In the satirical movie “Idiocracy,” an average American man wakes up from a five hundred year cryosleep to find himself in a future where the crops fail because they are watered with a sports drink instead of water. The people in the film are firmly convinced that the electrolytes in the sports drinks are beneficial to the plants’ growth. Though it is certainly an exaggeration, this instance mirrors how, in today’s American society, many people believe sports drinks are a form of hydration inherently superior to water. According to Innova Data, “half of U.S. consumers consume sports and functional drinks more than once a week,” and among them, “42% cite health reasons for doing so.” The electrolytes supplemented, namely sodium and potassium, can certainly carry benefits for a group of people, mainly athletes who train intensively. However, that group is very small compared to the number of people who consume these products. Moreover, many sports drinks come with other unhealthy aspects. In short, electrolyte beverages are overused by people who don’t need them.
The modern sports drink industry began with the invention of Gatorade in 1965. Dwayne Douglas, assistant coach of the University of Florida football team, was wondering why his players were losing weight during practices and games in the heat, while not urinating much. Kidney disease specialist Robert Cade further researched the issue. He found that intense sweating seemed to take away the players’ stamina and strength. Cade attributed this phenomenon to lack of electrolytes, primarily sodium and potassium. Shortly after, Gatorade was born, and the University of Florida’s football team had a great season. The rights were secured by Stokely-Van Camp Co. in 1967, which was purchased by Quaker Oats Co. in 1983, which was then purchased by Pepsico in 2001.
So, what exactly are electrolytes, and what happens when our body deals with intense exercise, extreme heat, or both, as the Florida Gators did? Electrolytes are substances that have positive or negative electrical charges when dissolved in water. In our bodies, they help conduct electrical charges for nerve impulses, contract muscles, and maintain proper fluid balance. Major electrolytes include sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, phosphate, and bicarbonate. Most come from our diet, and particularly from fruits, vegetables, nuts, dairy, and lean protein. The body regulates electrolyte levels by expelling excessive quantities primarily through the kidneys with urination and to some degree with perspiration. During strenuous exercise, however, the electrolyte lost in the greatest quantity is sodium, with smaller amounts of potassium. In long, intense, or very hot workouts, these losses can accumulate enough to affect hydration or performance. This is what sports drinks are designed to restore. Although these electrolytes can be obtained naturally through diet because the digestive process is slow, it takes hours for them to enter the bloodstream. Sports drinks, on the other hand, provide an immediate supply right after long and intense workouts.
The people who benefit most from supplemented electrolytes are those who engage in intense, prolonged exercise in hot weather or who sweat profusely during exercise. I personally wouldn’t even recommend such products for the vast majority of Parker athletes. If you are, however, training for a 10k, half, full marathon, or any equivalent or more extreme endurance efforts, especially over the summer, electrolytes can definitely be helpful.
The problem is that many people, at least according to my own observations, consume electrolyte drinks thinking they are inherently healthy or that their normal gym workouts justify them. The reality is that the vast majority of people do not benefit from added electrolytes. In fact, supplemented sodium can lead to overconsumption (much more sodium is consumed than is lost), which over time raises risks for high blood pressure and for kidney strain. Additionally, many sports beverages include added sugars, which significantly increase risks of obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and poor dental health. Artificial food dyes are also prevalent in sports beverages, some of which are proven carcinogens, genotoxins, and have adverse neurobehavioral effects on children.
So, what has led people to overconsume these products that they don’t need? The reality is that Big Soda (which owns the vast majority of sports beverage brands) has engaged in a slew of misleading and false advertising as well as studies that exaggerate the benefits of sports beverages, especially in comparison to water, and overplay their benefits on the average human.
Much of said advertising has been focused on convincing consumers that they are not hydrating enough. According to The Atlantic, Powerade has promoted messages such as “without realizing, you may not be drinking enough to restore your fluid balance after working out.” Not only that, but much of this marketing has been targeted at children, which has been suggested as contributing to their growing obesity levels. Gatorade notably made the case that “children are particularly likely to forget drinking unless reminded to do so.” Both GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which owns the British sports drink Lucozade, and Gatorade have created school outreach programs to strengthen the belief that their drinks are beneficial during exercise.
Additionally, a major investigation published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that much of the research promoting sports drinks was funded by PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, or GSK, and suffered from small sample sizes, poor study designs, selective reporting, and significant conflicts of interest. Out of the 74 studies the BMJ was able to evaluate, only three were judged to be high quality and at low risk of bias. Even though Gatorade and comparable drinks still contain similar amounts of sugar and ingredients as soda, they are framed as performance enhancers rather than junk food. This branding ensures that soda companies can keep selling soda under the pretext of health.
If you belong to the small group of people who actually do benefit from supplemented electrolytes, there are a variety of healthy alternatives to drinks like Gatorade and Powerade. For one, adding a pinch of salt to your water is a cheap and easy way to restore the sodium lost in sweat. Additionally, Skratch Labs’ unsweetened mix, LMNT, Ultima, or Hydrant offer balanced sodium/potassium blends without added sugar or artificial colors.
Although I have never been a strong advocate of electrolytes, after researching their effects on the body, I am definitely willing to try them next summer after a long run. As always, we should be mindful of what we put in our bodies. In “Idiocracy,” the people had been indoctrinated by advertising to the point that they firmly believed the drink was beneficial to plants: “Brawndo: It’s what plants crave! It’s got electrolytes!”
