NCT05426109

Role of Peanuts in Healthy Weight Gain in Athletic Individuals

Exploring the Role of Peanuts in Enhancing Healthy Weight Gain in Athletic Individuals

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 33 (actual)
• Sponsor: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 40 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Many athletes and military personnel desire weight gain primarily as lean mass to improve performance and effectiveness in military/sport endeavors. While much is known about the energy restriction required to reduce body weight, very little is understood about energy and macronutrients needed to promote healthy gains in body weight and lean mass. Typically, athletes are encouraged to increase calorie intake by \~500 kcal/day with an emphasis on adequate protein and carbohydrate, and judicious inclusion of healthy fat-containing calorically-dense foods, including peanuts and peanut butter. This study proposes to evaluate the effect of a 10-week diet and exercise regimen designed to promote healthy weight gain. This will include increasing energy intake by 500 additional kcal/day (above weight maintenance diet) through daily provision of either peanut-based whole foods/snacks (peanut group) or a similar, high-carbohydrate, peanut-free snack (control group) along with a supervised strength training regimen. Results will serve as an important first step in helping understand the gaps in knowledge related to healthy weight gain, designing better weight gain meal plans, not only in athletes and military personnel, but also in clinical populations where promotion of weight gain is advocated.

Conditions

• Weight Gain

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Peanut snacks	Participants will undergo a 10-week diet and weight training regimen to promote healthy weight gain. These participants will receive seven 500 kcal peanut-containing (whole peanuts or peanut butter) snacks each week and consume one snack per day throughout the study. They will also perform a series of weight training exercises supervised by a personal trainer on 3 days per week.
OTHER	No peanut-containing snacks	Participants will undergo a 10-week diet and weight training regimen to promote healthy weight gain. These participants will receive seven 500 kcal non-peanut-containing high carbohydrate snacks each week and consume one snack per day throughout the study. They will also perform a series of weight training exercises supervised by a personal trainer on 3 days per week.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-11-22
• Primary completion: 2022-11-10
• Completion: 2024-11-12
• First posted: 2022-06-21
• Last updated: 2025-06-10
• Results posted: 2025-06-10

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States