Effect of glucose and sodium chloride mouth rinses on neuromuscular fatigue: a preliminary study

Carbohydrate (CHO) mouth rinse has been shown to improve endurance performance and maintain the central drive of contracting muscles. Salt (NaCl) mouth rinse solution, often used in dentistry to desensitise the oral cavity to pain, could also activate cortical areas of the brain. Hence, the objective of this preliminary study was to investigate whether CHO (glucose) and NaCl mouth rinses could attenuate the reduction in maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) and sustained MVC (sMVC) following an endurance exercise (30-minute cycling at 70% VO₂max). Ten subjects (male, age: 22 ± 1 years, weight: 65.3 ± 12.4 kg, height: 164.5 ± 7.5 cm, VO₂max: 48.3 ± 6.1 mL kg^-1 min^-1) completed three trials of 30-minute cycling exercise. In a randomised cross-over study, in each trial, the participants rinsed using either water, 6% glucose, or 6% NaCl solution for 5 s immediately prior to and every 10 min during the cycling exercise. The MVC and sMVC were measured pre and post cycling. Analysis of variance showed significant interaction and time effects for MVC, while for sMVC there was a significant interaction with time and group effects. Both MVC and sMVC were higher post cycling in the glucose and NaCl groups compared to the water group, which suggests that activation of glucose and NaCl oral receptors could better preserve post-exercise force production. This is the first study to show that NaCl mouth rinse can produce a comparable effect on glucose. Hence, mouth rinses may be able to activate other distinct pathways that could attenuate fatigue.