Caffeine reverses performance impairment associated with a ketogenic diet ☕️

But is it as good as having carbs in your diet?

Caffeine enhances performance regardless of fueling strategy, however high CHO availability is associated with improved training speeds compared with ketogenic diet

Study Details

This new study recruited 21 elite race walkers who were assigned to a 3-week diet of either…

🍞 High-carb (8 g/kg)

🥑 Ketogenic (~78% dietary fat)

Participants completed a 14 km tempo hill session at baseline and then every week thereafter ⏱️

In a randomised crossover design participants received either…

☕️ Caffeine (3 mg/kg)

💊 Placebo

…in gum form 20-min prior to the session ⏰

Here is what they found ⬇️

Key Findings

The keto group were faster at baseline vs high-carb however…

…the high-carb group improved walking speeds over the 3 weeks 📈

Whereas the keto group got significantly slower vs baseline 📉

Regardless of diet intervention, athletes got faster at a higher % of vVO2max (“velocity at VO2max”) when using caffeine vs placebo ⚡️

However, between-group differences remained, with high-carb athletes walking at a higher % of vVO2max vs the keto group‼️

Conclusion

Caffeine supplementation partially reverses the performance impairment associated with an LCHF diet ✅

But training quality can still be impaired, and lower than that of a well “carbed” and caffeinated diet ⚠️

Reference

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40964913/

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