The head of the UCI’s medical staff, Xavier Bigard, has issued a stern warning of the major risks currently being taken by amateur riders resorting to social media for wildly inaccurate versions of pro riders’ nutrition programs.
“I’m reading things that are absolutely terrifying, with no basis in fact,” Bigard told Ouest-France this week.
Bigard also claimed in the same interview that in sports nutrition in France, opportunities for formal education for those seeking to make a professional career in that area in the country were currently at “absolutely catastrophic” levels.
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“Basically, in terms of medicine and sports medicine, strictly speaking, there is no education available in this area at all,” he said.
In France, the dearth of well-trained home-grown professionals did nothing to stop the tendency of young amateurs to rely on false information in social media, he warned.
“Some imitate the professionals’ nutrition habits, which is risky for their health. But it’s hard to educate them well, because we find there’s lots of misinformation about nutrition on social media. It’s a catastrophe,” Bigard said.
“But it sells, and the poor amateur who uses these norms [for nutrition] without thinking about it too much isn’t just going to find it counterproductive; it’ll also produce digestive problems.”
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In France, the lack of trained sports nutrition specialists only accentuated this risk, Bigard said, “even though there’s a huge demand for these kinds of professionals.”
Other recent trends in cycling nutrition did not cause such concern for Bigard, such as the increase in glucose consumption, which he said was “completely favourable.”
However, he argued that consumption of more than 140 grams of carbohydrates per hour as a way of improving riders’ performances had no real effect because beyond that point, carbohydrate reserves would already be full.
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Last year, former Ineos Grenadiers rider and Ironman athlete Cameron Wurf told Cyclingnews’ study of a new test about carbohydrate intake that he consumed over 200g per hour during a triathlon. And 2025 Unbound Gravel winner Cameron Jones reportedly consumed 190 grams per hour for over nine hours.
“Glucose is the essential fuel for muscles, above all at high levels,” Bigard argued in Ouest-France. “After 90 minutes, you have to provide an external supply of it. The average absorption rate in a body through food is around 70 grams an hour.”
From the 2010s onwards, the addition of another carbohydrate, fructose, which is transformed into glucose in the liver, into cyclists’ diets allowed for a major increase in the total amount of glucose riders’ organisms could take on board, he said.
“This is how we came to significantly increase the availability of glucose in the body during very long-duration exercises, such as cycling,” Bigard added.
“[But] from the moment the glucose and fructose transporters are saturated, everything will stay in the digestive tract. And that can only be the cause of digestive problems.”