ReviewCureus2025
The Effect of Oral Pure Branched-Chain Amino Acid Supplementation on Exercise Performance and Body Composition: A Systematic Review.
Review in Cureus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are an increasingly popular sports supplement used by athletes as they are advertised to increase endurance, muscle recovery, lean muscle mass, and decrease muscle soreness and fatigue. However, the mechanisms behind BCAAs are not well-established, and previous studies have had mostly equivocal results; thus, the possible performance-enhancing effect of BCAAs is controversial. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the current literature on the effect of pure BCAA supplementation on exercise performance and body composition. Randomized controlled trials with healthy participants >18 years old were included. The intervention was pure combined BCAA supplements, and the comparator was a matched control. Studies with outcomes related to exercise performance and/or body composition were eligible. PubMed, Ovid Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched until 15/08/2025. We assessed selection, attrition, performance, detection, attrition, reporting and other biases from low to high risk based on the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews. Twenty-two studies were included with 511 participants in total. Eleven studies had trained athletes, whereas 11 articles had untrained participants. Daily doses ranged from 1.5g to 82g. The age varied from 18 to 71.7 years, whereas the study length varied from one day to six months. One study found significant differences in body composition after BCAA supplementation. There were 13 studies with significant findings for various exercise performance outcomes such as endurance, strength, muscle recovery, speed, and fitness. The results moderately support BCAA reducing muscle soreness; however, there is inconsistent evidence to support BCAAs having an ergogenic effect on strength and endurance. Due to unclear/high risk of bias in several studies, no meta-analysis was performed. In conclusion, BCAA supplementation may reduce muscle soreness post-exercise, but evidence for improvements in strength, endurance, and body composition remains inconsistent. However, future studies should consider improving certain limitations such as implementing incremental doses, strict diets, and enrolling more participants with diverse backgrounds.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.