Diferentes estratégias para utilização do carboidrato como recurso ergogênico: uma revisão narrativa

Abstract

Carbohydrates (CHO) are widely used as a nutritional ergogenic resource in sports. Thus, the objective of the present paper was to provide more recent information and recommendations available in the scientific literature on different strategies for using CHO as an ergogenic resource and to structure the recommendations in a didactic table for consultation of professionals working in the field of sports performance. A bibliographic search was carried out using the databases SCIELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences), PUBMED (Public Medline), VHL (Virtual Health Library) and Google Scholar with articles published from 2005 to 2020, using the terms and keywords: athletes; carbohydrate, high carbohydrate diets, mouthwash, metabolism and supplementation. They were associated by AND and OR search operators in various combinations. The adopted language was Portuguese and English. The articles were chosen, according to the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, first by the title, then by reading the abstract and finally by the full article. It was observed that different strategies can be used in the administration of CHO to athletes, namely: 1) use of hyperglycidic diets, 2) CHO overcompensation, 3) supplementation with CHO and 4) mouthwash with CHO. Ingestion of CHO increases the availability of muscle and liver glycogen, acts on the maintenance of blood glucose and allows the maintenance of muscle glycogen reserves. CHO mouthwash improves performance because it appears to activate some CHO receptors in the mouth, which in turn are related to motor control and a sense of pleasure in the central nervous system. All of the aforementioned strategies are effective in improving performance and the choice will depend on the type of exercise and the individual needs of the athletes.