Like Paul Harvey would say, there’s a “rest of the story” to Gatorade. Way back when it was first being developed and then turned into a consummer good, the University of Florida either (depending on the version you believe) 1) had no interest in being involved in the patent or marketing rights or 2) was never asked about this, and was kept in the dark when it came to involvement in patent and marketing rights.
There’s no dispute over the fact that UF was paying the salary of the person who developed it, payed for the chemicals used to make it, owned the buildings in which it was developed, etc. etc.
There are now Gatorade aisles in supermarkets, and it must generate billions in world wide sales - if U Florida had even a small piece of that they’d be in fat city. As far as I know they’ve not been able secure any income from Gatorade, and they are not happy at all about being on the outside of the cash stream.
No univeristy is ever going to let that happen again. They are very clear about the fact they own/share the propriatory rights to products developed on their campuses by their faculty members, and require faculty members to sign documents to this effect. Around here, these are called the Gatorade Rules.
The year or so I bicycled quite a bit - training and completing the now-defunct AIDS-ride - I used to do half-water, half-Gatorade in a water bottle, the other one being only water. Seemed to work fine.
Addendum: Someone suffering heat stroke will often not feel thirsty and will even gag when you try to give them water, even though they desperately need hydration. Often, they won’t be sweating, either. Of course, this is a condition in which the body’s normal temperature regulation mechanisms are completely out of whack. I’ve seen this happen more than once on dive boats (people walking around in the sun, 7mm wetsuit and not maintaining hydration.) Back when I was teaching or DMing I was always careful to make certain all the students were remaining hydrated because of this.
Anecdotally, I do find that Gatorade tends to make me drink more; whether that is the body trying to top off on minerals, or an imbalance between the salts in the drink and the water necessary to utilize it properly, I don’t know, but I either dilute or alternate with water.
And I second the claim that Gatorade makes a pretty good hangover avoidance/mitigation remedy, though my experience with that is limited. (I don’t tend to suffer from hangovers and/or drink enough to experience them.)
The one I use, I think is called “E3”. I’ll usually take one bottle of water and one bottle of E3. It’s a powder, and I don’t use the full concentration.
They’re all the same shit though. Cytomax is one, I think. A lot of guys on my team use Accelerade.