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As we exercise we lose both water and electrolytes. To ensure replenishment of both you need to drink more than just water. You need something with ions in it. The sugars and carbohydrates that come in sports drinks are often superfluous (unless you exercise for long periods of time) but you can lose salt quickly and sports drinks will prevent hypotremia. Water won't.

Water is arguably the most important ingredient in our bodies. Making up just shy of 70% of our body weight, water keeps our blood volume up, keeps us cool when we sweat, and allows for discharge of toxins through urine. We lose water through sweat, urination, and we can even lose water through breathing heavily through our mouths, which is sometimes necessary when participating in strenuous activity like exercise.

Hypernatremia (dehydration) occurs when the sodium level in our blood gets too high. This is more often due to a water deficiency than it is to sodium intake (though if you eat a great deal of salt or drink seawater you can enter a hypernatremic state).

Athletes, due to their high physical activity, are more at risk than the rest of us for not only hypernatremia but also hypotremia, which is a condition caused by too little sodium in the body. When you exercise, you lose both water and electrolytes like sodium through sweat and urine. Most people drink water after exercise to feel refreshed and regain body fluids but it's also necessary to replace sodium. Constantly drinking water can be just as dangerous as not drinking enough. Without replacing electrolytes your body enters a state of imbalance resulting in poor reaction time, dizziness,

In the 1990s sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade became popular. Made with ingredients like sodium, sugar, and vitamins, they geared toward replacing ions, carbohydrates, and water that you lose during high physical activity, these drinks will prevent hypotremia much better than water will. Many of them also include vitamins that help in the absorption of water. Not a lot can be said on what sort of sports drink to choose. They all have such similar ingredients (and are essentially sugar water with salt in it) that you can pick by price and flavor.

For runners, you lose a great deal of water while running and can't be expected to replenish your entire supply (you can lose pounds of water) during a race. The goal you set for yourself should be to replenish 50-75% of the water you lose while exercising every hour. That means if you lose a pound of water during running, you should drink 6-8 ounces of water or a sports drink each hour. For longer runs or longer periods of exercise sports drinks are much better than water because they provide replenishment for not only the loss of electrolytes, but also carbohydrates and vitamins as well.

Learn more about this author, Sarah Parrish.
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