Research

Hormonal

Ingesting 3 g/kg body mass of carbohydrate during the 3-hour recovery period following eccentric exercise-induced muscle injury increases local skeletal muscle mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory myokines (IL-6, IL-8, MCP-1) rather than attenuating inflammation.

If you perform heavy eccentric exercise (like heavy leg presses or downhill running), eating carbohydrates immediately after (3g/kg) will increase the genetic signals for inflammation inside your muscles. However, this did not change blood inflammation levels or muscle damage markers in this study. The practical impact on soreness or recovery time is unknown, but you should not avoid carbs for fear of 'increasing inflammation' as the systemic response was unchanged.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Contrary to our hypothesis, carbohydrate ingestion promoted greater gene expression of the myokines IL-6, IL-8, and MCP-1 in skeletal muscle after exercise. These data suggest that under conditions of moderate muscle damage, glucose may exert proinflammatory rather than anti-inflammatory effects within skeletal muscle, at least during the early (~3 h) post-exercise recovery period.
Megan L. Ross et al. · Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research · 2010

Why this rating

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design with healthy, trained males; however, it measures mRNA (gene expression) rather than protein or functional outcomes, and systemic inflammation was unchanged.

Source

Cytokine Responses to Carbohydrate Ingestion During Recovery from Exercise-Induced Muscle Injury

Megan L. Ross et al. · Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research · 2010

DOI 10.1089/jir.2009.0079

crossover · n=10Cited 21×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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