Energy Bars with Curcumin Content Increase Human
Performance
Hamidie Ronald Daniel Ray
1
, Abdullah Firmansah
2
and Rita Patriasih
1
1
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jln. Dr. Setiabudhi No. 229 Bandung, Indonesia
2
Medical Nutrition Department, Faculty of Medical, Universitas Padjadjaran
Keywords: Energy bars, Curcumin, VO2 max.
Abstract: An ergogenic aid is any method, mechanical devices, nutritional practice, pharmacological approach or
psychological technique that can improve exercise performance capacity. Our previous study showed that
curcumin have ability to increase mitochondrial biogenesis through increasing cAMP. However, the effect of
curcumin to increase human performance remains unknown. Methods. Eighteen men (aged 19± 1 yr.)
volunteered to participate in the present study during their 6 weeks aerobic exercise. The participants were
randomly divided into three groups: the control groups (n=6) were only eat daily diet’s without added the
energy bars, the energy bars without curcumin content groups (EB; n=6) and groups with added the energy
bars with curcumin content (EBC; n=6). All participants were assigned to vigorous (75% VO
2
R). Intensity
during exercise was controlled by having the subjects maintain target HR based on HR reserve. Exercise
volume (and thus energy expenditure) was controlled across the three training groups by varying duration and
frequency. Fifty-five subjects completed a 6-wk training protocol on a stationary bicycle ergometer and pre-
and post-testing. During the final 4 weeks, the vigorous-intensity group exercised for 40 min, 4 days/weeks.
1 INTRODUCTION
Sport performance is depended with many factors
included on genetic in athletes with morphologic,
psychologic, physiologic and metabolic traits specific
to performance characteristics to their sports
(Horpkins, W.G. 1999). On the other way, athletes
must also receive optimal training to increase
physical capacity, enhance mental strength, and
provide a mechanical advantage. In order for that
some athletes often attempt to go beyond training and
use substances and techniques which known as
ergogenic aids. An ergogenic aid is any method,
mechanical devices, nutritional practice,
pharmacological approach or psychological
technique that can improve exercise performance
capacity and/or training adaptations (Kreider et al.,
2010). In the past, many athletes have been used such
as anabolic steroids and amphetamines to increase
their performance but nowadays, athletes have led to
the establishment of anti-doping legislation and
effective testing protocols to help deter their use.
Based on that reason, many athletes have preferred to
choose dietary strategies, including the use of various
supplements (sports supplements), which they
presume to be effective, safe and legal.
Energy balance is an important factor in
sustaining training load and maintaining high
performance during exercise (Tanskanen et al., 2012)
because of that, maintaining the energy intake is the
best way to increase performance based on that
activity has been found to have an influence on
physical activity especially to boosting the high-
energy intake when exercise. Energy bars are
supplemental bars containing high energy foods
targeted at people who require quick energy.
Nowadays, this product be the target marketing for
several industries to increase their selling product. A
lot of athlete put in this product on their diet’s because
it’s can be travel easily, provide a quick snack and
readily available in most stores (Manore, 2006).
Indeed, based on the characteristics of energy bars
which have high-energy especially carbohydrate, this
product is potentially to increase human performance.
Curcumin is the naturally herbal product which
consumed by several people on the Asia countries
especially Indonesia. Curcumin content the
polyphenol which have been reported by previous
study have ability to increase human performance
486
Ray, H., Firmansah, A. and Patriasih, R.
Energy Bars with Curcumin Content Increase Human Performance.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education (ICSSHPE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 486-489
ISBN: 978-989-758-317-9
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

(Gaffey et al., 2015, Nicol et al., 2015). Furthermore
our previous study showed that curcumin have ability
to increase mitochondrial biogenesis through
increasing cAMP (Ray Hamidie et al., 2015).
However, the effect of curcumin to increase human
performance remains unknown. We hypothesize that
energy bars conceive curcumin potentially to increase
supply high-energy instantly and extend the duration
of exercise on sport endurance.
2 METHODS
2.1 Participants
Eighteen men (aged 19± 1 yr.) volunteered to
participate in the present study during their 6 weeks
aerobic exercise. they had no more than one risk
factor for coronary heart disease, they had. no signs
or symptoms of cardiovascular disease, and they did
not have known cardiovascular, pulmonary, or
metabolic disease. The participants were randomly
divided into three groups: the control groups (n=6)
were only eat daily diet’s without added the energy
bars, the energy bars without curcumin content
groups (EB; n=6) and groups with added the energy
bars with curcumin content (EBC; n=6) (Waksberg,
1978).
2.2 Energy Bars Preparation
Energy bar that is meant in this research is a kind of
snack based on rice krispi and chocolate. In this
product formula is added complementary material
that improves the quality of the energy bar and is also
enriched with curcumin (Nielsen, 2009).
Ingredients:
 Chocolate: Chocolate used is a type of white
compound chocolate that melts at a temperature
40-45
o
C.
 Rice Crispy: Rice crispy is one of the main
ingredients that contribute energy and gives
crispy texture to the product. The types of rice
krispi used are those that have a fresh and not
sweet.
 Shortening: shortening is used using a
vegetable-based known as margarine.
 The sugar syrup: used is derived from corn
starch. This sugar syrup in addition serves to
provide a sweet taste as well to improve the
quality of the dough when it is formed.
 Dried fruits are additional ingredients that serve
to raise the nutritional value and taste of the
snack bar. The dried fruits used are raisin and
orange peel.
 Lime juice used to enhance the taste and color
quality of the product.
 Curcumin added to this formula in the form of a
powder that has been removed its water content.
Percentage of material composition:
 Melted chocolate 56%, rice crispy 17%,
 shortening 4%, corn syrup 2%, dry fruit 15%,
lime juice 1%, curcumin 1%.
2.3 Manufacturing Procedure
In general, materials used for energy-making bar are
ready to serve material so that the processing
procedure is done using the mixing method.
Mixing on the process of making the food bar
works all the ingredients, getting the perfect
hydration. For more clearly the following described
step step making energy bar in the following picture:
Figure 1 : Step by step making energy bar.
2.4 Aerobic Exercise Treatment
All participants were assigned to vigorous (75%
VO2R). Intensity during exercise was controlled by
having the subjects maintain target HR based on HR
reserve. Exercise volume (and thus energy
expenditure) was controlled across the three training
groups by varying duration and frequency. Fifty-five
melted
mixed
stirred
dropped to bakking sheet
allowed to stand
cut
wrapped
Energy Bars with Curcumin Content Increase Human Performance
487

subjects completed a 6-wk training protocol on a
stationary bicycle ergometer and pre- and post-
testing. During the final 4 weeks, the vigorous-
intensity group exercised for 40 min, 4 days/weeks
(Gormley et al., 2008).
Table 1: Six weeks training program.
Week
Aerobic exercise
Week 1
50% HRR, 30 minutes, 3 days, 45 ATU
Week 2
75% HRR, 40 minutes, 3 days, 90 ATU
Weeks 3-
6
75% HRR, 40 minutes, 4 days, 120 ATU
ATU = intensity (% HRR or % VO2R) x
duration x frequency; equivalent to
energy expenditure of X number of
minutes per week spent at VO2 max
2.5 Statistical Analysis
Statistical analysis was performed by one-way
ANOVA to assed the main effect of energy bars to
increase VO2 max and lactate threshold (pretest vs
posttest). The Tukey post-hoc test was used for
analysis to identify of difference between pretest and
posttest result on every groups. All data were
expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD). The
level of significance was established at p < 0.05.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 2: Subject characteristic.
Group
Age
(year)
Height
(cm)
Mass
(kg)
BMI
(kg.m
-2
)
Control
Pre-test
Post-test
19±1
162±4,3
58±4,9
58±4,9
23±1
22±1,2
EB
Pre-test
Post-test
19±1
163±4,1
60±3,3
58±3,2
22±0,6
21±0,7
EBC
Pre-test
Post-test
19±1
165±4,1
60±3,9
58±3,3
22±0,7
21±0,7
The baseline descriptive characteristic of the subject
is presented in Table 2. There were significant
differences observed at baseline between any of the
groups for age, height, mass, BMI, or percent body
fat.
Table 3: Change in VO2max (mL.min-1.kg-1) after the 6-
wk training protocol.
Group
Initial VO2
max
Final VO2
max
Net Change in
VO2 max
Control
35,2±0,7
38,2±0,7
2,9±1,1
EB
34,5±1,3
39,2±1,3
3,8±1,5
EBC
35±1,4
40,5±1,2
5,7±0,4
Figure 2: Percent changes (mean ± SD) in VO2 max after
training.
* significantly different from control (P<0.005). #
significantly difference from EB (P<0.005)
4 CONCLUSIONS
VO2 max significantly increased in all three exercise
groups, as seen in Table 3. To control for baselines
values, percent changes in VO2 max were analysed
by one-way ANOVA. As shown in Figure 1, there
were significant percent increases between pre-test
and post-test in the control group (8 %), the EB group
(10 %) and EBC group (17%). Furthermore, group
with added energy bars significantly difference with
control and interestingly that Energy Bars with
curcumin (EBC) group significantly difference with
Energy bars only without curcumin content.
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ICSSHPE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education
488

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