Fuelled or fooled? Examining the evidence and mechanisms behind ultra‑high carbohydrate intake in endurance athletes (Plews et al).pdf (1.1 MB) Let the discussion begin.
This is a reasonable and accurate description of things, which is not surprising given where it’s published.
It’s a good summary of the current “gold-standard” position on this topic.
I don’t really have anything to add.
Anyone have a TLDR of the study? I wanted to skim and didn’t see a conclusion/results section
The key points in orange do you?
I uploaded it to ChatGPT and asked it to summarize it. Other AIs will work as well.
Thanks, missed that. Was looking for your normal article summary/pubmed style and it was in that box.
Basically benefit over 90g of carbs per hour not true for everyone, they need more tests on phenotypes to see who it works for and doesn’t.
I think it’s reasonable to do this and put this out there. Not everyone needs to be pushing 100g+
I also saw somewhere that increased carb intake increases endogenous carbohydrate burn rates. The opposite of what you want if long duration.
Depends how long “long duration” is. Think for the pros, “long” is probably 7h max. And they can have new bottles / food basically the whole time. So burning mostly carbs is not a problem. (And of course allows for higher power output, more attacks, etc.)
For anyone doing ultra events especially if you have to do your own re-supply (shops, or the few support stations) and are limited by how much you can carry, the carb-only strategy reaches its limits.
Burning more carbs isn’t necessarily a bad thing. During hard efforts, I think it only helps to have enough carbs onboard that your body is fully giving the green light to burn more carbs for energy and push harder.
The body really tries to limit energy expenditure if it has concerns about fuel.
It is if they run out when you need them, rather than sparing them as much as possible.
They won’t run out if you keep replacing them. 
You don’t need to use them sparingly if you’ve got enough in hand to fuel the work.
Using carbs sparingly isn’t what leads to groundbreaking performance – that’s the whole point of high-carb fueling. 
You have got limited muscle glycogen. The intake is not going to replace it whilst racing. At some point your body is going to have to down regulate how much comes from muscle glycogen. You are then dependent upon the rate your body can process your intake. Where as the guy alongside you is not.