Introduction
Ancient civilizations dating back to thousands of
yearsbcrecorded the intake of drinks containing
alcohol (or, more correctly, ethanol) as part of
social rituals. One practice which has persisted,
even throughout the last decades, is the intake of
alcohol before or during sport in the belief that
it might improve performance (for review,
see Williams 1991). Today, the major strong link
between sport and alcohol is through spon-
sorship and advertising, with many sporting
organizations, leagues, teams and events being
financed by beer and liquor brewing companies.
While a small number of athletes may still
consume alcohol specifically to attempt to
improve their sports performance, the
overwhelming majority of athletes who drink
alcohol, do so for social reasons. However, this is
often in the context of rituals that are part of the
culture of their sport. The aim of this chapter is to
overview the effect of alcohol on sports per-
formance, particularly related to the typical pat-
terns of consumption by athletes, and to provide
some guidelines for sensible use of alcohol by
sports people.
Alcohol use by athletes
Typically, alcohol intake provides less than 5% of
the total energy intake of adults, although recent
UK data suggest that alcohol accounted on
average for 6.9% of the total energy intake of men
aged between 18 and 64 years (Gregory et al.
1990); the corresponding value for women was
2.8%. Since the contribution to total energy
intake is regarded as minor, it is often excluded
from the results of dietary surveys of athletes.
Furthermore, while the general limitations of
dietary survey methodology are acknowledged,
it is likely that self-reported data on alcohol
intake are particularly flawed. For example,
people are unlikely to report accurately and reli-
ably about their consumption of a nutrient or
food that is regarded so emotively; there is poten-
tial for both significant under-reporting and
over-reporting. These factors help to explain the
lack of reliable data on the alcohol intakes and
drinking practices of athletes. It is also important
to note that, because many people abstain com-
pletely from alcohol, the data are skewed, and
mean values may be misleading: in the survey of
Gregory et al. (1990) quoted above, for example,
men and women who were alcohol drinkers
obtained an average of 8.7% and 4.3%, respec-
tively, of total energy from alcohol.
There are clearly gender-related differences in
consumption patterns, but age, socio-economic
background, and geographical location also
influence drinking habits. It is not clear whether
the consumption patterns of athletes are greatly
different from those of the non-athletic popula-
tion. In general, though, dietary surveys of
athletes which include alcohol suggest that it
contributes 0–5% of total energy intake in the
everyday diet. However, there is evidence that
this provides a misleading view of the alcohol
intakes of athletes. For example, in a dietary