There are tons of supplements on the market designed to increase strength training and exercise performance, particularly for individuals who want to build a lot of muscle or break world records. While there are lots of established supplements to choose from, one newly-popular ingredient – D-ribose – may be the most potentially beneficial we’ve seen in a long time.
Let’s take a closer look at D-ribose as both a key molecule and a supplement ingredient to investigate its benefits and potential interactions with other compounds.
What is D-Ribose?
To understand D-ribose, you first have to understand ribose.
In a nutshell, ribose is a kind of sugar molecule your body can naturally make from blood glucose. It plays a key role in the body since it’s a component of ATP or adenosine triphosphate, which is the primary energy molecule your body uses for cellular respiration (essentially energy generation). Without ATP, your body couldn’t perform any of the major movements or activities necessary for life.
However, ribose is also a key part of ribonucleic acid or RNA, which is a crucial molecule needed for protein synthesis and other cellular activities. D-ribose is typically sold as a nutritional supplement and is designed to boost athletic performance or reduce fatigue (or both).
D-ribose can either be natural, or it may be synthetic, in which case it is called N-ribose.
Benefits of D-Ribose?
While more research needs to be done about the long-term and complex effects of D-ribose and associated supplements, there is plenty of evidence that D-ribose can provide some benefits to those who take such supplements regularly.
Energy Recovery
As mentioned, D-ribose is a key component of ATP’s structure. There have been some studies examining individuals completing intense exercise programs. Some participants took 17 g of D-ribose, while others took placebos. It turned out that those in the study who took the D-ribose supplements performed better over the study’s length.
Improved Heart Function
There’s also some evidence that D-ribose can be beneficial for energy production in your heart muscles. It may be that D-ribose can make rhythmic heartbeats more energy-efficient, enabling people struggling with heart problems to experience better blood flow throughout the body without their hearts having to work as hard.
Improved Exercise Performance
Remember, D-ribose helps your body make more ATP, providing your cells with more energy across the board. It’s no surprise that many people pursue D-ribose supplementation in order to boost their cellular energy production and therefore their muscular performance.
Some research suggests that D-ribose can help during exercise or athletics, especially for people who have conditions that otherwise limit their fitness capabilities. The available research suggests that you don’t need to take a lot of D-ribose in order to see meaningful benefits: some studies indicate that as low as 10 grams per day is enough to provide certain rewards.
Better Overall Muscular Function
More broadly, D-ribose supplementation may lead to better muscular function overall. This can be helpful for people with genetic disorders or other conditions that affect muscular function, such as MAD or myoadenylate deaminase deficiency.
With this benefit as with all the others described above, research is still ongoing and it’s not yet fully clear what role, if any, D-ribose plays in the recovery of affected individuals by one or more diseases or conditions.
In other words, time will tell whether D-ribose supplements are truly as effective as they are currently advertised. They may also eventually be added to other supplement ingredients to maximize overall health.
Does D-Ribose Interact with Other Drugs or Supplements?
Although there’s a lot of interest in D-ribose as fitness and energy-boosting supplement, it’s important to keep in mind that D-ribose could also induce a number of side effects or interact with other drugs or compounds.
Some insulin products can potentially interact with ribose, which may lead to a decrease in blood sugar. Since insulin also decreases blood sugar, taking D-ribose supplements in conjunction with insulin treatments could cause a dangerous dip in blood sugar levels. If you currently take insulin medication, please advise a health professional before trying any D-Ribose supplements.
Other potentially risky medications include glimepiride, glyburide, and chlorpropamide.
Even if you don’t have diabetes or take insulin for other reasons, you might want to avoid D-ribose supplements if you drink alcohol regularly. Alcohol can also decrease your blood sugar. The same holds true for aspirin. You should never take large amounts of aspirin with D-ribose, as this can lead to dangerous blood sugar dips.
Summary
As you can see, there’s still a lot of research that needs to be done on the true efficacy and safety of D-ribose supplements. However, early research is optimistic in linking D-ribose supplementation to greater energy levels, better muscular function, and a host of other health benefits. Consider trying D-ribose supplements yourself if you want to benefit from greater muscular performance.
