For a recent story with Kettering Health, Dr. Cindy Cassell, a sports medicine clinical dietitian, detailed what student-athletes should be eating to remain fit and fueled.

Below is an excerpt from the Kettering Health story.

Younger athletes, Dr. Cassell points out, need more calories to keep up with their above-average energy needs. “A huge part of sports nutrition is making sure the given athlete is taking in enough calories to fuel the body to provide enough energy to perform.”

But, as she continues, “Most people either don’t eat enough or eat too much of the wrong things.” In either case, the body doesn’t have enough food to convert into energy. This can lead to sluggishness, mental fog, and poor sleep, affecting the body’s ability to repair itself at night.

Not consuming enough calories can also lead to RED-S, or relative energy deficiency in sports. This happens after an intentional restriction of calories, but also from accidentally not consuming enough—often due to students’ busy lives. RED-S can lead to

• Lack of energy
• Low bone density
• Menstruation irregularities (amenorrhea)

RED-S, if ignored, can lead to severe health issues. Parents and coaches should watch to see if their child or athlete is

• Overly fatigued
• Not sleeping well
• Losing weight dramatically
• Sick often

Good nutrition for student-athletes starts not with supplements or “diet hacks,” but with balanced meals.

Their meals should include

• Protein, to build and restore muscles, and improve immune system functioning
• Healthy fats, for brain and hormone health
• Carbs, for quick-burning fuel

Along with plenty of fruits and veggies for sugar, vitamins, and minerals.

Dr. Cassell also points to yogurt and nuts as excellent snacks full of quality calories. “Nuts often get a bad reputation,” she says, “because they are high in calories and fats. But these are good fats that your body uses for energy.”

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Almonds, peanuts, and pistachios are especially high in protein, fiber, and some carbs—fueling the body better and longer than a candy bar.

She also recommends snack options like

• Almonds and peanuts
• High-fiber cereals like Kashi
• Lactose-free milk

To read the full story from Kettering Health, click here. 

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“We are excited to continue to enhance the student-athlete experience at UMaine with the addition of our new fueling station,” said Jason Grunkemeyer, deputy athletic director. “This is another step in our continued effort to provide our students with the tools they need to achieve excellence.”

The Black Bears Fueling Station was created to assist student-athletes in keeping their bodies nourished on a day-to-day basis.

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to offer this resource to our student-athletes,” said Ben Randall, associate head athletic trainer. “It’s enriching to have so many people within our department step up and help this project flourish into something great. It was a need that many of us had identified, and to be able to make this a reality gives me immense pride.”

The Fueling Station, open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., offers student-athletes a variety of grab-and-go snacks that fall into the categories of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats such as bars, fruit, nuts, yogurts, and oatmeal. The area also offers options for individuals who have dietary restrictions.

» ALSO SEE: OHSAA expands 7-on-7 football opportunities 

“The UMaine Athletics team put together an impressive range of snacks to fuel any activity and fit well for student-athletes who are on-the-go, actively training and often pressed for time,” said Anne L’Heureux, a registered dietitian with Hannaford Supermarkets.

*This is an issued press release from the University of Maine Athletics. To learn more, click here. 

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A study from Scotland’s St. Andrews University compared the hydration from several different drinks, and found that beverages with a little bit of sugar, fat or protein—like milk—do a good job of keeping us hydrated longer.

Milk was found to be more hydrating than plain water because it contains the sugar lactose, plus some protein and fat, which help to slow the emptying of fluid from the stomach that sustains hydration. Milk’s electrolytes, including calcium, potassium, sodium and magnesium, also enhance hydration. And milk’s sodium acts like a sponge, holding onto water in the body to reduce fluid loss.

This is no surprise to Edward Pemberton, a Central Virginia engineer and part-time farmer who ran cross country in high school.

“After practice, I’d drink two big pint glasses of chocolate milk when I got home,” he recalled. “It makes you feel better—I think the little bit of sugar helps. And of course, milk’s got good stuff in it for recovery. I would mix it with Ovaltine, so it was vitamin fortified. I guess you could call it an all-in-one recovery drink.”

His dad, Leigh Pemberton, heads up the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation Dairy Advisory Committee, and represents Central Virginia on the VFBF board of directors.

“Protein,” he said. “That’s the kicker. Your muscles are craving it, and not all sports drinks offer it. This study helps consumers make the connection between a nutritious food like milk and physical performance.”

Milk producers agree. Earlier this year, Maryland Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association partnered with James Madison and Virginia Commonwealth universities to make its Maola Milk the official milk of campus athletic programs.

MDVA posted six billboards in key regional markets last fall, promoting Maola Milk as a recovery beverage through Milk Processor Education Program’s “Gonna Need Milk” campaign.

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A recent report from NutraIngredients.com detailed the results of the research, conducted by a group of researchers associated with Beijing Sport University.

The researchers recruited 11 healthy young men studying at the sports school. The subjects were trained at least six hours a week. One subject dropped out during the course of the trial because of injury.

The researchers noted that previous studies have shown that post-exercise protein intake combined with carbohydrates has helped boost athletes’ performance in subsequent training sessions. The purpose of the present trial was to examine what the effects of adding protein to a carbohydrate intervention would be if taken immediately before or even during an event.

The subjects underwent three phases in the trial, each of which had two supplementation interventions. One phase used a carbohydrate-only intervention in both parts of the test, while the others were supplemented with a protein/carbohydrate drink first, followed by a carbohydrate-only drink, while the third arm reversed that order. The protein used was a whey protein isolate and maltodextrin was chosen as the carbohydrate source. The protein was supplied at a dose of 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight, with the carbohydrate dose coming in at 0.4 g/kg.

In each phase, they ingested one of the supplement interventions 30 minutes before the start of the test and then warmed up with an hour-long treadmill run at 70% of their VO2 max. Then they downed the second supplement intervention and performed a running test to exhaustion at 80% VO2 max. They also had their blood drawn at baseline and at the conclusion of the test and supplied urine samples There was a 7-day washout period between the tests.

The researchers analyzed the blood for levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), creatine kinase (CK), and myoglobin (MB), which are associated with exercise-induced muscle damage.

The researchers found that both approaches of adding protein — either well before the start of exercise or as an acute intervention during exercise, helped quell the inflammation markers better than the carbohydrate alone. However, none of the interventions showed an appreciable effect when it came to how long the subjects could persist in the time-to-exhaustion test.

“Carbohydrate and protein supplement strategies can reduce muscle damage caused by endurance exercise, but they do not improve endurance exercise capacity,”​ they concluded.

To read the full story from NutraIngredients.com, click here. 

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“Food first” and “no needle” messages must be amplified among all athletes and their support teams to stop this trend in its tracks, they urge.

The authors, who regularly interact with professional team players in European and American leagues and their support teams, have become increasingly aware of the practice.

And while it’s not known exactly how common it is, anecdotally, some players are hooked up to IV nutrition drips as often as every week as part of a pre- or post-game routine, they say.

So-called “drip bars” and concierge IV nutrition services claim to boost health and performance, restore hydration, and speed up recovery, offering a menu of B vitamins, amino acids, glutathione, vitamin C and electrolytes, and potentially boosting levels beyond any therapeutic range.

Although easily accessible, these services seem to have escaped regulatory oversight, nor is there any guidance on their use for players or practitioners, point out the authors.

The principle of reducing needle use in sport and a “food first” approach is taught in sports nutrition courses around the world. A ban on needle use by athletes at the Olympic Games, except for appropriate medical use, and where a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) is obtained, has been in place for all recent Games, they highlight.

IV nutrition drips have traditionally been reserved for serious clinical conditions, such as anemia, symptoms caused by nutrient deficiencies, or to correct severe dehydration caused by marathon running in a desert, for example. But they are now being used for tiredness, fatigue, or recovery, say the authors.

“But the evidence is sparse and not supportive. We are aware of just two studies assessing vitamin injections in otherwise healthy participants, neither of which yielded an effect for the injection group,” note the authors.

And these drips are not free of risk, potentially interfering with the body’s powerhouses of detoxification and immunity—the liver and gut microbes—they add.

“Bypassing these mechanisms appears foolhardy unless there is a significant clinical rationale,” they write, adding that IV drips also carry risks of infection at the needle site and of blood clots.

Too much vitamin B6 is associated with peripheral neuropathy, while athletes regularly receiving IV iron risk liver disease, they point out.

“Given that the long-term effects of supratherapeutic doses of B vitamins and other nutrients are unknown in athletes, it does not appear to be worth the risk, especially given the lack of evidence-based benefits,” they write.

“More than this is the reputational risk to sport if it is normalized for athletes to regularly partake in self-directed IV [nutrition] use with a worrying shift away from what ‘works’ (according to scientific standards), to that which is unproven.”

“Furthermore, some athletes risk an anti-doping violation by participating in self-directed IV [nutrition] use.”

Figures on the prevalence of IV nutrition need to be gathered in tandem with governing bodies and players’ associations in the professional leagues providing guidance on the potential risks of IV nutrition use, say the authors.

“The ‘food first’ and ‘no needle’ messages need to be amplified among all athletes and multidisciplinary support teams to avoid what was previously a ‘last resort’ treatment becoming normal without scientific evidence of benefit,” they warn.

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