Re: Why do carbohydrates supplements require a certain time to begin working?

I'm in Indonesia, so unfortunately I can't find out what type of 
carbohydrate are there in those supplements you mention.

As a general rule, the longer the chain, the longer will it need to be 
digested. So a monosaccharide will take less time to digest than 
disaccharide, and disaccharide less time to digest than complex sugar.

It is true that monosaccharides and disaccharides are digested in short 
time, about ten minutes or so; but the purpose of giving extra time is to 
circulate the monosaccharides (ALL sugar are converted into 
monosaccharides when digested) into the body; preparing READY-TO-USE FUEL 
for almost every muscle in the body.

My guess is; those supplements you mention contains simple carbohydrates 
(sugars/i.e. glucose) to boost sugar level in blood. As i mentioned 
above, the extra time suggested is to give time so those sugars can 
circulate in the body.

!!One thing to remember is not to shorthen or lengthen the period from 
consumption to exercise:

Too short of time will give you LESS energy (e.g. 10 minutes): to digest 
sugars, you need energy; and taking such a large amount of carbohydrate 
can expense a moderate sum of energy; before the carbohydrate itself 
being "burned" (read about sugar metabolism, i.e. oxidative 
phosporilation, kreb's cycle, etc)

Too long of time (e.g. 2 hours) will convert the sugar (glucose) 
into "muscle sugar", not having so much energy as glucose (the "fuel" 
effiency becomes lower)



If you want some literature to support this, you can read about 
carbohydrate metabolism in any book about nutrition (but please pick a 
thick one; they usually contains more than the thin ones :)   )