Honey: An Alternative Sports Gel

IT IS WELL KNOWN THAT INGEST-ing carbohydrates prior to andduring endurance exercise can im-prove performance capacity. Theprimary means of enhancing car-bohydrate availability prior to ex-ercise has been by ingesting car-bohydrate-rich snacks, whereasthe ingestion of sports drinks (glu-cose/electrolyte solutions) hasbeen shown to enhance carbohy-drate availability during exercise.Ingesting carbohydrates and pro-tein within 2 hours following exer-cise (e.g., 1.5 g/kg carbohydrateand 0.5 g/kg protein) has been re-ported to increase glycogen resyn-thesis and protein synthesis, pro-mote a more optimal anabolichormonal environment, and im-prove immune function. Theoreti-cally, optimizing availability of car-bohydrates prior to and duringexercise as well as following exer-cise can help optimize exercise per-formance and recovery, which leadto greater training adaptations (5). Although these may seemrather simple recommendations,different types and forms of car-bohydrates have varying affects onthe delivery of carbohydrates tothe muscle and anabolic hor-mones. In this regard, the typeand form of carbohydrate ingestedmay affect the digestion rate, glu-cose release in the blood, and in-sulin response. Over the last few years, re-searchers in the Exercise andSport Nutrition Lab at the Univer-sity of Memphis have been evalu-ating the effects of ingesting vari-ous types of carbohydrate gelsprior to and during exercise on ex-ercise capacity, as well as the ef-fects of different types of carbohy-drate/protein powders followingexercise on recovery (2–6). The ra-tionale has been to try to deter-mine the optimal type of carbohy-drate to ingest prior to, during,and/or following resistance andendurance exercise. An additionalgoal was to determine whetherhoney (in gel and powder form)can serve as a natural and less ex-pensive source of carbohydrates. Our most recent study evalu-ated the effects of ingesting honeyon blood glucose, insulin, and cy-cling performance prior to andduring endurance cycling. Our ra-tionale was based on results of ourinitial study in this series (3, 6),which found that the carbohydrateprofile and glycemic index re-sponse of honey was nearly identi-cal to that of a popular sports gel.Moreover, contrary to anecdotalmyth, we found honey did not pro-mote physical or psychologicalsigns of hypoglycemia in fastedsubjects (3, 5), during resistancetraining (1), or following resistancetraining (1, 2). In this study, 9 well-trained male cyclists performedthree 40-mile time trials on theirown racing bicycle attached to acomputerized race simulator. Eachrace was separated by 1 week.Subjects were asked to prepare foreach time trial as they would for acompetitive race and to follow sim-ilar dietary intake the day beforeeach time trial. In a double-blind,randomized, and counterbalancedmanner, subjects ingested 15 g ofa noncaloric ﬂavored gel placebo, adextrose gel, or honey with 250 mLof water prior to and every 10 milesduring each time trial. The placeboand carbohydrate gels were pack-aged in generic foil packets fordouble-blind administration.Blood samples were taken prior toand every 10 miles during the race.In addition, power output, splittimes, heart rate, and ratings of