What is Rhodiola Rosea?

Rhodiola, also known as ‘golden root’ grows at high altitudes within arctic regions of Europe, Asia and North Americaand has been a popular traditional medicine in Eastern Europe and Asia. It is classed as an ‘adaptogen’ due to its ability to increase resistance to a variety of chemical, biological and physical stressors [1].

In 2011 the European Medicines Agency approved Rhodiola rosea as an adaptogen for the temporary relief symptoms relating to stress, exhaustion and weakness.These adaptogenic properties are predominantly due to the active ingredients of salidrosides and rosavins which have been found to provide anti-stress and anti-fatigue effects.

What does 3% Salidrosides mean?

The Rhodiola rosea extract is standardised to contain 3% salidrosides.

This is the main active ingredient within our rhodiola rosea extract which provides a more stimulating affect than rosavins and can help with reducing stress from high intensity exercise. Salidrosides may also enhance oxygen utilisation and reduce exercise-induced muscle damage and fatigue [11].

Rosavins is considered more calming and useful for reducing general stress and improving mood.

What are the benefits?

  • Increases physical endurance
  • Provides an anti-stress function
  • Improved mood and cognitive function
  • Improved power output

Increases physical endurance

Rhodiola rosea provides the ability to improve physical work capacity and endurance while improving the recovery time in between bouts of exercise.

The mechanisms that seem to contribute towards this is that it activates the creation of ATP in the muscles and increases the time to exhaustion [2].

Linking to the idea of a greater time to exhaustion is the fact the perceived rating of exertion is reduced and so you can continue for longer and the same intensity before tiring, this may potentially be due to a lower heart rate being seen during exercise and that heart rate recovered faster after exercise [3].

Provides an anti-stress function

Physical and mental work capacity can be improved from rhodiola supplementation. Being an adaptogen it works by increasing the bodies resistance to stress, exhaustion and fatigue.

It works by normalising the release of stress hormones while simultaneously boosting energy by activating ATP synthesis [4].

A 4 week trial was conducted with subjects having life-stress symptoms. Even after 3 days improvements were seen and rhodiola continued to improve stress symptoms into the 4th week [5].

Improved mood and cognitive function

Similarly to its anti-stress function rhodiola provides mood enhancement, involved in a study were participants that had generalised anxiety disorder. After 10 weeks of supplementation significant improvements to symptoms were made with rhodiola [6].

Improvements have also been seen in movement speed, accuracy, reductions in mental fatigue and quicker reaction times which can all be beneficial to sports performance [7].

A clinical study has shown it to be useful in reducing mental fatigue and improving mental performance when under stress induced fatigue. Physicians were mentally tested before and after a night shift and when supplementing with rhodiola saw significant improvements in their mental test results [10].

Increased power output

Rhodiola supplementation may enhance explosive performance as shown in a study testing repeated bench presses where around an 8% increase in mean barbell velocity was seen versus a placebo [8].

Anaerobic capacity and power may be increased as shown by improvements in a repeated Wingate test - where subjects completed 3 x 15 second tests separated by 2 minute recovery periods [9].

References

[1]https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=ac23069acec9e462c8ffe292f081556bdd16481d[

2]https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/27/12/3902#B38-molecules-27-03902

[3]https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/FullText/2013/03000/The_Effects_of_an_Acute_Dose_of_Rhodiola_rosea_on.37.aspx

[4]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13651501.2017.1417442#d1e440

[5]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ptr.3712

[6]https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2007.7117

[7]https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/rhodiola-rosea-as-an-adaptogen-to-enhance-exercise-performance-a-review-of-the-literature/C29592E00A7A6050E6AD5B1B87013427

[8]https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6953

[9]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02640414.2018.1538028

[10]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0944711300800550?via%3Dihub

[11]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15502783.2024.2433744#abstract