Chocolate milk contains carbohydrates, proteins, fats, as well as water and electrolytes, making it a surprisingly good candidate for a recovery drink. In a recent meta-analysis, a team of researchers investigated other studies that looked at how chocolate milk worked in this regard compared to placebo and other products. The result, as some say, will surprise you.
In recent years, the health industry has been booming. Just go to the market that sells specialty products (or the health aisles of many supermarkets) and you’ll see countless products. In many cases, they are almost indistinguishable from each other. Certainly some are scientifically effective, but it’s hard to know how to find them in an unfamiliar crowd on the shelves.
But what if the familiar product was also effective?
Chocolate milk was reportedly produced in Jamaica by Irish doctors, naturalists and collectors Hans Sloane. It took some time to become popular, but it is now one of the most popular drinks on the market. The main attraction is the taste. The mouthfeel of the milk obscures the edible fiber of the cocoa cake, and the rich richness of chocolate works well with fat milk (recently, non-fat or defatted chocolate milk is also popular).
The health benefits of chocolate milk are still hotly debated, and sugar is particularly controversial, especially when it comes to nutrition for children. However, drinks may help in some situations, such as recovery from training.
A study led by Mojgan Amiri, now at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands and formerly at the Medical Science University in Yazd, Iran, analyzed the effects of chocolate milk as a recovery drink. The team analyzed 12 previous studies on this topic.
“Chocolate milk (CM) contains carbohydrates, proteins, fats, as well as water and electrolytes that are ideal for post-exercise recovery. For post-exercise recovery markers, water or other” sports drinks “. We systematically reviewed the evidence for the effectiveness of the compared CMs, “the researchers wrote in the study.
In some previous studies, chocolate milk consumption measured recovery and performance, especially until “time to malaise” or a metric called TTE (until you couldn’t maintain exercise at a particular power or intensity). It is suggested that time) will be improved. However, while a single study often focuses on a small sample size or a single metric, a meta-analysis can provide a larger overview. This is a fairly small meta-analysis, but one of the most comprehensive efforts to date.
Studies do not necessarily agree on chocolate milk as a recovery drink. Some have discovered that fat-free chocolate milk increases TTE, while others report more complex results. It is precisely this kind of situation that meta-analysis can provide a clearer situation. In this case, the researchers acknowledge that larger studies are needed, but ultimately conclude:
“Chocolate milk gives similar or better results when compared to placebo and other recovery beverages. Overall, the evidence is limited, with a better managed methodology and a larger sample size. High quality clinical trials are guaranteed. “
This does not mean that the recovery drink is not used, it just replaces everything with chocolate milk. These products can vary significantly in quality, and some products are superior to others. They can also be fine-tuned and you can find special drinks with different levels of protein, electrolytes, or carbohydrates, depending on exactly what you are looking for.
Chocolate milk may also have its own drawbacks. It often contains a lot of sugar (twice as much sugar as normal low-fat milk), fat (if not non-fat), and potentially other additives. There are also potential health problems with milk (most people on the planet are lactose intolerant) and for ethical reasons, which are associated with greenhouse gas emissions and animal treatment.
However, due to these caveats, the ability of chocolate milk, which many treat as a simple desert or unwanted treatment, to act as a healing drink is noteworthy. Chocolate milk seems to be an affordable and readily available replacement for recovery drinks, as larger studies are still pending and no exact improvements have yet been discovered.
This study was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
