Superdrink update
When Eliud Kipchoge sped to a sub-twohour clocking in an exhibition marathon in Vienna last fall, one of the innovations credited for his success was a sports drink made by a Swedish company called Maurten. The company’s drinks contain two key ingredients – pectin and sodium alginate – that supposedly react in the acidic milieu of the stomach to produce a goopy hydrogel that encapsulates the energ y-giving carbohydrates, fooling the sensors in your stomach that would normally trigger gastrointestinal problems. The result is a high-energy drink that’s easy to digest , even in t he middle of a race.
Kipchoge and numerous other elite marathoners now swear by Maurten’s drinks. Yet, despite repeated promises from the company, there’s scant evidence that the drinks really are better than competing products. Two recent studies put the company’s claims to t he test . In t he f irst , published in t he European Jour nal of Applied Physiolog y, researchers at Virginia Milit ar y Instit ute, working wit h several ot her universit ies, put nine cyclists through a 98-minute test that included a series of sprint intervals. They found no differences in performance or in subjective ratings of gastrointestinal discomfort while drinking a litre an hour of Maurten versus a regular non-hydrogel carbohydrate drink.
In the second study, published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, researchers at Monash University in Australia had nine runners do a moderate three-hour run followed by a 12-minute race to exhaustion. Once again, there were no significant differences between Maurten and a control drink for either performance or gut distress.
That’s not necessarily the f inal word, though. The problem with both of the new studies is that very few of the subjects experienced any significant gut problems, regardless of what they were drinking. Maurten can’t fix a problem that isn’t actually occurring. Unfortunately, the circumstances that contribute to gut problems in races – heightened nerves, truly all-out effort – are very hard to reproduce in the lab. Until more and better evidence emerges, Maurten will likely remain a popular – but unproven – sports drink option.