Have you checked out the ingredients of your "sports drink?" Basically you will find: 1) water, 2) sugar of some kind, 3) organic acids (or citrus juices) for the tangy taste, and 4) some electrolytes.
The water is obvious and great. We need to rehydrate during and after sweaty exercise. No problem.
Sugar of some kind? The amount of Calories we burn during exercise is not as much as you might think. A jogger running for an hour only uses about 400 Calories. (Just 1 scone at your favorite coffee shop will replace that!) A marathon runner will run for 3 hard hours before he depletes his easily available glucose energy storage in his muscles. Sports event players don't need sugar of any kind in their water. To the contrary, adults and kids alike are consuming hundreds of excess (un-necessary) calories, empty calories (containing no nutrients to help adequately metabolize the calories), with these drinks.
The sipping nature that many people employ drinking these sports drinks is also boosting the sugar loving, cavity causing germs in our mouths. The bacteria that cause cavities will thrive at high metabolic rates for 40 minutes following a simple sugar exposure. Assuming 3 meals and 2 snacks, the teeth are under acid attack 4 hours. The other 20 hours each day the teeth are recovering calcium from the saliva.
People who sip sports drinks from backpacks or before, during and after sports events and celebrations have their teeth under attack a majority of the day with inadequate recovery times to maintain healthy enamel. Screw cap lids make it possible to sip these beverages all day and for those children who do, the teeth have no opportunity to recover the calcium lost during the constant acid attack of the bacteria. Their cavity rates begin to soar.
The human condition has evolved over several millennia with water to hydrate us. In the last couple decades sports drinks have not made us healthier or improved our sports performance. However, they have:
1) Done huge damage to our teeth and oral health.
2) Contributed heavily to an overweight and obese population, especially our kids, that pediatricians and other physicians and health care workers are working desperately to change.
3) Been a significant contributor to the growing problem of Type II diabetes in our children.
A third and highly “hyped” ingredient is electrolytes. Electrolyte replacement with these sports drinks is not necessary and inefficient besides. With a mere 25 cent envelope of Emergen-C I can: 1) replace those electrolytes and more, 2) get a healthy dose of vitamins and minerals as well, 3) get only 25 Calories in the bargain, and 4) gulp it down in short order any time during the day so it is not bathing my teeth for hours. The real bottom line, however, is that our daily diet gives us adequate electrolytes each day so unless you are an extreme athlete doing strenuous exercise several hours each day, you don’t need to be concerned about electrolytes. If you are truly concerned about chemical balance, the 3rd article in this series on sports drinks will address a few additives of real “concern” that are in these sports drinks.
The last primary ingredient in sports drinks is organic acids (citric acid, ascorbic acid, malic acid, etc.) Next week I'll tell you how to dissolve the enamel off your teeth the easy way with sports drinks.
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