| It's like this...You need water! You need electrolytes. Thank you Gatorade for making the term electrolytes a common term.
Everyone understands we need water to avoid dehydration, but...
Why do we need electrolytes?
Many serious athlete's understand this as well, our muscles use electrolytes for muscle contraction. Specifically, Calcium, Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium, Phosphate and Biocarbonate affect and regulate the hydration of the body, blood pH, and are critical for nerve and muscle function. When we exercise, we lose all of these electrolytes through our sweat. Taking in just pure water can actually worsen the issue, because it dilutes the salts inside the body's cells and interferes with their chemical functions. This can lead to water intoxication.
Sorry, gatorade, but sugar and salt (sodium and chloride) is only a small amount of what we truly need to replace during endurance sports. Also, dentists recommend that regular consumers of sports drinks observe precautions against tooth decay because of the enormous sugar content.
I have never found a product that really does what Gatorade implies their product does, however, I have found one product that has twice the Electrolytes and 1/4 of the Calories of Original Gatorade. There's a health company called Melaleuca that offers a mix called sustain. It has Calcium, Potassium, Sodium and Magnesium. It also has vitamin E, C and B12.
Last edited by triparadise : 03-24-2006 at 09:59 AM.
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