EFSA confirms health benefit of carbohydrate solutions
The European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA) has published a Scientific Opinion confirming the beneficial health effects of carbohydrate solutions on the improvement of physical performance during high-intensity and long-lasting physical exercise.
The European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA) has published a Scientific Opinion confirming the beneficial health effects of carbohydrate solutions on the improvement of physical performance during high-intensity and long-lasting physical exercise. As a result, sports nutrition companies will be able to include on-pack claims regarding the performance boosting capacity of products containing carbohydrate solutions (CHO).
In the scientific opinion, the EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) notes that “carbohydrate solutions are sufficiently characterized in relation to the claimed effect. The claimed effect proposed by the applicant is ‘contribute to the improvement of physical performance during a high-intensity and long-lasting physical exercise,’ which is considered by the Panel as a beneficial physiological effect.”
The opinion notes that a cause and effect relationship has been established between the consumption of carbohydrate solutions and the improvement of physical performance during high-intensity and long-lasting physical exercise, with the target population being healthy trained adults performing high-intensity (at least at 65% of the VO2max) and long-lasting (at least 60 min) physical exercise.
The NDA notes that to reach the claimed effect, “CHO solutions (containing glucose, mixtures of glucose and fructose, sucrose, and/or maltodextrins) should be consumed to provide between 30 and 60 g of CHO/h, and up to 90 g CHO/h if fructose constitutes about one-third of the CHO mixture.”