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Grant support

This research was funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Spain, project AGL2016-77288-R, Ramon y Cajal program grant (2012_11910), and by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Spain (FPU grant 2016/01110). The authors acknowledge the study participants. We thank Dr Kenneth McCreath for critical reading of the manuscript.

Analysis of institutional authors

Angel Garcia-Merino, JoseAuthor
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Chronic flavanol-rich cocoa powder supplementation reduces body fat mass in endurance athletes by modifying the follistatin/myostatin ratio and leptin levels

Publicated to:Food & Function. 11 (4): 3441-3450 - 2020-04-01 11(4), DOI: 10.1039/d0fo00246a

Authors: Angel Garcia-Merino, Jose; Moreno-Perez, Diego; de Lucas, Beatriz; Montalvo-Lominchar, Maria Gregoria; Munoz, Elsa; Sanchez, Lara; Naclerio, Fernando; Herrera-Rocha, Karen Marlene; Moreno-Jimenez, Martha Rocio; Rocha-Guzman, Nuria Elisabeth; Larrosa, Mar

Affiliations

TecNM Inst Tecnol Durango, Unidad Posgrad Invest & Desarrollo Tecnol, Grp Invest Alimentos Func & Nutraceut, Durango, Mexico - Author
Univ Europea Madrid, Fac Biomed & Hlth Sci, Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Europea Madrid, Fac Biomed & Hlth Sci, MAS Microbiota Grp, Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Europea Madrid, Med Serv, Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Greenwich, Dept Life & Sports Sci, Eltham SE9 2TB, England - Author
Univ Pontificia Comillas, Dept Educ Metodos Inves & Evaluac, ICAI, ICADE, Madrid 28015, Spain - Author
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Abstract

Flavanols-rich cocoa has positive effects on lipid metabolism and might enhance the performance of athletes through an improvement in their body composition. To test this hypothesis a placebo-controlled intervention study in training endurance athletes who received 5 g of cocoa daily (425 mg of flavanols) for 10 weeks was performed. Dietary intake, body composition, exercise performance and plasma levels of follistatin, myostatin and leptin were measured. Cocoa intake significantly reduced body fat percentage (p= 0.020), specifically in the trunk (p= 0.022), visceral area (p= 0.034) and lower limbs (p= 0.004). The reduction in body fat mass was accompanied by an increase in plasma follistatin and a decrease in leptin, while myostatin levels remained unchanged. The intake of cocoa reduced the percentage of body fat of athletes, without any impact on athletes' performance. The change in fat body composition did not improve athletes' performance.

Keywords
AssociationConsumptionDark chocolateDiet-induced obesityExerciseExpressionMetabolismProductsTraining intensity distributionWomen

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Food & Function due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2020, it was in position 22/144, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Food Science & Technology.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 4.29, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions May 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-05-09, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 16
  • Scopus: 19
  • OpenCitations: 17
Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-05-09:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 81.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 81 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 19.6.
  • The number of mentions on the social network Facebook: 1 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 19 (Altmetric).
Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Mexico; United Kingdom.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (GARCIA MERINO, JUAN ANTONIO) .