Postgraduate Program in Physical Education, Center of Physical Education and Sports, Federal University of Espirito Santo, Vitória 29075-910, ES, Brazil.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo 05508-000, SP, Brazil.
Nutrients. 2022 Apr 23;14(9):1769. doi: 10.3390/nu14091769.
The effect of caffeine on mitigating exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) is still poorly understood, but it was hypothesized that caffeine could contribute to decreasing delayed onset muscle soreness, attenuating temporary loss of strength, and reducing circulating levels of blood markers of muscle damage. However, evidence is not conclusive and beneficial effects of caffeine ingestion on EIMD are not always observed. Factors, such as the type of exercise that induces muscle damage, supplementation protocol, and type of marker analyzed contribute to the differences between the studies. To expand knowledge on the role of caffeine supplementation in EIMD, this systematic review aimed to investigate the effect of caffeine supplementation on different markers of muscle damage. Fourteen studies were included, evaluating the effect of caffeine on indirect muscle damage markers, including blood markers (nine studies), pain perception (six studies), and MVC maximal voluntary contraction force (four studies). It was observed in four studies that repeated administration of caffeine between 24 and 72 h after muscle damage can attenuate the perception of pain in magnitudes ranging from 3.9% to 26%. The use of a single dose of caffeine pre-exercise (five studies) or post-exercise (one study) did not alter the circulating blood levels of creatine kinase (CK). Caffeine supplementation appears to attenuate pain perception, but this does not appear to be related to an attenuation of EIMD, per se. Furthermore, the effect of caffeine supplementation after muscle damage on strength recovery remains inconclusive due to the low number of studies found (four studies) and controversial results for both dynamic and isometric strength tests.
咖啡因对减轻运动引起的肌肉损伤（EIMD）的影响仍知之甚少，但有假设认为咖啡因可能有助于减少延迟性肌肉酸痛，减弱暂时的力量损失，并降低循环血液中肌肉损伤的标志物水平。然而，证据并不确凿，咖啡因摄入对 EIMD 的有益影响并不总是观察到。引起肌肉损伤的运动类型、补充方案和分析的标志物类型等因素导致了研究之间的差异。为了扩大对咖啡因补充在 EIMD 中作用的认识，本系统综述旨在研究咖啡因补充对不同肌肉损伤标志物的影响。纳入了 14 项研究，评估了咖啡因对间接肌肉损伤标志物的影响，包括血液标志物（9 项研究）、疼痛感知（6 项研究）和 MVC 最大自主收缩力（4 项研究）。四项研究观察到，在肌肉损伤后 24 至 72 小时内重复给予咖啡因可以减轻疼痛感知，幅度从 3.9%到 26%不等。单次运动前（5 项研究）或运动后（1 项研究）给予咖啡因不会改变循环血液中的肌酸激酶（CK）水平。咖啡因补充似乎可以减轻疼痛感知，但这似乎与 EIMD 的减轻本身无关。此外，由于发现的研究数量较少（四项研究），并且对动态和等长力量测试的结果存在争议，因此，咖啡因补充对肌肉损伤后力量恢复的影响仍不确定。
