Summary
Food-grade gels are emerging as versatile platforms in sports nutrition, offering advantages beyond conventional liquids and solids through their tunable structures, rheological properties, and controlled release behaviors. This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of current advances, highlighting how protein-, polysaccharide-, and composite-based gels function as nutrient carriers while modulating gastrointestinal dynamics, enzyme accessibility, and molecular interactions to optimize nutrient absorption and bioactive stability. Special attention is given to stimuli-responsive gels, which adapt to physiological triggers such as pH, temperature, ionic strength, and enzymatic activity, enabling spatiotemporal precision in nutrient release. On the application side, evidence supports the
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