Go searching: Does it look like everybody has been pouring little packages of electrolyte into their drinks these days? Pre-workout, post-workout, with no exercise in any respect? Powders and tablets like LMNT, Liquid I.V., and Nuun are all over the place, from TikTok advertisements to your workplace snack counter.
The idea of hardcore hydration isn’t new — athletes have been including stuff to their water for millennia. And electrolyte-filled drinks like Gatorade have been mainstays in sports activities tradition for many years.
However right this moment’s electrolyte dietary supplements aren’t only for soccer gamers or ultramarathoners. Firms like Nuun market their tablets for everybody from aspiring endurance athletes to common folks going to yoga lessons throughout their lunch breaks.
These manufacturers are “enjoying into folks’s notion of what’s wholesome,” stated Samantha Coogan, a diet sciences educator on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas. And it appears to be working: In response to Priority Analysis, the world electrolyte drinks market is value over $40 billion and is predicted to develop to almost $75 billion within the subsequent decade.
The idea of hydration has develop into a level of fixation in wellness tradition, regardless that consultants nonetheless don’t totally agree on how a lot hydration we want or the best solution to get there. With electrolytes making their method from the world of endurance athletes to brunch cocktails, it’s tempting to consider that they may certainly be a magic treatment for all the pieces from leg cramps to hangovers.
Whereas electrolyte dietary supplements are nice for athletes and lifesaving for cholera sufferers, they’re not magic. Right here’s what it’s essential to find out about what electrolytes can and might’t do, and whether or not you want them.
What’s an electrolyte, anyway?
Our our bodies want to take care of a sure steadiness of important minerals to perform correctly: sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, chloride, phosphate, and bicarbonate.
These minerals are all electrolytes, substances that carry electrical energy by way of the physique, controlling fluid steadiness, muscle perform, and communication between the mind and the physique. The “electro” in “electrolytes” comes from the electrical cost produced once they’re dissolved in a fluid like blood. With out electrolytes, these electrical alerts get disrupted, inflicting muscle spasms and cramps, complications, and hassle pondering clearly.
Sodium particularly is a crucial electrolyte as a result of it aids in controlling the quantity of water in your blood. Electrolytes like sodium “mainly assist water within the physique go the place it’s speculated to go,” stated Holley Samuel, a registered sports activities dietitian who works with endurance athletes.
After we sweat, we lose a number of sodium and chloride (a.okay.a. salt). But when an individual profusely sweating solely chugs water with out additionally replenishing the salt, it throws off the steadiness of sodium and water within the physique, pushing an excessive amount of fluid inside cells. This could ultimately make these cells swell like raisins soaking in water, a doubtlessly harmful situation known as hyponatremia. While you drink water with electrolytes, that water is healthier in a position to stay round inside your physique the place it’s wanted.
Electrolytes like sodium “mainly assist water within the physique go the place it’s speculated to go.”
It’s essential to notice that “electrolytes don’t exist solely in a magic packet,” stated Stavros Kavouras, director of the Hydration Science Lab at Arizona State College. Past tablets, packets, and powders, electrolytes exist in common meals we eat on a regular basis, like bananas (potassium), cheese and crackers (sodium and calcium), and spinach (magnesium). Electrolytes as pre-packaged water dietary supplements, as we consider them right this moment, have solely been round for a couple of a long time.
Within the Nineteen Sixties, assistant coach Dewayne Douglas seen that his College of Florida soccer gamers had been struggling to get better after practices within the swampy Gainesville warmth. Athletes shed weight — Douglas recalled shedding as much as 18 kilos per sport himself, when he performed — however barely felt the necessity to pee.
After conducting research with UF first-year soccer gamers as topics, kidney illness specialist J. Robert Cade discovered that gamers felt horrible as a result of along with experiencing low blood sugar after figuring out, they had been sweating out tons of electrolytes, particularly sodium and potassium. So he created a brand new sports activities restoration drink for the Florida Gators, known as Gatorade: mainly water, salt, sugar, and lemon juice for style. The sodium-enriched drink helps athletes retain water whereas sweating, and the outcomes had been outstanding. “One Lil’ Swig of That Kickapoo Juice and Biff, Bam, Sock — It’s Gators, 8-2,” the Florida Occasions-Union celebrated in December 1966, after Gatorade’s first season with the staff.
Sports activities drinks took off, and different corporations started capitalizing on Gatorade’s success. All sports activities drinks are variations on Gatorade’s theme: Water for hydration, sugar for vitality, and electrolytes to help in fluid absorption, in addition to flavoring to get it down. Sports activities drinks act as “one magic bullet” for athletes, Kavouras stated. “You are taking one factor, and it has all the pieces in there.” This system is so efficient it’s advisable by the World Well being Group for rehydrating folks, particularly cholera sufferers or youngsters experiencing diarrhea.
At first, these drinks had been primarily marketed to skilled athletes. In the present day, Powerade and Gatorade are marketed as delicate drinks for anybody.
In 2024, the yr of the large water bottle, there are additionally a bunch of new-wave electrolyte dietary supplements like Nuun, LMNT, and Liquid I.V. in grocery and comfort retailer aisles, which swap sugar for various sweeteners like stevia leaf extract or allulose to focus on shoppers who don’t wish to drink too many further energy. These dietary supplements market themselves as hydration superfoods: one thing to assist athletes, positive, but in addition a hangover treatment and general vibe-booster for normal, health-conscious folks.
Coogan stated, in case you’re consuming a balanced food plan and aren’t coaching for a marathon, you most likely shouldn’t be pounding again electrolyte packets.
In case your physique wants further electrolytes, dietary supplements — whether or not a Gatorade or a Nuun — will be an environment friendly solution to rehydrate. However, Coogan stated, in case you’re consuming a balanced food plan and aren’t coaching for a marathon, you most likely shouldn’t be pounding again electrolyte packets. “An excessive amount of of factor will not be all the time factor,” Coogan stated.
Okay, however what about hangovers? Pedialyte, an oral electrolyte answer meant for infants and kids, has develop into the go-to hangover treatment for younger adults at music festivals and fraternity events. School college students are even making an attempt to sidestep the implications of binge ingesting by swapping beers for BORGs (“blackout rage gallons”): a half-gallon of water combined with a bottle of liquor and an electrolyte additive.
Alas, electrolytes are not a magic hangover treatment — making an attempt to undo an evening out with electrolyte dietary supplements is “simply going to be an uphill battle,” Coogan stated. Whereas pre-hydrating with an electrolyte complement earlier than an evening out would possibly assist mitigate a number of the penalties of the approaching alcohol-fueled dehydration, the one actual hangover treatment is time.
Electrolytes are nice for super-sweaty instances. In any other case, meh.
One of the best time to devour further electrolytes is whenever you’ve been sweating lots, or in any other case shedding a number of fluids by way of one thing like meals poisoning. Coaching for a long-distance run? Working on a development website on a summer season day in a spot like Phoenix? Specialists say electrolyte dietary supplements are undoubtedly name.
Many individuals (myself included) fall someplace in between sofa potato and ultramarathoner. I requested consultants how I ought to take into consideration electrolytes, as somebody who spends a lot of the day sitting in entrance of my pc, then goes to a CrossFit or pole dancing class after work. Samuel says that for informal health club rats and leisure athletes, how you must rehydrate largely is dependent upon how a lot you sweat, and what your sweat is product of.
Some folks “go to do a spin class they usually’re on the bike for 5 minutes, and there’s a puddle round them,” Samuel stated. “If that’s you, you’re a heavy sweater.” Sodium ranges in sweat may also range anyplace from 200 milligrams per liter to 2,000, relying on the particular person. In case your sweat tends to sting your eyes or depart white streaks or crystals in your pores and skin and garments, you is likely to be a salty sweater.
For informal health club rats and leisure athletes, how you must rehydrate largely is dependent upon how a lot you sweat, and what your sweat is product of.
Each heavy sweaters and salty sweaters ought to take into account electrolyte dietary supplements earlier than, throughout, and after figuring out. The American School of Sports activities Drugs recommends consuming at the least 300 milligrams of sodium per hour in case you’re going to be out sweating for greater than an hour, whether or not you’re taking part in a sport or just working exterior on a scorching day. Learn labels, too: Attempt to keep under 14 grams of sugar per 8 ounces of fluid (that’s about half of the quantity in a Gatorade Thirst Quencher).
Be certain to examine the sodium content material on the label of your electrolyte complement, although: Some widespread dietary supplements, like Liquid I.V., include 500 mg of sodium, which is greater than what’s mandatory for all however the sweatiest endurance athletes. These athletes normally must devour extra sodium than different folks, Samuel stated. For everybody else, dietary supplements with extra reasonable ranges of sodium (round 200 to 300 mg), ought to be sufficient to rehydrate.
About one-third of in any other case wholesome individuals are delicate to salt, which means that consuming excessive quantities of sodium causes an improve in blood strain. “That’s why you will have heard {that a} excessive sodium food plan can result in hypertension and heart problems,” Kavouras stated. When you’re delicate to salt, you’ll wish to watch out. The FDA recommends Individuals restrict their sodium consumption to 2,300 mg per day.
Nonetheless, for most individuals, it’s subsequent to not possible to devour a harmful quantity of electrolytes. When you eat extra carbs, fats, or protein than your physique wants, they get saved as fats. However electrolytes aren’t saved — they’re eradicated. “When you drink an excessive amount of sodium,” Kavouras stated, “you’ll be peeing extra sodium.”
You don’t essentially want an electrolyte complement after your exercise. Low-fat milk (or soy milk, for lactose-intolerant and plant-based athletes) supply sufficient electrolytes, carbs, and protein to rehydrate, restore muscle groups, and stabilize blood sugar, and smoothies can incorporate protein and fat along with electrolyte-rich meals like bananas, dates, leafy greens, and coconut water.
Electrolytes have one other counterintuitive profit: making you thirstier. “Electrolytes assist in sustaining the thirst drive for an extended time frame,” Kavouras stated. This may be useful for individuals who battle to drink sufficient water, as a result of they aren’t thirsty sufficient to achieve for it — or as a result of they don’t just like the style of water. “If it tastes higher, and if it drives thirst longer, you’ll be ingesting extra by yourself,” Kavouras stated.
Whereas ingesting an electrolyte complement whenever you don’t actually need one is never harmful, Samuel cautioned that consuming further sodium with out sufficient further water (or sweating it out) is dehydrating — say pouring two LMNT packets into one regular-sized water bottle, though that may style fairly dangerous. “You’re mainly creating jerky out of your self by salting an excessive amount of,” she stated. “We wish to be a pleasant, hydrated steak.”
You don’t want them on a regular basis, however electrolytes will help rebalance a sweaty physique and make ingesting water somewhat extra enjoyable. Simply keep in mind that they’re hardly magic — they’re salts.