Dr. Reynolds mentioned this at the end of his article that was posted. These are some studies I found when researching this particular antioxidant.

Biol Pharm Bull. 2006 Oct;29(10):2106-10.
Effects of astaxanthin supplementation on exercise-induced fatigue in mice.
Ikeuchi M, Koyama T, Takahashi J, Yazawa K.
Laboratory of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods Science, Graduate School of Marine Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan.

The present study was designed to determine the effect of astaxanthin on
endurance capacity in male mice aged 4 weeks. Mice were given orally either
vehicle or astaxanthin (1.2, 6, or 30 mg/kg body weight) by stomach intubation
for 5 weeks. The astaxanthin group showed a significant increase in swimming
time to exhaustion as compared to the control group. Blood lactate concentration
in the astaxanthin groups was significantly lower than in the control group. In the
control group, plasma non-esterfied fatty acid (NEFA) and plasma glucose were
decreased by swimming exercise, but in the astaxanthin group, NEFA and plasma
glucose were significantly higher than in the control group. Astaxanthin treatment
also significantly decreased fat accumulation. These results suggest that
improvement in swimming endurance by the administration of astaxanthin is
caused by an increase in utilization of fatty acids as an energy source.

PMID: 17015959 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2008 Feb 22;366(4):892-7. Epub 2007 Dec 17.
Astaxanthin improves muscle lipid metabolism in exercise via inhibitory effect of oxidative CPT I modification.
Aoi W, Naito Y, Takanami Y, Ishii T, Kawai Y, Akagiri S, Kato Y, Osawa T, Yoshikawa T.
Department of Inflammation and Immunology, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto 602-8566, Japan.

Intracellular redox balance may affect nutrient metabolism in skeletal muscle.
Astaxanthin, a carotenoid contained in various natural foods, exerts high
antioxidative capacity in the skeletal muscles. The present study investigated the
effect of astaxanthin on muscle lipid metabolism in exercise. ICR mice (8 weeks
old) were divided into four different groups: sedentary, sedentary treated with
astaxanthin, running exercise, and exercise treated with astaxanthin. After 4
weeks of treatment, exercise groups performed treadmill running. Astaxanthin
increased fat utilization during exercise compared with mice on a normal diet with
prolongation of the running time to exhaustion. Colocalization of fatty acid
translocase with carnitine palmitoyltransferase I (CPT I) in skeletal muscle was
increased by astaxanthin. We also found that hexanoyl-lysine modification of
CPT I was increased by exercise, while astaxanthin prevented this increase. In
additional experiment, we found that astaxanthin treatment accelerated the
decrease of body fat accumulation with exercise training. Our results suggested
that astaxanthin promoted lipid metabolism rather than glucose utilization during
exercise via CPT I activation, which led to improvement of endurance and
efficient reduction of adipose tissue with training.

Publication Types:
 Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

PMID: 18082622 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]