The investigation into the performance-enhancing claims of some popular sports products found "a striking lack of evidence" to back them up.
A team at Oxford University examined 431 claims in 104 sport product adverts and found a "worrying" lack of high-quality research, calling for better studies to help inform consumers.
Dr Carl Heneghan of the Oxford University Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine led the independent research into the claims made by the makers of sports drinks, protein shakes and trainers.
Dr Heneghan and his team asked manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for details of the science behind their claims and were given what he said scientists call a "data dump" - 40 years' worth of Lucozade sports research which included 176 studies.
Dr Heneghan said the mountain of data included 101 trials that the Oxford team were able to examine before concluding: "In this case, the quality of the evidence is poor, the size of the effect is often minuscule and it certainly doesn't apply to the population at large who are buying these products.
"Basically, when you look at the evidence in the general population, it does not say that exercise is improved [or that] performance is improved by carbohydrate drinks."
In response, GlaxoSmithKline said they disagreed with the Oxford team's conclusions:
2 comments:
GSK do not even make these drinks, they sub-contract it all to third party drinks makers working to an agreed recipe. And the amino-acid hype is pure drivel, the body makes what it needs from protein.
How anyone could trust any product from this outfit which has just been fined $3 billion for fraud, corruption and misrepresenting data, boggles the mind. If they do it for so-called life saving drugs, that er... kill, they're not going to hesistate in doing so for soft drinks.
Thanks for commenting blackdog. All these so called wonder drinks are not much more than high sugar water. Anyone with a balanced diet has no need for them whatsoever.
They are expensive and serve no useful purpose other than make money for the exploiters.
Eddie
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