New open-label study: Brainberry® shows cognitive and performance benefits in professional basketball players.

Maastricht, The Netherlands, July 1st, 2022

Press release
BioActor recruited 35 professional Greek male and female basketball players to assess their cognitive and basketball-specific skills after an acute and one-week intake of Brainberry®. Notably, cognitive performance linked to focus, reaction time and hand-eye coordination improved acutely and following a one-week intake. Also, basketball-specific skills like shooting, rebounding and dribbling improved significantly, underlining the ability of Brainberry® to benefit sports performance.

Open-label study in professional basketball players

According to the F.I.B.A. (Fédération Internationale de Basketball), more than 450 million people play basketball worldwide, and about 70.000 of them are professionals. In the US, basketball is one of the most followed sports, and according to Statista, the National Basketball Association (NBA) generates about $6 to $8 billion in revenue per season.

Especially at the top level, nutritional strategies to improve cognition are key to succeeding in this sport. A professional basketball player needs to combine cognitive and physical skills and react to different situations during the game. Moreover, since players need to communicate with each other and their coach while performing, the cognitive load involved in this sport is massive.

Brainberry® is a nootropic ingredient developed by BioActor to help consumers improve their brain fitness in a natural and safe way. More specifically, Brainberry® is an Aronia berry extract from the Baltics, standardized for high levels of cyanidin-3-O-galactoside.

BioActor already conducted 2 double-blind placebo-controlled clinical studies which demonstrated cognitive benefits in middle-aged healthy individuals and in young healthy individuals.

Moreover, in a previous open-label study, Brainberry® improved cognitive performance of amateur gamers. The study revealed that gamers can benefit from the consumption of Brainberry® and improve their gaming skills such as eye-hand coordination and focus.

In follow up to these studies, BioActor now completed another open-label study on 35 professional basketball players in Greece, who consumed 65 mg of Brainberry® for seven days. Basketball is characterized by highly intermittent actions with changes in movement type every 1-2 seconds. Particularly at the highest level, the combination of gross and fine motor skills along with cognitive functions and psychomotor control is key to success. Female and male professional basketball players were selected from teams that participate in the first Greek basketball league.

The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of a daily intake of a capsule containing 65mg of Brainberry® on overall cognitive and basketball-specific skills.

The study results

During the three time points, Baseline (Time 0), Acute (Time 1) and 7 days (Time 2), the participants had to fill out a questionnaire with specific questions aiming at assessing cognitive skills, basketball-specific skills, mood, and sleep quality. At Time 0, the participants did not consume Brainberry®, in order to generate a baseline measurement for their self-reported skills during a basketball session.

The results show that the basketball players who participated in the study experienced a significant improvement (P < 0.05) from day one, in terms of cognitive: focus, reaction time and eye-hand coordination; and basketball-specific skills: shooting, rebounding, and dribbling. At the same time, no significant differences were found in their speed and quality of sleep was not affected.

Results-of-Brainberry-in-basketball-players

*Sig (P < 0.05) baseline vs acute; **Sig (P < 0.05) baseline vs after 7 days and ***Sig (P < 0.05) acute vs 7 days

 

With this additional study, which highlights the ability to enhance cognitive and basketball-specific skills, Brainberry® taps into the sports nutrition segment, where already some sports nutrition brands have adopted the ingredient and formulated products targeting brain fitness for athletes.

Vasiliki Louka, a professional basketball player that belongs to the women’s national Greek team stated:

“Brainberry® surprised me in a good way. This month was really tiring and stressful, especially for the athletes competing for the national team. I felt more focused during my training and considering that Brainberry® contains only natural ingredients, it makes it an interesting choice.”

Furthermore, the participants reported that one of the advantages of Brainberry®, compared to the most common caffeine-based supplements that they have been using, is that Brainberry® did not affect their quality of sleep and, at the same time, helped them decrease their stress level.

 

About BioActor

BioActor, based at the Maastricht Health Campus, Netherlands, is a life science company that has developed a range of proprietary bioactive ingredients for the nutrition & consumer health industries. The company focuses on the development of plant-based health ingredients for active living and healthy ageing. The goal is to provide the nutrition & consumer health industries with clinically tested innovations that confer a real health benefit to the consumer.

Feel free to contact BioActor via info@bioactor.com for more information on the possibilities Brainberry® has to offer.
Further information can be found on: www.brainberry.eu and www.bioactor.com