Electrolytes And Carbohydrates Essay

What are in these brightly colored, sweet-tasting “power” drinks, anyway? Put simply by BBC Panorama, “Electrolytes and Carbohydrates, which to the common person are known as salt and sugar” are the main ingredients. To replace the salt lost in sweat, electrolytes are a key ingredient. The most needed electrolyte to replace after exercise is sodium. According to Gatorade scientists, the addition of sodium and other salts “encourages fluid intake and helps the body balance and maintain fluid” (“Other Information”). Without electrolytes, the brain cannot communicate with the muscles as well because signals need electrolytes to travel through the body. Essentially, to keep the brain and heart functioning normally, electrolytes are necessary.

The article “Do Energy Drinks Really Work” by Jenna Bergen explains exactly what is happening in your body while exercising. When carbohydrates are deficient, the body begins to convert fat stores and amino acids from muscles into energy. This process is not sufficient or fast enough to support intense exercise. At this point, sports beverages can be a beneficial source of carbohydrates. An important factor is the balance of the different types of sugar. It is crucial for sports drinks to contain multiple forms of sugar such as fructose, sucrose, maltodextrin, and glucose. Each sugar has its own transporter to move it between the blood, intestines, and muscles of a body. Bergen describes that if there is “too much of one type of sugar at a time, it can max out its transporter and just sit in the stomach or intestines”. To prevent this and to maximize energy sustainability, a balance of sugars is needed. Lauren Wolf agrees with this idea when she states that “You can saturate the transport capacity by loading up on a single metabolite”. Therefore, a combination needs to be perfected in order to optimize energy