Abstract
We sought to investigate whether carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage ingestion reduced heart rate (HR) in twenty-three healthy young adults while climbing Mount Fuji at a given exercise intensity. Twenty-three healthy adults were randomly divided into two groups: the tap water (11 males [M] and 1 female [F]) and the carbohydrate-electrolyte group (10 M and 1 F). HR and activity energy expenditure (AEE) were recorded every min. The HRs for the first 30 minutes of climbing were not significantly different between the groups [121 ± 2 beats per min (bpm) in the tap water and 116 ± 3 bpm in the carbohydrate-electrolyte]; however, HR significantly increased with climbing in the tap water group (129 ± 2 bpm) but showed no significant increase in the carbohydrate-electrolyte group (121 ± 3 bpm). In addition, body weight changes throughout two days ascending and descending on Mount Fuji were inversely related to changes in resting HR. Further, individual variation of body weight changes was suppressed by carbohydrate-electrolyte drink. Collectively, carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage intake may attenuate an increase in HR at a given AEE while mountaineering at ~3000 m compared with tap water intake.
Highlights
Mount (Mt.) Fuji (∼3776 m) is the highest mountain in Japan
In regard to nutrients of drinks, they are natural, amounts of carbohydrate and sodium of CE group were greater on both days, while amounts of protein and fat of both groups are zero (Table 2)
We found that body weight changes significantly correlated with changes in heart rate (HR) at resting condition when the data were pooled from the two groups (R2 = 0.250, n = 23, P = 0.015)
Summary
More than 250,000 tourists climb to its peak every summer [1], but the number has been increasing since the mountain was accredited as a World Heritage Site in 2013. Individual variance of exercise performance under hypoxia with hypohydration was greater compared to euhydration, suggesting that prevention of individual variance may be important during exercise at high altitude. Carbohydrate-electrolyte (CE) solution intake has been reported to improve thermoregulatory responses, thereby attenuating an increase in heart rate (HR) at a given exercise intensity through accelerated rehydration during sports events at the sea level compared with tap water (TW) [4,5,6,7]. There have been few studies that examine this issue during mountaineering because there was no device to measure exercise intensity at high altitude
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