Does breakfast consumption make a difference to glycogen?🔋

Will breakfast really make a difference.

Breakfast consumption does not rapidly increase liver or muscle glycogen content in well-trained cyclists

Study Details

This new study recruited 12 well-trained male cyclists to assess the acute changes to…

👉 Liver glycogen

👉 Muscle glycogen

…3-hrs after eating a carb-rich (3 g/kg) breakfast ⏰

Here is what they found ⬇️

Key Findings

After 3-hrs following breakfast ingestion…

❌ Muscle glycogen concentrations

❌ Muscle volumes

❌ Total muscle glycogen content

…did not change.

📈 Liver glycogen concentrations increased by ~10% (164±30 to 180±33 mmol/L)

📉 Whereas liver volumes decreased by ~6% (1.96±0.28 to 1.84±0.27 L)

Consequently, no net change in overall liver glycogen content was observed following breakfast ingestion 🤷‍♂️

Conclusion

Breakfast consumption does not acutely affect glycogen stores (within 3-hrs) ❌

This finding could make us reconsider the importance of breakfast 🧐

…or lead us to put more emphasis on fuelling the day prior for manipulating glycogen stores 🗓️

Would love to see performance outcomes assessed next 🔍

Reference

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajpendo.00400.2025

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