Milk: The New Sports Drink? A Review
There has been growing interest in the potential use of bovine milk as an exercise beverage, especially during recovery from resistance training and endurance sports. Based on the limited research, milk appears to be an effective post-resistance exercise beverage that results in favourable acute alterations in protein metabolism. Milk consumption acutely increases muscle protein synthesis, leading to an improved net muscle protein balance. Furthermore, when post-exercise milk consumption is combined with resistance training (12 weeks minimum), greater increases in muscle hypertrophy and lean mass have been observed.
Extremely Limited Synthesis of Long Chain Polyunsaturates in Adults: Implications for their Dietary Essentiality and use as Supplements
Due to methodological issues that I won’t detail, determining what fatty acids were actually essential was actually a fairly difficult problem in the early part of the 20th century. In early research, it was thought that there were three EFAs, alpha-linoleic acid (ALA, not to be confused with alpha-lipoic acid, an insulin sensitizer), linolenic acid (LA), and arachidonic acid (AA). When it was found that rats could make AA out of LA, it was dropped, leaving two EFAs. I’d note that, at one point, it was thought that LA was the only EFA but, as we now know, both ALA and LA are essential fatty acids.
The Influence of the Subjects’ Training State on the Glycemic Index.
For readers who aren’t familiar with the concept, the glycemic index (GI) is a measure of how a given food affects blood glucose levels. It was introduced over 25 years ago as a more accurate measure of foods (as opposed to earlier schemes that simply used simple versus complex carbs) for diabetics and has been researched extensively since that time.
Different Glycemic Indexes of Breakfast Cereals Are Not Due to Glucose Entry into Blood but to Glucose Removal by Tissue.
This is another older paper that I wanted to talk about since it ties in somewhat with the feedback on milk below. In way of introduction, I should probably define glycemic index (GI) for readers who aren’t familiar with it.
The GI is used to rate carbohydrates by examining the blood glucose response to 50 grams of digestible carbohydrates. After fasting, subjects are first given some reference food; this used to be glucose but researchers now use white bread. The blood glucose response to white bread is defined as 100. Then, the test food is given and the blood glucose response is measured and compared to that of the test food. A food that shows 60% of the blood glucose response to white bread is given a GI of 60.
Milk as an Effective Post-Exercise Rehydration Drink
The effectiveness of low-fat milk, alone and with an additional 20 mmol/l NaCl, at restoring fluid balance after exercise-induced hypohydration was compared to a sports drink and water. After losing 1·8 (SD 0·1) % of their body mass during intermittent exercise in a warm environment, eleven subjects consumed a drink volume equivalent to 150 % of their sweat loss. Urine samples were collected before and for 5 h after exercise to assess fluid balance.
