09 Dec 2015 The best sports drink has just two ingredients

Researchers from the University of Bath working with a team of cyclists discovered that these athletes found their workouts easier and felt better when they ingested sucrose-based drinks compared to those with glucose.

These findings are significant because even though more sports drinks include sucrose, many still only rely on glucose as their primary source of energy.

“We found that the exercise felt easier, and the gut comfort of the cyclists was better, when they ingested sucrose compared to glucose,” lead researcher Javier Gonzalez told The Guardian.

“This suggests that, when your goal is to maximize carbohydrate availability, sucrose is probably a better source of carbohydrate to ingest than glucose.”

The researchers’ suggestion: You can make your own optimal sports beverage for endurance workouts of over two and a half hours by simply diluting table sugar in water. (They suggest consuming 90 grams of sugar per hour diluted at a rate of 8 grams per 100 milliliters.)

Sure, it won’t be coloured some crazy neon hue, but the health benefits of neon are still dubious at best.

Source: The Guardian, read more

The research is being published in the international journal the American Journal of Physiology – Endocrinology and Metabolism.