Sports Drinks

I’m frequently asked if there is any advantage to drinking a sports drink over plain water or are you just flushing money down the proverbial drain.

In order to understand the principle behind sports drinks, it’s first important to understand what happens to your body during exercise.

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When you increase your activity level, your body burns energy and some of that energy is converted into heat. Now if you don’t get rid of the excess heat, your body temperature will rise to what can be an unhealthy level. One of the most effective ways to dissipate heat from your body is through the process of sweating.

Each of us has about 2.5 million sweat glands in our skin and the sweat that’s excreted by these glands is mostly water. It also contains small amounts of dissolved salts such as sodium and potassium which are otherwise known as electrolytes.

The amount of sweat that you produce can vary depending on conditions such as the surrounding temperature, the amount of clothing that you are wearing, and the intensity of physical activity. With prolonged high intensity exercise, people can lose between 2-8% of their body weight in water and risk severe dehydration. They can also deplete the body of essential electrolytes, further degrading athletic performance.

This brings us to sports drinks which are a water-based carbohydrate and electrolyte solution. The process of designing a sports drink is like trying to reverse-engineer sweat into something you can drink. The problem is that if it actually tasted like sweat, I don’t think you could get anyone to drink it even if they knew it was good for them. That’s why they contain a healthy dose of flavoring to make them taste good. One problem with drinking water alone is that some people don’t find it very palatable and therefore may under-hydrate themselves. By weight, about 95% of most sports drinks consist of water anyway, which is what your body needs the most of. The remaining 5% is composed of essential electrolytes like sodium and potassium, as well as, some sugar to give your muscles an additional energy boost. The concentration of the various ingredients is specially formulated to be easily absorbed into your body.

The key point is that any sports drink needs to rapidly replace what your body loses during exercise; it must taste good enough so that you’ll drink a lot of it to maximize your level of hydration.

This brings us back to the original question. Are sports drinks more effective than the water that runs from your tap? I think it’s safe to say that for moderate exercise, water will work just fine provided you drink enough of it. I recommend that you drink at least one liter per hour of exercise. For competitive athletics or endurance events, however, sports drinks may help you to maintain your level of performance better and recover faster.

So is it worth it the money? Maybe if you’re running the Bay to Breakers but if you are just going for a leisurely jog, a bottle of water should do just fine. • About Dr. Chang

Related posts:

1. Sports Drinks: Are There Benefits? ~ Health and Wellness Tip
2. When to See a Doctor for Sports Injuries ~ Health and Wellness Exercise Tip
3. Hydration