Chocolate Milk For Exercise Recovery?

There’s an exercise paradigm suggesting that chocolate milk (CM) is an ideal post-exercise recovery drink.  Someone actually evaluated this, and the outcome was not extremely supportive of the paradigm, but did not refute it either: “CM provides either similar or superior results when compared to placebo or other recovery drinks.”  At best, CM seems marginally better than placebo or other recovery drinks, but more studies, with larger sample sizes, are required.  Abstract:

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES:Chocolate milk (CM) contains carbohydrates, proteins, and fat, as well as water and electrolytes, which may be ideal for post-exercise recovery. We systematically reviewed the evidence regarding the efficacy of CM compared to either water or other "sport drinks" on post-exercise recovery markers.SUBJECTS/METHODS:PubMed, Scopus, and Google scholar were explored up to April 2017 for controlled trials investigating the effect of CM on markers of recovery in trained athletes.RESULTS:Twelve studies were included in the systematic review (2, 9, and 1 with high, fair and low quality, respectively) and 11 had extractable data on at least one performance/recovery marker [7 on ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), 6 on time to exhaustion (TTE) and heart rate (HR), 4 on serum lactate, and serum creatine kinase (CK)]. The meta-analyses revealed that CM consumption had no effect on TTE, RPE, HR, serum lactate, and CK (P > 0.05) compared to placebo or other sport drinks. Subgroup analysis revealed that TTE significantly increases after consumption of CM compared to placebo [mean difference (MD) = 0.78 min, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.27, 1.29, P = 0.003] and carbohydrate, protein, and fat-containing beverages (MD = 6.13 min, 95% CI: 0.11, 12.15, P = 0.046). Furthermore, a significant attenuation on serum lactate was observed when CM was compared with placebo (MD = -1.2 mmol/L, 95% CI: -2.06,-0.34, P = 0.006).CONCLUSION:CM provides either similar or superior results when compared to placebo or other recovery drinks. Overall, the evidence is limited and high-quality clinical trials with more well-controlled methodology and larger sample sizes are warranted.