Is Carbohydrate Mouth Rinsing a Novel Approach to Maintain Exercise Performance during Ramadan Fasting

During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, healthy able-bodied Muslims perform the religious fasting ritual (i.e., Ramadan fasting) in which they refrain from drinking and eating from sunrise to sunset on a daily basis for 30 days. There is no doubt that the restriction of food and fluid intake from fasting during Ramadan, accompanied with alteration in sleeping pattern can be a real challenge for Muslim athletes to perform at their optimum level. Extensive research of the effect of Ramadan fasting on various aspects of exercise performance remains inconclusive. Performance of brief period of exercise such as 30-seconds repeated jump and 5 to 30-meter sprint has been shown to be not affected by Ramadan fasting (1). On the contrary, Ramadan fasting has been shown to cause detrimental effect on prolonged high intensity, submaximal aerobic exercise and progressive incremental exercise to exhaustion (2, 3).In order to minimize the negative effect of Ramadan fasting on exercise performance, various strategies have been formulated which includes alteration in nutritional practices and changes in daily life style practices such as sleep pattern (1,4). In addition, rescheduling athlete’s training session to early evening following the break of fast or even in the late afternoon, which is prior to the break of fasting is recommended to the athletes as a strategy allowing them to maintain their level of exercise capacity (5).