Should “Morality” Factor Into Exercise?

Just picked this one up on the wire:

Beer After Sport is “Good For The Body.”

Now, your first inclination should be to think, “Hey, didn’t Eugene write a blog post about how the media distorts and misrepresents scientific findings and how we should be reading the studies themselves?”

Indeed I did.

After the initial shock and horror of this so-called “study’s” findings wears off, let’s think about the situation critically for a second:

If we’re dealing with post-exercise recovery, then our priorities are rehydration, glycogen refueling, and protein delivery. With those parameters in mind, let’s take a look at the nutritional profile of beer and see how well it fulfills those requirements.

We can see from the charts that beer (per can) contains 327 grams of water (or roughly 11 oz). Okay, not great for rehydration, since you need to replenish all water used up in the activity, but at least we’re off to a decent start.

Beer also delivers 50.6 Calories (or about 13 grams) from carbohydrates, which works in our favor, since carbohydrates after a workout help to replenish glycogen stores in our muscles and liver. Check.

Lastly, what kind of of protein punch does beer deliver? Well, the analysis shows that a paltry 1.5 grams of protein is all we get from our can of beer. Far short of optimal, but it definitely more than water (which, of course, contains no protein whatsoever).

Based on our analysis, is it any wonder that beer beat out water in a rehydration test? More protein, carbohydrates for fast transport, and electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc.) to boot! In fact, based on the analysis, our old friend beer is looking more and more like a more “conventional” thirst quencher (except it contains much less sugar and more protein!).

Except, of course, for one tiny little detail: the ALCOHOL – which delivers the majority of the calories, distrupts recovery via elimination by the liver, creates a net dehydration effect, and impairs cognitive ability.

Oopsie. Nearly forgot that bit.

This is exactly the type of “cherry-picking of the truth” approach that major media and news outlets (not to mention researchers and health professionals) engage in – and shouldn’t. This kind of so-called research is precisely why books like Gary Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Caloriesis so important (it’s a great read, BTW. I intend to devote a blog post to it in a day or two when I’m done reading it).

The moral is clear: Read with a critical mind. It’s your own health and performance, after all.