BITTER-SWEET

Do cyclists consume too much sugar?

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As cyclists our relationship with sugar is complicated. Essentially, it's a balancing act. We need sugar to fuel our muscles while riding, but we also know that excessive sweet stuff can harm our health and performance. Like many things in life, there's a fine line between too much and just the right amount.

The NHS recommends that we eat no more than 30g of 'free', or added, sugars a day (roughly equivalent to seven teaspoons). These sugars are called 'free' because they are not bound to the structure of the food, and include all sugars added by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, as well as those contained in fruit juice and honey. The average person gobbles up 50g (12 teaspoons) a day-that's almost double the NHS's recommended dose. This overconsumption of sugar has been linked with a whole array of ailments including obesity, insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Given that our energy drinks and bars are crammed with the stuff a single energy bar can contain more than half of the recommended daily limit - I wondered whether cyclists are in danger of unwittingly storing up future health problems.

Breaking the chain

Sugars are short-chain carbohydrates, and that's exactly what fuel most of our riding. "When we exercise, we use carbohydrate as one of the main fuels," explains Dr Javier Gonzalez, professor of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Bath. "But we can quickly run out of stored carbohydrate in the liver and muscles, especially when that exercise is of higher intensity or prolonged duration. Sugar intake, in the form of sports drinks, bars and gels, is one of the ways we can help prevent depletion of glycogen and provide fuel to keep us going." A meta-analysis of 73 studies by researchers at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, found that sugar consumption during exercise led to an improvement in performance of up to 6%.