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Hard-training athletes boost their performance with a variety of popular sports drinks. These drinks do work. But not in the way you’d think. That’s according to research just published in The Journal of Physiology.
Researchers tested three drinks. One contained glucose, a sugar. A second had maltodextrin, a tasteless carbohydrate. The third was plain water. All three were laced with artificial sweeteners until they tasted identically sweet.
Endurance athletes rinsed their mouths with one of the three drinks during a tough workout. Surprisingly, athletes that rinsed and spat out the glucose and maltodextrin performed 2 to 3 percent better than those who got the artificial sweetener. They said they didn’t feel like they were working any harder. Then they had their brains scanned by fMRI. The drinks that had real sugar and carbs lit up areas of the brain connected to pleasure and reward. But the fake sweet water did not.
So maybe experiencing pleasure helps override some of the challenge of the workout. And scientists say this means there are receptors in our mouth other than for simple taste, receptors that communicate directly with the brain. Kind of gives new meaning to the term muscle-head.
—Cynthia Graber
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3 Comments
Add CommentI find myself wondering if this has duped the bodies reward mechanism in a different way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnormally when i person tastes something sweet they consume it. here scientist appear to have found a mechanism that lets the brain know directly that what has been taken in has nutritional value that is relevant to the task at hand, so the brain, now duped into thinking it has more resources than it actually does, allows for exercise to take place more easily.
This may be a dangerous practice when running a marathon or playing football or any strenuous activity going on for hours at a time.
It is common knowledge that the buccal mucosa in the mouth, between cheek and gum and under the tongue, will allow direct access to the blood system of a chemical in the mouth. Hence the nitro glycerin in the cheek or under tongue for heart attack victims causes immediate relief. This way instead of swallowing and metabolizing whatever through the liver then into the blood stream, this is a direct route.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to get the full author / article info so that I can research this further. As there are many flavors of the American Journal of Physiology it would be nice to know which one was cited here.
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