Abstract
Purpose:
Sugarcane juice (ScJ) is a natural drink popular in most tropical Asian regions. However, research on its effect in enhancing sports performance is limited. The present investigation was to study the effect of sugarcane juice on exercise metabolism and sport performance of athletes in comparison to a commercially available sports drinks.Methods:
Fifteen male athletes (18-25 yrs) were asked to cycle until volitional exhaustion at 70% VO2 max on three different trials viz. plain water (PW), sports drink (SpD) and ScJ. In each trial 3ml/kg/BW of 6 % of carbohydrate (CHO) fluid was given at every 20 min interval of exercise and a blood sample was taken to measure the hematological parameters. During recovery 200 ml of 9% CHO fluid was given and blood sample was drawn at 5, 10, 15 min of recovery.Results:
Ingestion of sugarcane juice showed significant increase (Conclusion:
ScJ may be equally effective as SpD and PW during exercise in a comfortable environment (<30C) and a more effective rehydration drink than SpD and PW in post exercise as it enhances muscle glycogen resynthesis.Keywords
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© 2013, Author(s). This open-access article is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows for unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.