Do sports drinks really make that big a difference when it comes to staying hydrated? I understand that drinking ridiculous amounts of plain ol’ water (in the absence of any food or other electrolyte source) can lead to water intoxication, but I’ve never experienced it, despite some major water-drinking escapades.
Suppose I do a bunch of yard work, sweatin’ up a storm. Come inside, drink a bunch of water, have dinner, drink some more water. Does dinner (e.g. cheeseburger, baked beans, some veggies) provide an appropriate amount of electrolytes, or can a benefit be had by choosing Gatorade instead of water?
Dinner will eventually give you all the electrolytes you’ll need, but it sounds like you’re out in the yard working for quite a while before that (several hours, maybe?). Given that sports drinks were invented because football teams weren’t performing as well in the second half as in the first, I think that’s plenty of time for the electrolytes (or lack thereof) to make a difference.
Water intoxication or hyponatremia is caused by an insufficiency of sodium. The other electrolytes (mainly potassium) do not matter as far as this is concerned. Sodium is a component of sweat. If you exercise for a long period of time (at least a couple of hours) in hot weather and drink just water, you may suffer hyponatremia. Those athletes who have had hyponatremia were usually ultramarathoners or even just marathoners in very hot conditions.
At rest, sodium is in the body cells but potassium is outside the cells. It’s the movement of potassium into the cell and sodium out of the cell that provides the electrical difference for propulsion of nerve cells. Thus, it is sodium that is in the sweat, not potassium. If you normally ingest a lot of salt, your sweat will be more salty. Since I never add salt to any food, my sweat is not very salty. It can drip into my eyes without much irritation. Gatorade contains little sodium, but probably enough to prevent hyponatremia.
Me and some friends have been playing basketball for a couple hours every saturday around noon. This being the middle of the hottest summer ever and this being Florida hydration has been an important consideration. The first couple weekends i chose to drink a couple bottles of water, this lead to severe headaches and other dehydration symptoms. Switching to Gatorade fixed the problem, two 32oz bottles seem to do the trick.
Sweat contains both sodium and potassium. If you sweat a lot and don’t replace the potassium, you’ll get muscle cramps.
The base material that sweat is made from is blood. Sweat glands remove lots of stuff from it: e.g. cells, protein, other large molecules. They also remove some of the salt, but it’s impossible to remove all of it. So sweat is roughly half as salty as blood.
I don’t know how much sodium Gatorade contains, but it should be at least as much potassium that it has. Getting a lot more potassium than sodium can be dangerous.
I don’t like Gatorade because it contains lots of sugar in the form of HFCS. The same is probably true of Powerade and other similar drinks. I prefer sports drinks that come in powdered form that you mix yourself, either Cytomax (my favorite) or Accelerade. You can get them from bicycle shops.
I am an observant Jew. We have several fast days during the year, and that means no eating or drinking, not even water. The popular wisdom in the past was to drink plenty before the fast to prevent dehydration, but in my experience, all that made me do was urinate. I still got plenty thirsty during the fast.
A few months ago, someone suggested loading up on Gatorade or Powerade, and I was like, “Duh! Of course! Electrolytes! How come I never thought of that before!” So I’ve tried it twice, and both times it worked great. Due to my weight, I chose Powerade Zero both times.
Three weeks ago, on a short (daybreak to night, 17 hours) fast, I had about a third of a bottle before bedtime, and the rest at 4 AM before the fast began. I was amazed. I was not thirsty at all, the whole day. (I was a bit hungry, as usual, but I expected that.) A few days ago, we had a full day (sunset one day until dark the next, 24 3/4 hours) fast. I drank the whole bottle during the pre-fast meal. I did get a bit thirsty towards the afternoon, but still, it was nowheres near as bad as in previous years.
So in my experience, the answer to the OP is a definite yes, BUT – drink the sports drinks BEFORE the year work, so that your electrolytes never get too low. That seems a lot better that refilling afterward.
As a side note, when I began marathon running in the late 1970s, the conventional “wisdom” then was that glucose would impede the absorption of water. Particularly, in one marathon that went from Zion, Illinois to the musical festival place near Winnetka (momentarily cannot recall the name), the race director would give the runners only water at the aid stations, for that “reason.” (Actually, better knowledge was then available and I had a friend, who lived around the 15-mile marker to give me orange slices.) Now, it has been demonstrated by studies, particularly those begun by Dr. Tim Noakes, that a solution of 10% or less of glucose will not impede water absorption.