Sélection des substrats lors de l’exercice prolongé avec ingestion de glucides : études par traçage au 13C

The main substrates oxidized during prolonged exercise, whether carbohydrates, fats or proteins, do not contribute equally to the energy supply. In addition, glucose can originate from different endogenous (muscle, liver) and exogenous sources. Many factors can affect their respective contribution including: active muscle mass, training, sex, nutritional state and environmental conditions. The use of stable isotopes, such as carbon 13 (13C), combined with indirect respiratory calorimetry corrected for urea excretion in urine and sweat, allows the differentiation of endogenous and exogenous substrates and the estimation of their contribution to the energy yield. These methods, allowing the measurement of fuel selection during prolonged exercise with glucose ingestion, enabled the comparisons found in the three experimental studies part of this thesis. In the first study, fuel selection was compared during prolonged upper- and lower-body exercise with or without glucose ingestion. The difference in fuel selection between upper- and lower-body exercise when water was ingested was modest with a slightly higher reliance on carbohydrate oxidation during upper-body exercise. The amount of exogenous glucose oxidized was lower but its contribution to the energy yield was higher during upper-body exercise due to the lower energy expenditure. In the second study of the thesis, the effects on fuel selection in women and men of a diet rich in carbohydrate and glucose ingestion during prolonged exercise were compared. It is generally recognized that for a given relative workload, women rely less on carbohydrates and more on fat than men. The separate effects of a diet rich in carbohydrates or glucose ingestion during exercise on fuel selection were indeed similar in men and women. However, the combined effects of both procedures were larger in women than in men, supporting the suggestion that a small carbohydrate deficit could be present in women. In the third study, substrate oxidation and particularly that of exogenous starch during prolonged walking at a low workload was described. Subjects engaged in prolonged exercise at low workload (<40 %VO2max) are encouraged to ingest carbohydrate along with water before and during exercise but there is currently few data on the contribution to the energy yield of ingested carbohydrate  in this situation. In contrast to what is observed in fasted subjects without carbohydrate ingestion during exercise, we have shown that carbohydrate (including exogenous starch) can supply a very large proportion of the energy yield when ingested before and at regular interval during prolonged exercise. Taken together, the results of the experimental studies show that ingested carbohydrates can supply a large fraction of the energy yield during prolonged exercise. However, the exercise mode, the sex and the workload sustained has shown some differences that are mostly due to variations in energy expenditure between experimental conditions or groups of individuals with different characteristics.

Keyphrases: indirect respiratory calorimetry, sex, exercise mode, walking