Go searching: Does it look like everybody has been pouring little packages of electrolyte into their drinks these days? Pre-workout, post-workout, with out a exercise in any respect? Powders and tablets like LMNT, Liquid I.V., and Nuun are all over the place, from TikTok adverts 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 now’s electrolyte dietary supplements aren’t only for soccer gamers or ultramarathoners. Corporations like Nuun market their tablets for everybody from aspiring endurance athletes to common folks going to yoga courses throughout their lunch breaks.
These manufacturers are “taking part in into folks’s notion of what’s wholesome,” mentioned Samantha Coogan, a vitamin sciences educator on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas. And it appears to be working: Based on Priority Analysis, the world electrolyte drinks market is price over $40 billion and is predicted to develop to almost $75 billion within the subsequent decade.
The idea of hydration has change into a level of fixation in wellness tradition, despite the fact that specialists nonetheless don’t fully agree on how a lot hydration we’d like or the perfect approach 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 remedy for every thing 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 is advisable learn 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 keep up a sure steadiness of important minerals to operate correctly: sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, chloride, phosphate, and bicarbonate.
These minerals are all electrolytes, substances that carry electrical energy via the physique, controlling fluid steadiness, muscle operate, 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 indicators 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 “principally assist water within the physique go the place it’s imagined to go,” mentioned Holley Samuel, a registered sports activities dietitian who works with endurance athletes.
Once we sweat, we lose loads of sodium and chloride (a.ok.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 probably harmful situation known as hyponatremia. Whenever you drink water with electrolytes, that water is healthier ready to stay round inside your physique the place it’s wanted.
Electrolytes like sodium “principally assist water within the physique go the place it’s imagined to go.”
It’s vital to notice that “electrolytes don’t exist solely in a magic packet,” mentioned 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 now, have solely been round for a number of a long time.
Within the Sixties, assistant coach Dewayne Douglas observed that his College of Florida soccer gamers have been struggling to get better after practices within the swampy Gainesville warmth. Athletes shed weight — Douglas recalled dropping as much as 18 kilos per recreation 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 understanding, they have 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: principally water, salt, sugar, and lemon juice for style. The sodium-enriched drink helps athletes retain water whereas sweating, and the outcomes have been exceptional. “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 group.
Sports activities drinks took off, and different firms 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 mentioned. “You are taking one factor, and it has every thing in there.” This components 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 have been primarily marketed to skilled athletes. At present, Powerade and Gatorade are marketed as gentle drinks for anybody.
In 2024, the 12 months 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 need to drink too many further energy. These dietary supplements market themselves as hydration superfoods: one thing to assist athletes, certain, but additionally a hangover remedy and general vibe-booster for normal, health-conscious folks.
Coogan mentioned, when you’re consuming a balanced weight loss program 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 approach to rehydrate. However, Coogan mentioned, when you’re consuming a balanced weight loss program and aren’t coaching for a marathon, you most likely shouldn’t be pounding again electrolyte packets. “An excessive amount of of a superb factor shouldn’t be at all times a superb factor,” Coogan mentioned.
Okay, however what about hangovers? Pedialyte, an oral electrolyte answer meant for infants and youngsters, has change into the go-to hangover remedy for younger adults at music festivals and fraternity events. School college students are even attempting to sidestep the implications of binge ingesting by swapping beers for BORGs (“blackout rage gallons”): a half-gallon of water blended with a bottle of liquor and an electrolyte additive.
Alas, electrolytes are not a magic hangover remedy — attempting to undo an evening out with electrolyte dietary supplements is “simply going to be an uphill battle,” Coogan mentioned. Whereas pre-hydrating with an electrolyte complement earlier than an evening out would possibly assist mitigate among the penalties of the approaching alcohol-fueled dehydration, the one actual hangover remedy is time.
Electrolytes are nice for super-sweaty instances. In any other case, meh.
The most effective time to devour further electrolytes is once you’ve been sweating lots, or in any other case dropping loads of fluids via one thing like meals poisoning. Coaching for a long-distance run? Working on a building web site on a summer season day in a spot like Phoenix? Specialists say electrolyte dietary supplements are positively a superb name.
Many individuals (myself included) fall someplace in between sofa potato and ultramarathoner. I requested specialists how I ought to take into consideration electrolytes, as somebody who spends many of the day sitting in entrance of my laptop, then goes to a CrossFit or pole dancing class after work. Samuel says that for informal fitness center rats and leisure athletes, how you must rehydrate largely relies on how a lot you sweat, and what your sweat is manufactured from.
Some folks “go to do a spin class and so they’re on the bike for 5 minutes, and there’s a puddle round them,” Samuel mentioned. “If that’s you, you’re a heavy sweater.” Sodium ranges in sweat may differ wherever from 200 milligrams per liter to 2,000, relying on the particular person. In case your sweat tends to sting your eyes or go away white streaks or crystals in your pores and skin and garments, you could be a salty sweater.
For informal fitness center rats and leisure athletes, how you must rehydrate largely relies on how a lot you sweat, and what your sweat is manufactured from.
Each heavy sweaters and salty sweaters ought to contemplate electrolyte dietary supplements earlier than, throughout, and after understanding. The American School of Sports activities Drugs recommends consuming a minimum of 300 milligrams of sodium per hour when you’re going to be out sweating for greater than an hour, whether or not you’re collaborating in a sport or just working exterior on a scorching day. Learn labels, too: Attempt to keep beneath 14 grams of sugar per 8 ounces of fluid (that’s about half of the quantity in a Gatorade Thirst Quencher).
Make sure that to examine the sodium content material on the label of your electrolyte complement, although: Some in style dietary supplements, like Liquid I.V., comprise 500 mg of sodium, which is greater than what’s obligatory for all however the sweatiest endurance athletes. These athletes often must devour extra sodium than different folks, Samuel mentioned. For everybody else, dietary supplements with extra average ranges of sodium (round 200 to 300 mg), must be sufficient to rehydrate.
About one-third of in any other case wholesome individuals are delicate to salt, that means that consuming excessive quantities of sodium causes an enhance in blood stress. “That’s why you could have heard {that a} excessive sodium weight loss program can result in hypertension and heart problems,” Kavouras mentioned. In the event you’re delicate to salt, you’ll need to watch out. The FDA recommends People restrict their sodium consumption to 2,300 mg per day.
However, for most individuals, it’s subsequent to inconceivable to devour a harmful quantity of electrolytes. In the event you eat extra carbs, fats, or protein than your physique wants, they get saved as fats. However electrolytes aren’t saved — they’re eradicated. “In the event you drink an excessive amount of sodium,” Kavouras mentioned, “you can 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) provide sufficient electrolytes, carbs, and protein to rehydrate, restore muscle mass, 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 period,” Kavouras mentioned. This may be useful for individuals who battle to drink sufficient water, as a result of they aren’t thirsty sufficient to succeed in 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 can be ingesting extra by yourself,” Kavouras mentioned.
Whereas ingesting an electrolyte complement once 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 principally creating jerky out of your self by salting an excessive amount of,” she mentioned. “We need to be a pleasant, hydrated steak.”
You don’t want them on a regular basis, however electrolytes might help rebalance a sweaty physique and make ingesting water somewhat extra enjoyable. Simply do not forget that they’re hardly magic — they’re salts.
