Anthocyanins and exercise performance in people
What it found
Anthocyanins may help recovery from exercise and affect blood flow, but their effect on exercise performance itself is less clear.
Blackcurrant showed benefits while cherry showed less.
What they found
Studies in people
Recovery from exercise
Anthocyanins have antioxidative and anti-inflammatory actions that improve recovery from exercise.
Blood pressure and blood flow
Anthocyanins can affect vasoactive properties, including decreasing mean arterial blood pressure and increasing vasodilation during exercise.
Performance without prior exercise
Effects of anthocyanins on exercise performance without a prior muscle-damaging or metabolically demanding bout of exercise are less clear.
Source matters
Exercise performance effects have been seen for blackcurrant but are less apparent for cherry, suggesting benefits could be due to the specific source-dependent anthocyanins.
Animal and lab studies
Lab tests on blood vessels
In lab tests, anthocyanins and their metabolites activated endothelial nitric oxide synthase and human vascular cell migration.
Other findings
Possible mechanisms
The ways anthocyanin intake may enhance exercise performance include effects on blood flow, metabolic pathways, and peripheral muscle fatigue, or a combination of all three.
What the authors conclude
- They focus on the experimental evidence for anthocyanins to improve exercise performance in humans.
- They note that the benefits could be due to the specific source-dependent anthocyanins.
How it was done
Foods and supplements high in anthocyanins are becoming popular in sports nutrition, so the authors wanted to examine the evidence for their effects on exercise performance in people.
What it can’t tell you
- We summarised it from the abstract only.
- The review looks at experimental evidence, so it cannot show what happens with long-term use.
- It cannot say whether anthocyanins improve performance for all types of exercise or all people.
The paper
- Title
- Dietary Anthocyanins: A Review of the Exercise Performance Effects and Related Physiological Responses
- Type
- ReviewThe authors read earlier studies and describe what they found. It isn’t a new study.
- Evidence
- Studies in people · animals · lab
- Summarised from
- Abstract only
- Cite
- Cook MD, Willems MET (2019). Dietary Anthocyanins: A Review of the Exercise Performance Effects and Related Physiological Responses. International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism. doi:10.1123/ijsnem.2018-0088PubMed 30160565DOI
Summary written 26 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error