Sports drinks are famous for sports enthusiasts and for people who just want to sweat out. These drinks are believed to be good for enhancing performance and rehydrating after long hours of doing intense activities.
But recently, research suggested that drinking a glass of water with a spoonful of sugar is way better than chugging down sports drinks. According to The Guardian, long-distance athletes could boost their performance by drinking this alternative.
A group of researchers at the University of Bath observed a team of cyclists' glycogen levels in their livers when doing long duration exercises. The researchers used an MRI scanner in observing the effect. They tested the impacts of taking sucrose and glucose-based drinks like sports drinks; and they showed that it prevents the decline of glycogen in liver. However, experts also discovered that the subjects exercise easier when they drank sucrose compare to glucose.
News reported by The Independent said that lead researcher, Dr. Javier Gonzalez shared, "The carbohydrate stores in our liver are vitally important when it comes to endurance exercise as they help us to maintain a stable blood sugar level. However, whilst we have a relatively good understanding of the changes in our muscle carbohydrate stores with exercise and nutrition, we know very little about optimizing liver carbohydrate stores during and after exercise."
The team of researchers learned that taking sucrose rather than glucose resulted to better gut comfort and to exercise with ease. These results implied that sucrose is better source of carbohydrate when one's goal is to get the most out of carbohydrate availability.
After the research, a recommendation was made by the scientists. If a person wants to attain the finest performance level when doing exercise and other intense activities for the duration of more than two and half hours, the person may drink up to 90g of sugar per hour, diluting 8g of sugar per 100ml.
This is a good alternative for boosting one's performance without the need of consuming commercialized sports drinks that may not be good to one's health.
