Have you heard of E-Sports?
This is a form of organized competition with professional gamers playing video games individually or as teams. Previously the goal of these video games was mostly to achieve highest scores, but this has changed with time. Instead, players now challenge each other directly to determine the winner for a spectator audience.
First competitions took place in the 70’s, where the grand winning prize was a year’s subscription to a monthly magazine focusing on music and popular culture. Today's prize pools are large enough that players can make a good living from it. Major events are being televised, taking place in arenas with over 10’000 spectators. eSports has clearly gained immensely in popularity and is today a “billion-figure” business:
- 1 billion USD – Turnover of nutrition products targeting e-gamers in 2019
- 2.7 billion - Number of amateur and professional players worldwide
- 4 billion viewers – Spectators following the League of Legends World Championship in 2019
The gamers must perform at their best just like any other traditional sports during competitions. Amazingly pro athletes can coordinate up to over 500 movements per minute in average – this are 8 moves per second. This requires a high level of concentration, alertness, information processing, endurance, and visual skills. These professional e-gamers spend up to 12 hours a day playing games, which can result in poor eye health, overuse injuries in the hands (“gaming arthritis”) or overweight with time.
It is not a surprise that specially the cognitive challenge during gaming is very high. There are many ways the players can stay focused during these long-lasting contests. Power nap, meditation or “brain-boosting” ingredients, also called nootropics, can help. Caffeine is the most important nootropic on the market. It gives gamers a very quick energizing effect, but it can also trigger unpleasant side effects, such as gut discomfort or headache. There are many other popular nootropics on the market, such as green tea, gingko, ginseng, taurine, or resveratrol, just to name some.
E-gamers consume food or drinks regularly while playing. It is not a surprise that quick, easy, and tasty formats are preferred, such as energizing beverage drinks, snacks, and gummies. They help the players to stay energized and focused during the long competition. Hence adding nootropics to food and drinks targeting e-gamers can make sense. Among the different cognitive boosters, botanicals have gained much in popularity. When adding them into a beverage, one may face a couple of challenges, as they can be very bitter in taste, not dissolve well in water or produce residues.
SaraPEPP™ Nu is a natural extract of dried fruits of Timut pepper, obtained by a gentle extraction process using MCT oil. It is rich in hydroxy-a-sanshool, a substance known to play a role in the improvement of brain activity. This was investigated in a well-designed, placebo-controlled, and double-blind clinical study with 81 adults taking SaraPEPP™ Nu. All test person had to carry out complex mental performance tests, very similar to video gaming on a computer, before and after taking SaraPEPP™ Nu. Remarkably they were able to execute the given tasks significantly faster and felt much less tired after the challenging sessions compared to the placebo group. For more details on this pleasant grapefruit-like tasting ingredient or on this study please check out following links:
