00:00 Wide
– people sitting outside café
2
shot; couple at café table
Man
at table drinking coffee
Home
page of WADA website
Opening
page of 2005 List of Banned Substances
“Play
Fair” section of WADA website
Exterior,
University of Birmingham campus
As
above
Wide
– tests in progress in Laboratory
c.u.
athlete with air sampler in mouth
Wide
– researcher removing air sampler
c.u.
air hose
Athlete
drinking specially mixed drink
Guide Voice: Many of us enjoy a cup of coffee
– but if you’re an athlete, what effect is your morning
cup of coffee having on your sporting performance?
It’s a controversial issue in sporting circles. Caffeine
was removed from the World Anti -Doping Agency’s list of
banned substances in January of 2004 but prior to that, athletes
had been banned from competition for testing positive for excessive
caffeine levels.
Now researchers at the UK’s University of Birmingham have
been conducting research into the positive effects of caffeine and
carbohydrate intake on endurance athletes’ performances.
At the university’s Human Performance Laboratory, athletes
involved in endurance sports, such as cycling and triathlon,
participated in 3 exercise trials for 2 hours per session in the
lab, cycling at 55% of their maximum power output. Throughout the
trials athletes received one of three drinks, glucose, glucose with
caffeine or plain water, all specially mixed to taste the same.
00:56 SOT: Sophie Yeo, Researcher, Human
Performance Laboratory, University of Birmingham –
“What we’re looking at is the effects, if there are
any effects, of the caffeine on oxidation of the carbohydrate
drink. So, does caffeine increase the rate at which we can get the
carbohydrate into the system to be used for energy”.
01:12 c.u.
blood sample being drawn
Wide
– researcher taking blood sample
c.u.
sample being placed in tube for analysis
Wide,
researcher and subjects
Guide Voice: Blood and expired gasses were
measured every 15 minutes and the results gathered have been
positive. Their research shows that adding 5mg of caffeine per
kilogram of bodyweight to an athlete’s sports drink increases
the absorption of carbohydrate by 26% - potentially delivering a
major energy boost to endurance athletes.
01:31 SOT: Dr. Asker Jeukendrup,
School of Sport & Exercise Sciences, University of
Birmingham – “Here at the University of
Birmingham, over the last 7 years, we’ve tried to come up
with ways to deliver more carbohydrate, more energy to athletes
involved in very prolonged exercise and this study was one way to
try to deliver more carbohydrate, from some studies in literature
there were suggestions that maybe adding a little bit of caffeine
may improve the absorption of carbohydrate. We didn’t really
expect to find any positive results, but we did actually find that
adding a little bit of caffeine improves the delivery of the
carbohydrate and the use of that carbohydrate during
exercise.”
02:17 Wide
of Lab tests
c.u.
subject with mouthpiece
c.u.
computer readings
Guide Voice: But with the use of caffeine in
sport likely to be back on the agenda for the World Anti-Doping
Agency later this year, the research at Birmingham can only add to
the controversy.
02:27 SOT: Matthew Bridge, Research
Fellow, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of
Birmingham – “It’s one of these very
hard things to regulate because caffeine’s in a lot of
things, you can’t ban it totally from a sportsman’s
diet because its in things like chocolate and nuts and its
obviously in coffee and coca cola and its used as a flavouring in a
lot of different foods and so it’d actually be really
restricting a sportsman’s diet. To actually ban it completely
wouldn’t be the right thing to do. They might want to
re-assess levels that’re found in the urine if they’re
worried about it as a performance enhancing
substance.”
03:00 c.u.
on peddling feet
2
shot – athletes faces
Wide
– researcher and subjects
Wide
– Dr Jeukendrup making a cup of coffee
c.u.
coffee machine
Dr
Jeukendrup
c.u.
coffee cup
Guide Voice: Research indicates that, contrary
to the established view, athletic performance doesn’t
increase in direct proportion to caffeine consumed. There are
notable benefits from relatively small amounts of caffeine - as
little as one cup of coffee could have effects on performance and
10 cups of coffee or tablets of caffeine probably wouldn’t
increase this. In Dr Jeukendrup’s view this makes the
decision whether or not to ban caffeine a particularly difficult
one.
03:24 SOT: Dr. Jeukendrup – “I
can see 3 solutions; one is that caffeine is completely banned and
any detected level would result in a positive doping test, a second
solution would be as it is now- that all caffeine is allowed; or
the solution in between- that a certain level of caffeine is
allowed, that’s going back to the old situation. And that
last one wouldn’t have my preference because it’s not
always very clear to the athlete how much caffeine they can
take.”
04:01 Cyclists
rounding bend (Research-TV Archive)
Cyclists
on road (Research-TV Archive)
Cross
Country Runners (Research-TV Archive)
Graphic
– Effects of Caffeine on Exogenous Glucose Oxidation
Guide Voice: What is clear is that caffeine may
well have a role to play in the improved delivery of carbohydrates
to performance athletes – if it can continue to stay off the
WADA list of banned substances!
04:13 END
OF CUT
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