supported by the Islamic Azad University, Shabestar branch. We thank Mohammad Ali Azarbaijani and Bahman Tarverdizade for their suggestions that helped to improve the manuscript.