Unusual Supplement Advice

Taking a look at some of the more unusual supplements that you may not have heard of which may help you towards your health goals. Up today - Choline.

Claims: Improves performance and focus and delays fatigue during long and intense exercise.

Facts: Choline plays a central role in various physiological pathways that are stressed by endurance exercise. Most important, choline is involved in forming acetylcholine, a chemical necessary for nerve cell communication. A deficiency in choline during exercise may result in impaired muscle performance because of a decrease in acetylcholine synthesis, as well as increased muscle damage and fatigue. Long, strenuous exercise bouts such as marathons or triathlons may create a significant, short-term decrease in free choline. It's estimated that an effort of longer than 2 hours at greater than 70 percent of VO2 max is necessary to produce such a change.

This is a difficult effort to reproduce and test in research studies, and to date only one study has been able to produce a notable decrease in choline during exercise in both treatment and control conditions. In this study, supplementation with choline one hour before and halfway through a hard 20-mile run prevented a decline in free choline, resulting in delayed fatigue and improved performance. Other studies have failed to find improved performances following choline supplementation before long and intense exercise. Raising the free choline concentration above normal blood levels doesn't appear to have a beneficial effect on endurance performance.

Bottom Line: Choline supplementation may be useful when taken before and during a long, intense exercise bout such as the marathon; it's not useful for shorter races such as 5K or 10K. Choline salts (such as choline citrate) are the best sources, but the recommended dose is quite high -- 2.5 grams before and 2.5 grams during the long, hard run, which could add up to five to 10 capsules at a time. Choline supplements are relatively safe, with the major side effects being related to the GI system, but 3.5 grams per day have been recommended as the tolerable upper intake level.