Potential Tropical Fruits to Aid Sports Performance and its Prospect to be Developed into Nano supplement

Abstract

The competition in sports is getting tougher, and the drives to achieve better result has led the athletes to indiscriminately use dietary supplements, including herbal ones. Fruits relatively can acts as a support in health and exercise thanks to its rich content of macro- and micronutrients, fiber, minerals, vitamin and a number of bioactive phytochemical components. The aim of this study is to review and gather information on tropical fruits which is capable to improve athlete's performance and its prospect to be developed into nano supplement. This review examined online literatures via PubMed, Sciendirect, and Google Scholar. Based on the literatures, the exercise performance can be improved by various compounds found in tropical fruits such as banana, cherry, grape, pomegranate, and watermelon. Overall, tropical fruits can aid sports performance by improving physical strength, increasing the recovery in injury, attenuate muscle soreness, and reducing fatigue. It is suggested that there is possibility to apply nanotechnology to formulate fruits based sport supplement in the form of nanoparticles.