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Effects of Carbohydrate Mouth Rinse on Cycling Time Trial Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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A Correction to this article was published on 22 February 2019

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Abstract

Background

Despite the growing number of studies reporting carbohydrate mouth rinse effects on endurance performance, no systematic and meta-analysis review has been conducted to elucidate the level of evidence of carbohydrate mouth rinse effects on cycling trial performance such as time-, work-, and distance-based trials.

Objectives

The objective of this study were to establish the effect of a carbohydrate mouth rinse on cycling performance outcomes such as mean power output and time to complete a trial, together with the risk of bias in the cycling-carbohydrate mouth rinse literature.

Methods

We systematically reviewed randomized placebo-controlled trials that assessed carbohydrate mouth rinse effects on mean power output and time to complete the trial. A random-effects meta-analysis assessed the standardized mean difference between carbohydrate and placebo mouth rinses.

Results

Thirteen studies (16 trials) were qualitatively (systematic review) and quantitatively (meta-analysis) analyzed with regard to mean power output (n = 175) and time to complete the trial (n = 151). Overall, the reviewed studies showed a low risk of bias and homogeneous results for mean power output (I2 = 0%) and time to complete the trial (I2 = 0%). When compared with placebo, the carbohydrate mouth rinse improved mean power output (standardized mean difference = 0.25; 95% confidence interval 0.04–0.46; p = 0.02), but not the time to complete the trial (standardized mean difference = − 0.13; 95% confidence interval − 0.36 to 0.10; p = 0.25).

Conclusion

The present systematic and meta-analytic review supports the notion that a carbohydrate mouth rinse has the potential to increase mean power output in cycling trials, despite showing no superiority over placebo in improving time to complete the trials.

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Change history

  • 22 February 2019

    Section 3.2, Fig. 2: The wording on the x-axis which previously read.

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Acknowledgements

Flávio Oliveira Pires is grateful to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq-Brazil) for his researcher scholarship (#307072/2016-9). The authors thank ES Chambers, TN Kulaksız, and RM James for providing the requested data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Exercise Psychophysiology Research Group, School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, University of São Paulo, 1000 Arlindo Béttio Avenue, Ermelino Matarazzo, São Paulo, SP, 03828-000, Brazil

    Cayque Brietzke, Paulo Estevão Franco-Alvarenga, Rodrigo Silveira, Ricardo Yukio Asano & Flávio Oliveira Pires

  2. Applied Kinesiology Laboratory, University of Campinas, 701 Érico Veríssimo Avenue, Barão Geraldo, Campinas, SP, 13.083-851, Brazil

    Hélio José Coelho-Júnior

Authors
  1. Cayque Brietzke
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  2. Paulo Estevão Franco-Alvarenga
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  3. Hélio José Coelho-Júnior
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  4. Rodrigo Silveira
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  6. Flávio Oliveira Pires
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Flávio Oliveira Pires.

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Funding

This analysis is part of a carbohydrate mouth rinse project supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP-Brazil) (#2016/16496-3). This study was financed in part by the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES-Brazil), Finance Code 001 (Cayque Brietzke, Hélio José Coelho-Júnior, Paulo Estevão Franco-Alvarenga and Rodrigo Silveira).

Conflict of interest

Cayque Brietzke, Paulo Estevão Franco-Alvarenga, Hélio José Coelho-Júnior, Rodrigo Silveira Silva, Ricardo Yukio Asano, and Flávio Oliveira Pires have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the contents of this review.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (PDF 11 kb)

Supplementary material 2 (PDF 95 kb)

40279_2018_1029_MOESM3_ESM.tif

Funnel plots: (A) mean power output and (B) time to complete the trial. SE standard error, SMD standardized mean difference (TIFF 109 kb)

Supplementary material 4 (XLSX 12 kb)

40279_2018_1029_MOESM5_ESM.tiff

Forest plot comparing the mean power output between carbohydrate and placebo mouth rinses excluding high risk of bias studies; ‘a’ and ‘b’ denote different experiments within the same study. CI confidence interval, IV inverse variance, SD standard deviation, Std standardized (TIFF 17589 kb)

40279_2018_1029_MOESM6_ESM.tiff

Forest plot comparing time to complete the cycling trial (minutes) between carbohydrate and placebo mouth rinses excluding high risk of bias studies; ‘a’ and ‘b’ denote different experiments within the same study. CI confidence interval, IV inverse variance, SD standard deviation, Std standardized (TIFF 17589 kb)

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Brietzke, C., Franco-Alvarenga, P.E., Coelho-Júnior, H.J. et al. Effects of Carbohydrate Mouth Rinse on Cycling Time Trial Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med 49, 57–66 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-1029-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-1029-7

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