Sports beverages are riding a "high-protein wave" at the moment. Should serious athletes add protein to their sports drinks, or is this just another clever marketing ploy?
In this article, which is based on papers presented at a recent symposium, we take a look at what one of the speakers, Dr Stefan Siebrecht, had to say about the use of special protein hydrolysates and sports performance.
Dr Siebrecht, who represented DSM at the symposium, is based in the Netherlands.
Evolution of sports beverages
In 1965, the Gatorade Company developed the first sports beverages, which were either isotonic or hypertonic and consisted mainly of water to which certain carbohydrates had been added (e.g. glucose, fructose, and/or glucose polymers).
These drinks were later refined to also include electrolytes such as sodium and potassium. The success achieved with these sports beverages lead to the development of so-called 'energy drinks' after 1987.
Energy drinks not only contain water, electrolytes and carbohydrates, but now also include various amounts of caffeine (e.g. Red Bull etc.). Caffeine is used to stimulate performance and prevent fatigue, and such beverages are proving popular with the sporting fraternity, especially since 2004 when the injunction against caffeine as a banned substance in sport was lifted.
Athletes can use up to 5-6mg/kg body weight of caffeine to improve performance – higher levels do not provide any added benefit and could lead to dehydration and overstimulation.
In 1998, researchers started to add protein to sports beverages to aid recovery, and nowadays products such as PeptoPro which is marketed by DSM, are available in South Africa.
Functions of protein in athletic performance
According to Dr Siebrecht, protein plays different roles in different applications.
Body builders and strength athletes
In this category, protein:
increases muscle strength and muscle mass;
reduces body fat.
Endurance athletes
In this category, protein:
increases performance;
improves rehydration and provides some energy;
improves recovery after strenuous exercise;
boosts the synthesis of mitochondrial protein (i.e. in the cells).
Fitness enthusiasts
In this category, protein:
helps to reduce body weight;
improves reduction of body fat;
helps for rehydration after exercise;
increases exercise performance;
May reduce energy and food intake, because protein has a high satiation value.
Which protein works best?
A great deal of research went into identifying which type of protein will provide the above-mentioned benefits to athletes.
Initial studies with whey protein and casein did not provide satisfactory results. It simply takes too long for these proteins to be digested and absorbed into the blood stream so that they can be transported to the cells to build new proteins.
Subsequent studies discovered that the use of so-called 'protein hydrolysates' (i.e. proteins that have already been partially digested with commercial enzymes) gave excellent results.
Athletes, who used sports beverages to which protein hydrolysates had been added, recovered much faster than individuals who had not had any protein hydrolysates.
Thus we can conclude that it is advisable to use sports beverages which contain protein hydrolysates to obtain all the advantages listed above.
Protein aids recovery
During strenuous and prolonged exercise, muscle protein is broken down. If the athlete is to recover as rapidly as possible, he or she needs to supply the cells that do muscle repair with protein.
If you compare the following recovery periods, this will become even more evident:
Beverage
Recovery period
Water
1 week
Protein alone
1 week
Carbohydrate alone
2 days
Carbohydrate and protein
2 days
Carbohydrate and protein hydrolysate
less than 24 hours
If we keep in mind that damaged muscle is not able to store glycogen, then it is easy to understand why providing the muscle with proteins to improve muscle repair and recovery will also boost glycogen replacement, which is vital to sports performance.
Rapid recovery is essential to athletes who need to compete in intensive events or have events in rapid succession, for example, athletics or swimming, where periods of intense physical activity are often repeated a number of times during a single day.
Dr Siebrecht said that a product called PeptoSport was specially developed for the Dutch Olympic Team who participated in the Athens Olympics and that the athletes did exceptionally well.
When should you use protein-enriched sports beverages?
Dr Siebrecht recommends that sports beverages, to which a protein hydrolysate such as PeptoPro has been added, can be used before, during and after strenuous exercise.
He suggests that PeptoPro, which is a powder, should be added to whatever sports drink the athlete prefers (e.g. Energade, Powerade, EnerG etc.). The product is highly soluble and contains 80% protein. It is produced from milk protein (casein), which is treated with a special enzyme that makes it easy to dissolve in water and very easy to absorb from the digestive tract.
Adding PeptoPro to a sports beverage also makes it more palatable as protein hydrolysates tend to be bitter.
What should an ideal sports beverage contain?
In the light of the research reported at the symposium, an ideal sports beverage needs to contain the following:
water;
carbohydrates;
electrolytes;
protein in a highly soluble form.
Serious athletes can use combinations of their favourite sports beverages and a protein hydrolysate such as PeptoPro to ensure that they improve both their performance and their recovery.
Text copyright: Dr I V van Heerden, DietDoc
5 March 2007
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