Mars junior Kelli Jancay recently participated in a study at Grove City College that could disprove belief in carbohydrate loading.

“High-carbohydrate, low-fat diets have been the predominant eating strategy for athletes for performance,” said Dr. Philip Prins, department of exercise science, “but recent evidence from our lab has challenged the superiority of that eating approach over low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets.”

The study measured how middle-aged runners and triathletes performed under both high-carbohydrate, low-fat and low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets.

Researchers found that the body actually uses a large amount of fat for fuel, even at high-exercise intensities. According to the study’s co-author Dr. Timothy Noakes, professor at Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa, this disproves the belief that high-intensity exercise can’t be sustained from breaking down fat.

“This is perhaps the single most important scientific paper that I’ve been privileged to be associated with in 40-plus years of scientific research,” Noakes said.