I know gator-aid and its like advertise that they have lots of them. And I know sometimes I feel bad if I sweat a lot and just drink water. But are they just advertising… salt? Are there different kinds of electrolytes, and if so are they interchangable?
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Effectively, yes. “Electrolytes” is a collective term for the ions that help move stuff into and out of your cells. These are primarily sodium and potassium, although calcium also plays a role. Sodium is the most important of these for sports drinks, because it is the one you most lose through sweat.
Unfortunately, most sports drinks don’t really contain enough to balance out heavy sweating, because sodium salt (aka normal salt) tastes, unsurprisingly, salty. If a drink had the right balance of sodium, it would be noticeably salty. Gatorade has one line of drinks that do that, and Pedialyte is specially made for the correct balance. Sports drinks really jack up the sugar to help hide the salt taste.
Most sports drinks, rather than having the sodium you need to replace sweat, instead jack up the potassium (think Prime and it’s advertised 843mg of electrolytes, 700mg of which is potassium). This doesn’t really replace the electrolytes you need, but it also doesn’t make the drink nearly as salty.
When you see “electrolytes”, you should flip around to the nutrition label, which must list the actual amounts of sodium and potassium. This will tell you if it will actually help you recover from activity, or if it’s just more sugar water and advertising.
Edited to add:
why is sodium so important? Because your cells use a mechanism called “osmosis” to move water back and forth. Water molecules naturally move from areas of high concentration to areas of lower concentration. In the cell, this means that water will go in to the cell if the inside of the cell has more sodium than the outside, and leave the cell when the outside has more than the inside.
When you sweat, two things happen: you lose water and you lose sodium you lose more water than sodium, so your blood becomes saltier. Water moves from inside your cells to your blood; this is what it means to be “dehydrated”. To counter it, you need to dilute your blood and increase the amount of sodium in your cells. Hence, drinking water with sodium can help replenish both and speed recovery from dehydration.
Sodium is also used for all the electrical activity of our body (such as thinking and moving and living…), and is fundamental in adsorption of nutritions in digestion. Sodium, potassium and calcium are so important that it is difficult to even list all processes they are involved.
Edit. To add context our cells spend between 30 and 70 % of their energy to move around sodium and potassium ions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium–potassium_pump A good chunk of what we eat is to move them around
such as thinking and moving and living
bold of you to assume
💀
Maybe, but do you really think you could keep that down?
I’ll practice with a smaller banana to train my gag reflex
That sounds horrible. Can you share the link?
Our diets are already rich in sodium. Because it makes food more tasteful.
You really don’t need any additional sodium
Fantastic ELI5, excellent response. Thank you!
This is an awesome ELI5, thanks for helping me to better understand this!
So would you say 500-510mg Na to 370-380mg K is a good ratio for a drink additive? Trying to figure out where liquid IV (or is it Liqvid IV? Lol) stacks up.
I’m a bit curious in this too. I don’t have an answer for you but totally anecdotal, I do notice I feel noticeably better even just halfway through a liquid IV which I’ve never noticed with any other sports drinks.
Is it easy to make such a drink yourself? And at least a bit drinkable?
I buy this and add it to my water. Use a little less than a ‘serving’ first time at it can activate your gut - maybe from the magnesium? Buying it by the bag makes it much much cheaper than liquid iv.
Funnily, I actually just recently watched an episode of Kurzgesagt that explains how osmosis and diffusion work in cells. Pretty cool stuff!
Link to the episode - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1KkQrFEl2I
Great eli5! Thank you!
Back in high school I had some friends tour an NFL stadium. They got to see the field and locker rooms and all. I didn’t get to go with them, so while they were in the locker rooms they stole a bunch of these powdered electrolyte drinks they had out for the players and brought some back for me. I remeber trying them and they tasted like straight sweat. It makes sense, but they were gross. Same flavor as licking someone’s forehead.
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Pedialyte or Gatorlyte are both balanced sports drinks and I’d say they’re “better” than standard Gatorade if the goal is hydration exclusively, but they taste like salt water with flavoring added
Myself and the 3 others living in my house just all got e. Coli infections and the Gatorlytes were recommended by the Dr.s over regular ones or water due to the sheer amount of liquid loss experienced
They’re what plants crave
Yeah! 🖕🖕
For those downvoting, watch Idiocracy…
I really hope it doesn’t get removed, because while jokes aren’t always appropriate, this particular joke is, like, essential.
Fuck Yeah! 🖕🖕
FTFY
Electrolytes are chemicals that can ionize to carry current. Table salt is one electrolyte, but potassium and magnesium salts are also required by the human body. Nerves work by sending electrical signals, so they need these electrolytes in order for them to carry those signals throughout the body. The problem is, the amount of electrolytes available to nerves depends on the amount present in the bloodstream, and when sweat glands pull water out of the bloodstream, they also take some electrolytes with it. That’s why you need to replenish them after sweating. If you don’t, your nerves won’t work as well and your muscles will have a hard time coordinating. The specific ions you need to organize muscle contraction are sodium, potassium, and magnesium, so if you’re low in any of those, then you risk weakness and cramps. So it’s not quite as simple as just drinking table salt.
When you sweat, you lose more than just water. You also lose salt and some other minerals. Basically that’s what electrolytes are and what’s replaced with sports drinks.
What’s not been mentioned yet is a real electrolyte drink is noticeably salty and does not taste very good. Gatorade and other sports drinks you find in the convenience store jack up the sugar to make it more palatable and saleable to the masses.
When dissolved in water many atoms and molecules have some charge, that allows them to create relatively weak bonds with waters (therefore stay in solution).
The charge means that they have either more electrons than protons (negatively charged) or less (positively charged). These are called electrolytes because they can be “moved” in water and separated by applying an electrical field (electrolysis, this requires a different eli5, take it as it is).
Outside water these substances aggregate to form “salts”.
Now, some of these charged elements are crucial for functioning of basic biological processes, such as thinking, muscle contraction (including heart), even sensing.
Unfortunately they are lost when sweating (they are dissolved in sweat). In a healthy diet, where you eat enough fruit and vegetables, this is not an issue. If you are doing intense exercise however, an additional dose of these substances might help. TBF I am not sure if it has ever been proved that it is necessary… But it might help.
As said, if your diet is good, you don’t need them. If your diet is s*it you’ll probably have other issues. If you have real issues your doctor will tell you how to address them.
Tl;dr: those drinks are marketing stuff. They might be beneficial only in case of intense physical exercise, not needed for daily life if you follow a healthy diet
I’m no doctor, but as far as I understand it electrolytes are sodium and potassium, and they help your body get hydrated faster by helping you absorb water (more? Faster? Idk, one of the two.)
(Btw, you’re supposed to drink gatorade and water for this purpose, of course gatorade ads don’t tell you that part though. Nor will they tell you about Pedialyte which is better than gatorade for hydration, or Liquid IV which I’m trying out now so I’m reserving judgement until my testing is complete).
I think it’s water retention they help with. You should consider consuming electrolytes is you plan on sweating a lot (e.g high intensity sports) or if you consume large amounts of Caffeine.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say a product sold as a powder, and called Liquid IV, when IVs are traditionally liquid, is not to be taken seriously.
My 2cents: Pedialyte (premade) still has that sweet taste whereas Liquid IV does not. The powdered Pedialyte contained (I haven’t bought it in a few years so I’m unsure if the formula has changed) artificial sweeteners that upset our guts - which was no good when I was giving it to kids with diarrhea because it just exasperated the issue.
It may be placebo effect but I feel like it does a really good job.
*I am also biased because they make one with caffeine and it’s helping me cut back on soda.
Imo some of the liquid IVs taste sweet enough, and some like golden cherry are even a touch sour, I love the taste of the ones I’ve had so far (which is only the aforementioned and the passion fruit one.) They do have Stevia leaf extract though. Honestly the bottled pedialyte is almost too sweet for me, and the powdered stuff is ok but for taste alone I definitely prefer the liquid 4. For hydration I’m still curious but I don’t have any pedialyte powder to compare ratios, though I do have an old bottle of the pre-bottled one, and that seems to have similar proportions of Na and K.
Ah ok. I’ve been getting the pineapple and lemon lime ones and both are a tad sour and I like that.
Edit: the pineapple one is the one with caffeine
Sodium, potassium and magnesium. Largely. Varying concentration levels inside and outside our cells create positive and negative gradients which stimulate cellular reactions. Basically they have to do with our body’s electrical system and are crucial for creating action potentials which start and end nerve impulses, make our muscles relax contract, operate our hearts, allow us to see and a ton of other important shit. It’s the chemical and atomic level of our bodily functioning, very interesting stuff, yo.
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Salts. Sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Edit: Not interchangeable. All three are essential.
Gatorade is a bad source of electrolytes. It’s loaded with sodium but that’s about it. You’re better off drinking coconut water and taking a magnesium citrate suppliment for hydration. Stay away from Gatorade. It’s sugar water.
EDIT: Yes there are others too. Chloride, Calcium, Phosphates, and Bicarbonate. I only mentioned the major ones. Apologies for that.
Unfortunately, coconut water is not good for tree nut allergies.
Avocados it is, then. (Those don’t count as tree nuts, right?) Regardless, you need to find a good source of potassium. Most people are deficient.
I’d rather take vitamins. Avocados are gross af.
Of course someone who uses an instance based in the midwest would say something like that, LMAO. You just think you have Avocados cause you’ve never had real Mexican food before. I’ve visited over 30 states so I can confidently say that you can only get decent Mexican in border states. The guacamole here is *unreal *.
I guess Texas isn’t a border state and that people who are literally born and raised in Mexico and in currently living in the US aren’t Mexican enough to make real Mexican food. Good to know.
A core element of Idiocracy stuff
it’s what plants crave!
