I found an article about sports drinks in THE WEEK 4th August 2012.
The article ran like this:
"The sports drink market is worth £1bn a year in Britain. But according to an article in the British Medical Journal, in most cases, people would do just as well, if not better, to drink water. The review of 104 popular brands found that although manufacturers make many grand claims for the effectiveness of their often calorie-laden drinks - whether in boosting performance or aiding recovery - there is a "striking lack of evidence" to back up most of them.
For instance, Lucozade Sport, the UK's bestselling sports drink, is said to have "an isotonic performance fuel to make you faster, stronger, for longer". But when Dr Carl Heneghan, director of the University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine asked manufacturer GlaxoSmithKlise (GSK) if they could assess the research on which these claims rest, he was given what scientists call a "data dump" - 40 years' worth of research which included 176 studies. His team managed to examine 101, before concluding that "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". They were similarly sceptical about claims that branched-chain amino acids - found in some of GSK's protein drinks - can enhance performance and recovery. One nutrition expert, Professor Mike Lean of the University of Glasgow, described the evidence for amino acids improving muscle strength as "absolute fringe", and in any case "totally irrelevant" in the context.However, GSK stands by it's claims, which it insists are backed up by science."
This article seems to play down the use of sports drinks branding them as a waste of money because there is no proof of their ability to increase performance or aid recovery. I then dug around in PubMed and on the BMJ to try to find some of the research papers where the data had come from and found this: http://tinyurl.com/cyzt7lp, a paper talking about the birth of sports drinks their use because of dehydration rather than thirst.
"The researchers also contend that much of the science behind sports drinks is biased or inconclusive and that empty calories from sports drinks are major contributors to childhood obesity and tooth decay" (http://tinyurl.com/coye356). So here we can see that there societal issues to do with the consumption of these drinks, although how many would one have to drink to lead to childhood obesity?
A BMJ article states that "Healthcare professionals should be encouraged to talk with patients about the calorific content of SSBs [sugar sweetened beverages] when discussing lifestyle modification to manage overweight and/or obesity . . . Consumption of water in preference to other beverages should be highlighted as a simple step towards healthier hydration: recommending 1.5 to 2 litres of water daily is the simplest and healthiest hydration advice you can give.” (http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4280) So this article also agrees with the obesity issue arising from the consumption of sports drinks.
However I think that the killer argument came from the BMJ when Powerade were quoted on their website saying “water doesn’t have the performance benefits of a sports drink,”—but it does not go on to quantify what those benefits are" (http://tinyurl.com/cyzt7lp).
If you read the BMJ article (http://tinyurl.com/cyzt7lp then you can make up your own mind based on the evidence/lack of evidence of whether they actually are beneficial..?!
The article ran like this:
"The sports drink market is worth £1bn a year in Britain. But according to an article in the British Medical Journal, in most cases, people would do just as well, if not better, to drink water. The review of 104 popular brands found that although manufacturers make many grand claims for the effectiveness of their often calorie-laden drinks - whether in boosting performance or aiding recovery - there is a "striking lack of evidence" to back up most of them.
For instance, Lucozade Sport, the UK's bestselling sports drink, is said to have "an isotonic performance fuel to make you faster, stronger, for longer". But when Dr Carl Heneghan, director of the University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine asked manufacturer GlaxoSmithKlise (GSK) if they could assess the research on which these claims rest, he was given what scientists call a "data dump" - 40 years' worth of research which included 176 studies. His team managed to examine 101, before concluding that "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". They were similarly sceptical about claims that branched-chain amino acids - found in some of GSK's protein drinks - can enhance performance and recovery. One nutrition expert, Professor Mike Lean of the University of Glasgow, described the evidence for amino acids improving muscle strength as "absolute fringe", and in any case "totally irrelevant" in the context.However, GSK stands by it's claims, which it insists are backed up by science."
This article seems to play down the use of sports drinks branding them as a waste of money because there is no proof of their ability to increase performance or aid recovery. I then dug around in PubMed and on the BMJ to try to find some of the research papers where the data had come from and found this: http://tinyurl.com/cyzt7lp, a paper talking about the birth of sports drinks their use because of dehydration rather than thirst.
"The researchers also contend that much of the science behind sports drinks is biased or inconclusive and that empty calories from sports drinks are major contributors to childhood obesity and tooth decay" (http://tinyurl.com/coye356). So here we can see that there societal issues to do with the consumption of these drinks, although how many would one have to drink to lead to childhood obesity?
A BMJ article states that "Healthcare professionals should be encouraged to talk with patients about the calorific content of SSBs [sugar sweetened beverages] when discussing lifestyle modification to manage overweight and/or obesity . . . Consumption of water in preference to other beverages should be highlighted as a simple step towards healthier hydration: recommending 1.5 to 2 litres of water daily is the simplest and healthiest hydration advice you can give.” (http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4280) So this article also agrees with the obesity issue arising from the consumption of sports drinks.
However I think that the killer argument came from the BMJ when Powerade were quoted on their website saying “water doesn’t have the performance benefits of a sports drink,”—but it does not go on to quantify what those benefits are" (http://tinyurl.com/cyzt7lp).
If you read the BMJ article (http://tinyurl.com/cyzt7lp then you can make up your own mind based on the evidence/lack of evidence of whether they actually are beneficial..?!
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