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28.01.2017

Consuming carbs at night doesn't make for better sport performance

Endurance athletes who eat extra carbs at night, just before going to sleep, won't perform better the next day. But they will burn a little less fat and a few more carbs, wrote American sports scientist Michael Ormsbee, of Florida State University, in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism.

Study
The researchers got 12 trained female runners and triathletes to run 10 kilometres on a treadmill on different occasions.

On the evening before doing the trial, before they went to bed, the women drank on one occasion a placebo containing no nutrients. On another occasion they drank 335 millilitres of skimmed chocolate milk - which was good for 180 kilocalories, 30 g carbs and 12 g protein.

The researchers used TruMoo Chocolate Milk.

Results
In terms of their times, it made no difference whether the athletes had drunk chocolate milk or a placebo.

Yet the chocolate milk did change the athletes' metabolism. When the researchers got the participants to run at moderate intensity on a treadmill for 15 minutes before they did the 10-K trial, the athletes burned a little more carbohydrate and a little less fat if they had drunk chocolate milk the night before.

The chocolate milk may have had an adverse effect on the participants' sleep. After drinking the placebo, one 1 athlete reported abnormal sleep. After drinking the chocolate milk, 4 reported abnormal sleep. In addition, the chocolate milk increased the participants' appetite the next day.

Conclusion
"In summary, pre-sleep chocolate milk seems to alter next-morning resting and exercise metabolism in female athletes," the researchers summarised. "Specifically, nighttime chocolate milk increases [...] carbohydrate oxidation at a range of submaximal intensities."

"This is the first research to show effects to exercise metabolism greater than 4 hours after meal ingestion."

"While the potential effects observed to metabolism are novel, they did not translate to improved 10-km running performance."

Source:
Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2016 Jul;41(7):719-27.

More:
High doses of vitamin C and E may undermine effect of endurance and interval training 20.01.2016
Gluten-free diet has no effect on athletic performance 29.10.2015
Some energy shots make cyclists a little faster 30.04.2015

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