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Lead Stories: Saturday, July 19, 2008

Q&A: Does caffeine really improve athletic performance, or do you just feel more alert?

Posted January 24th, 2008 at 10:15 AM by Jeremy Sussman

Section: Nutrition, Supplements, Health & Fitness, Exercise

In endurance events, the first cause of fatigue is loss of muscle sugar, so athletes do whatever they can to preserve sugar levels. Caffeine causes the body to produce large amounts of adrenalin, which causes fat to be released from fat cells and float in the bloodstream.

This extra fat is taken up by the muscles and used for energy, thus preserving the body’s limited stored supply of muscle sugar. When muscles run our of sugar, the athlete requires more oxygen to do the same job, slows down, fatigues earlier, and has difficulty maintaining his performance.
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