Effect of fructose ingestion on muscle glycogen usage during exercise

Eight healthy males were studied to compare the effects of preexercise fructose and glucose ingestion on muscle glycogen usage during exercise. Subjects performed three randomly assigned trials, each involving 30 min of cycling exercise at 75% VO2max. Forty-five min prior to commencing each trial, subjects ingested either 50 g of glucose (G), 50 g of fructose (F), or sweet placebo (C). No differences in VO2 or respiratory exchange ratio were observed between the trials. Blood glucose was elevated (P less than 0.05) as a result of the glucose feeding. With the onset of exercise, blood glucose declined rapidly during G, reaching a nadir of 3.18 +/- 0.15 (SE) mmol X 1(-1) at 20 min of exercise. This value was lower (P less than 0.05) than the corresponding values in F (3.79 +/- 0.20) and C (3.99 +/- 0.18). No differences in exercise blood glucose levels were observed between F and C. Muscle glycogen utilization was greater (P less than 0.05) during G (55.4 +/- 3.3 mmol X kg-1 w.w.) than C (42.8 +/- 4.2). No difference was observed between F (45.6 +/- 4.3) and C. There was a trend (P = 0.07) for muscle glycogen usage to be lower during F than G. These results suggest that the adverse effects of preexercise glucose ingestion are, in general, not observed with either fructose or sweet placebo.