What the RATO means to SANTA MADRE

RATIO¿?

You may have noticed that on all SANTA MADRE product packaging the word RATIO appears followed by a number 1:05, 1:0.8, 1:1, 1:1, what does this mean?

First of all, it is important to contextualise why and where this comes from.

Endurance sport has evolved a lot in recent years, and proof of this is that very young athletes jump to professionalism or even win big 3-week races at just 20 years old. This is largely due to science, to the way all the technical knowledge in sport has evolved, and I would dare say, to a large extent, to carbohydrate.

Previously it was thought that the body had a capacity to absorb 50-60g of carbohydrate per hour, science and its studies with athletes have shown that it can go further, and that much more could be absorbed with the right ingredients.

What is more than proven is that the more carbohydrate, the more performance and even better post-exertion recovery, since when the body finishes the effort with low muscle glycogen (carbohydrate) reserves, muscle damage is greater and recovery is longer.

The question is, how can I put in high amounts of carbohydrates without feeling sick?

SANTA MADRE formulates all carbohydrates based on the body's ability to absorb carbohydrates, and from there, it marks how the product works.

What does SANTA MADRE mean by its RATIOS and what is it based on?

SANTA MADRE is characterised by the fact that it works with carbohydrates like no one else, or almost no one else, its secret? Its development department has studied and continues to study in detail how the entire digestive system works, from the moment the food enters the mouth, its subsequent decomposition and how these molecules enter the blood.

Throughout this process SANTA MADRE has focused on both the work of the digestive enzyme and the intestinal absorption of these molecules, and it is in this last part where the importance of the word RATIO lies, and not in the proportion of ingredients in the product.

It has been shown that not all carbohydrate molecules are absorbed in the same way in the intestine, and there are actually two absorption gates (GLUT1 and GLUT 5), and depending on the type of molecule, they enter through one gate or another.

It is important to bear in mind that each of these gates work in a different way and with a specific capacity, which means that they can become saturated and stop absorption. Almost 90% of digestive problems in athletes during exercise are due to saturation of the intestinal gates, more molecules have entered the intestine than those gates can absorb, once this happens, the digestive system sends an order to the brain to "close" and stop more food from entering, typical sensation "my stomach has closed", "vomiting", "bloating", "gastronteritis" etc...

The word RATIO in SANTA MADRE products refers to how the molecules with which the product is designed work those two intestinal gates. What for? So that the body can absorb large amounts of carbohydrates without saturating these gates.

SANTA MADRE works on two lines:

- The conventional line, which in its entirety works with a 1:0.5 RATIO, with this working RATIO the body has the capacity to absorb up to 90-100g of carbohydrates per hour, without saturating the intestinal gates.

- The UNUSUAL line, a line more dedicated to longer efforts, in these products the RATIO 1:0.8 and the RATIO 1:1 are used, and gives the body the capacity to surpass the barrier of 100g per hour, in some cases reaching 120-130g of carbohydrate per hour of effort.

It is important to bear in mind that these quantities are ideal for efforts of more than 3 hours, and that to reach them, an adaptive process must be carried out, with the aim of getting the digestive system used to working during sport, i.e. training the digestive system during effort.

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