Cola soda as good as sports drinks?

You may have seen this amongst runners, football players, or other serious athletes, but some individuals actually drink defizzed cola as an ergogenic aid.  It makes sense that you’d want the carbonation out of it since that’ll make you belch (and consequently make your teammates very unhappy).  But work at an Australian university looked at performance in competitive cyclists during 2 hours of cycling (70% peak oxygen uptake) followed by a time trial on the bike to see how fast they could cycle.  They found that when Coca-Cola was consumed during the last part of the endurance test (the hard part!), it enhanced performance similar to the traditional sports drink.

What’s interesting about this study is that Coca-Cola has a much higher concentration of sugar than traditional sports drinks (11% vs 6% carbs).  So more sugar (above the 8% concentration) doesn’t hurt performance at all.  So if you’re doing the stairmaster and are ready to conk out, maybe some defizzed cola will do the trick. 

References:
Cox GR et al. 2002. Effect of different protocols of caffeine intake on metabolism and endurance performance. J Appl Physiol 93:990-999.