ABSTRACT
The diet of athletes should be not only diversified but also properly balanced in terms of quantity and quality. A proper dietary pattern may contribute to the sportsperson’s optimal psychophysical performance and may help them to maintain good health status, including appropriate morphological and biochemical blood parameters. The correlation between the lower limit of the recommended carbohydrate intake and glucose concentration in the plasma as well as the recommended intake of dietary sodium, potassium, magnesium, and iron and their concentrations in the serum was investigated in female and male canoeists who underwent biochemical analyses. The levels of glucose and selected minerals as determined in athlete blood were generally in the range of reference values. The assessment of the nutritional behaviour showed that diets of the majority of canoeists were insufficient in dietary magnesium; although, the concentration of magnesium in the athletes’ serum was within normal reference values.
