July 23//London/RTTNews -- Sports drinks may have little benefit to athletes, says a new study from researchers at Oxford University. The team, lead by Dr. Carl Heneghan, reviewed the marketing claims of over 400 consumer sports products including drinks and found what they call "a striking lack of evidence" about their effectiveness.

Heneghan and his team requested research data from the manufacturer of "an isotonic performance fuel to take you faster, stronger, for longer," but the research team says that may be an overstatement.

After reviewing data from 101 trials involving the drink, Heneghan says there was little discernable improvement to athletic performance:

"In this case, the quality of the evidence is poor, the size of the effect is often minuscule and it certainly doesn't apply to the population at large who are buying these products. Basically, when you look at the evidence in the general population, it does not say that exercise is improved [or that] performance is improved by carbohydrate drinks," he wrote in the report.