Shawn Baier, TSI’s vice president of business development, said recent third party research has expanded the reach of the company’s legacy MyHMB into the realm of products retaining to delayed onset muscle soreness.
“It can happen whenever you’re engaged in an activity that you’re not used to doing, and that pushes you beyond your usual threshold, be that shoveling snow for the first time in early winter, or suddenly increasing the intensity of workouts,” Baier said.
MyHMB was invented under the aegis of Metabolic Technologies, a company spun off from Iowa State University that is now part of ingredient developer and distributor TSI USA.
HMB, or β-hydroxy β-methylbutyrate, is naturally produced in the body during the metabolism of the essential amino acid leucine, which is found in virtually all protein sources. It has been studied as a standalone ingredient since the 1990s.
Research continues to elucidate effects
Early research done on myHMB showed that HMB supplementation can lead to beneficial effects in muscle function and athletic capacity. In a 2016 study done on judo competitors and wrestlers the researchers concluded that, “The results indicate that supplying HMB promotes advantageous changes in body composition and stimulates an increase in aerobic capacity.”
More recent research shows that HMB combined with vitamin D3 can help elderly subjects improve muscle function even in the absence of exercise.
The independent research Baier was referring to was done on soccer players. The study, which appeared in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results, showed that HMB supplementation reduces muscle injury indices, significantly decreasing creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels.
Prophylactic indication
The effect could be of benefit to consumers who might suffer from ‘weekend warrior syndrome.’ But beyond that, the study postulated that ameliorating delayed onset muscle soreness could help athletes manage their training loads better to avoid overtraining syndrome.
“One of the advantages of daily knowledge of the athlete’s recovery condition is that one can be well aware of the effect of the principle of overload on physical condition,” the study stated.
Baier said that the new data bolsters the idea that HMB could be used in a case by case basis. With its short half life in the blood, myHMB would be amenable to use in for a few days preparation a big effort beyond the normal routine of consumer, such as climbing a mountain on the weekend.
“We haven’t done as good of a job as we could have telling people that myHMB can have this prophylactic effect,” he said.
Source: Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results
doi: 10.47750/pnr.2022.13.01.013
Response of Muscle Damage Indices to short-term supplementation of HMB-FA in professional soccer players
Author: Rezaeimanesh D