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German Olympians Drink a Lot of (Nonalcoholic) Beer, and Win a Lot of Gold Medals
When Simon Schempp, a biathlete on the German Olympic team, was training for the Pyeongchang Games, he often capped a hard day on the trail with a bottle of nonalcoholic beer. He enjoys the taste of beer like most Germans, who drink more of it per capita than the people of almost any other nation. But he drank the nonalcoholic variety for more than just the flavor. "It's a really good drink directly after training or after competition," said Schempp, who won a silver medal in the 15-kilometer mass start event on Sunday.
Schempp's sober assessment is popular in Germany. While most people see nonalcoholic beer as a responsible replacement for regular beer, Germans often drink it in place of sports drinks after exercise. Beer or Gatorade? No contest.
Johannes Scherr, the doctor for the German Olympic ski team, said nearly all of his athletes drink nonalcoholic beer during training. And the brewery Krombacher has supplied 3,500 liters (about 1,000 gallons) of nonalcoholic beer to the athletes' village so German athletes can enjoy it during competitions at the Pyeongchang Games, where Germany is tied for the most gold medals.
[...] Scherr conducted a double-blind study [open, DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e3182250dda] [DX] [alt], financed by a brewing company, in which he gave runners in the 2009 Munich Marathon nonalcoholic beer every day for three weeks before and two weeks after the race. These runners suffered significantly less inflammation and fewer upper respiratory infections after the race than runners who had been given a placebo.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:16AM (4 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:15AM
Maybe the Placebo was beer with alcohol. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:45PM
They were served with their own pee.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:53PM
Depends on the time of the study and quantity consumed, I suppose?
It's probably possible to make drinks with different alcohol content and indistinguishable flavour/appearance/aroma/etc. But the drinker would also need to be unable to notice the effects of the alcohol itself, which seems like it would be very difficult.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:38PM
I can think of five ways to set that up:
*) Give the control group coloured water (similar to what better pubs has been serving for decades as a non-alc option), nothing says you test the effects of good non-alc beer.
*) Give the control group another malt beverage
*) Give the groups a chaser as well (will allow you to hide alcohol), possibly to it as a U-Boot.
*) Mix it in with something else that masks the differences in taste (sugarwater approaching syrup hides even the taste of beer, and the effects of sugarwater is well known) for all groups.
and my favourite:
*) Lie! :) (state the experiment is for sport drinks and give the placebo group gatorade or whatever, and even better run a third group that gets water and maybe even a fourth group that gets milk...)
However all methods will cause unwated effects in the control group and needs to be compensated for.