Carbohydrate Mouth Rinsing Experiment

Through this investigation we found no effect in carbohydrate mouth rinsing on exercise performance. On the contrary to our hypothesis, there was no significant difference in distance cycled between those who carbohydrate mouth rinsed and the control (Fig. 1.). In addition, we also found that there was no significant difference in HR throughout the entire investigation between treatment groups (Fig. 2.). These exercise performance results is inconsistent with those results obtained by Carter et al. (2004), Pottier et al. (2008) and Rollo et al. (2008) as they had reported a significant enhancement in exercise performance after carbohydrate mouth rinsing.
It was initially postulated that oropharyngeal receptors, contained in the oral cavity, could sense flavourless carbohydrates. Those receptors then activate reward
Additionally, respiratory rate results were also not included due to total distance cycled being a more robust measure of exercise
However, studies by Carter et al. (2004), Pottier et al. (2008), Rollo et al. (2008) and Chambers et al. (2009) report enhanced exercise performance after carbohydrate mouth rinsing. Possible differences in results may be due to fasting time and participant selection with subsequent exercise duration. As the majority of research in this area has been conducted on endurance trained athletes, further research in eliciting the flavourless carbohydrate oral receptors and their effects on reward pathways in the CNS during exercise is still needed to confirm any benefit of carbohydrate mouth rinsing on exercise performance for the general