↓ Skip to main content

Herbal medicine for sports: a review

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, April 2022
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (86th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
13 news outlets
twitter
29 X users
facebook
6 Facebook pages
video
3 YouTube creators

Citations

dimensions_citation
111 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
547 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Herbal medicine for sports: a review
Published in
Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, April 2022
DOI 10.1186/s12970-018-0218-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Maha Sellami, Olfa Slimeni, Andrzej Pokrywka, Goran Kuvačić, Lawrence D Hayes, Mirjana Milic, Johnny Padulo

Abstract

The use of herbal medicinal products and supplements has increased during last decades. At present, some herbs are used to enhance muscle strength and body mass. Emergent evidence suggests that the health benefits from plants are attributed to their bioactive compounds such as Polyphenols, Terpenoids, and Alkaloids which have several physiological effects on the human body. At times, manufacturers launch numerous products with banned ingredient inside with inappropriate amounts or fake supplement inducing harmful side effect. Unfortunately up to date, there is no guarantee that herbal supplements are safe for anyone to use and it has not helped to clear the confusion surrounding the herbal use in sport field especially. Hence, the purpose of this review is to provide guidance on the efficacy and side effect of most used plants in sport. We have identified plants according to the following categories: Ginseng, alkaloids, and other purported herbal ergogenics such as Tribulus Terrestris, Cordyceps Sinensis. We found that most herbal supplement effects are likely due to activation of the central nervous system via stimulation of catecholamines. Ginseng was used as an endurance performance enhancer, while alkaloids supplementation resulted in improvements in sprint and cycling intense exercises. Despite it is prohibited, small amount of ephedrine was usually used in combination with caffeine to enhance muscle strength in trained individuals. Some other alkaloids such as green tea extracts have been used to improve body mass and composition in athletes. Other herb (i.e. Rhodiola, Astragalus) help relieve muscle and joint pain, but results about their effects on exercise performance are missing.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 29 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 547 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 547 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 86 16%
Student > Master 67 12%
Researcher 40 7%
Student > Ph. D. Student 38 7%
Student > Postgraduate 24 4%
Other 92 17%
Unknown 200 37%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 70 13%
Sports and Recreations 58 11%
Nursing and Health Professions 42 8%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 34 6%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 34 6%
Other 84 15%
Unknown 225 41%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 122. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 October 2023.
All research outputs
#344,249
of 25,522,520 outputs
Outputs from Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition
#115
of 949 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#9,598
of 448,462 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition
#113
of 851 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,522,520 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 949 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 64.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 448,462 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 851 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its contemporaries.