The Truth Behind “Hydration Multipliers” (EP 122)

[0:15] Hello friends, Uncle Marv here and welcome back to my Unhealthy Podcast, the show where we talk honestly about the everyday health choices that can help us feel better, live stronger, and still enjoy life along the way.

[0:30] So today we're going to get into something that should be simple, something we all do every day, but many of us probably do not do enough of, and that is drinking water and staying properly hydrated now, the reason I’m doing a show this way is i have spent i don't know probably the last two weeks, as i get home and unwind and I’m watching shows.

[0:58] That element water commercial is just on incessantly it's in my social media and I’m like, What in the world is this element drink? And I know it's hype, at least I believe it is, because I think all of them are hype. But let me go back and explain why. So for those of you that are new to the show or weren't here in the very beginning, one of the reasons that I started the show is that after I stopped playing ball on a regular basis, I realized that I wasn't as, healthy as I thought I was going to be. But during that time for the first 48 years of my life I mean I was active in playing all sports and even after I graduated, I was playing basketball on a regular basis and we're not talking you know why, MCA or you know heading down to the valleys and running with a group of you know weekend warriors and stuff, I was playing ball two to three times a week with guys that were.

[2:04] First-class athletes. They were all people that had played in college. A couple of them had played either semi-pro ball or overseas or something like that. So this wasn't something where, you know, I was just playing a bunch of guys that, you know, were in the office all week and then just decided to play ball. This was something we played. And all the time that I played, you know, i drank all the drinks the Gatorade the power aids i even made my own drink when i thought it was getting too expensive to buy those drinks where, i would combine orange juice and water and salt and sugar and make up my own drink don't ask me to recall, how the ratio or how i did that but just so that you know, i always knew to do stuff like that and as an athlete i knew that you know being able to you know have sodium and electrolytes and all of that stuff was important to replace.

[3:07] Everything that you lost when you sweated. And when I stopped playing ball, I mean, I stopped doing those drinks, but of course I was drinking more soda than I ever did before. So when I decided to make the change and say, okay, I've got to change some of these habits, one of those habits was to get away from soda and all those sugary drinks. And I'll be honest with you; I'm not 100% there. I am down to drinking only Coke Zero because it has no sugar. And of all the research that I did, if I'm going to, you know, if I'm going to fail with one drink, Coke Zero will be that drink. But for the rest of the time, I drink tea. I still drink coffee.

[3:53] And for a long time, I was drinking those little Mio packets that you get, you know, from the store, like Publix is where we do all of our shopping. So I would get those little bottles and squirt into, you know, just an empty or not an empty, but, you know, you just go buy the regular plain water, you know, whether it's the Publix brand, Costco brand, you know, Zephyr Hills, whatever. I would just buy those, but I wasn't going to drink just plain water, you know, eight, 10 times a day. So I would put the meal packets in there. And then when I decided to, you know, get healthy, I thought, I don't need these packets. But I didn't really know why I was dumping them. I just was just dumping them. So that has been a topic that's been sitting in my stack of topics to talk about. And I thought maybe a year ago I was going to have a guest on who was all about water. And I'll be honest; I don't know what happened. The guest disappeared. I can't find him. Or he stopped. I don't know. But that didn't happen. But this has been a topic. And sitting here this weekend between trying to watch football and the Rocky Marathon and just hang out, these Element commercials keep popping up and it is just amazing.

[5:13] Incessant. So I'm like, okay, let me, let me go back and get this topic out while it's in my head. And so we're going to talk about, you know, the water and electrolyte hype, because at least as far as I know, that's what it is. And I mean, here's the thing. I don't think a regular person, If you're not actively working out, playing sports, and getting to the point where you can risk hydration or anything like that, I don't think we need these electrolyte drinks. But yet, they're everywhere. It's whether it's these drinks, the ones I mentioned, the vitamin waters, the packets, all of those things. They all basically tell us that water is not enough and that we've got to hydrate. And now they're being called hydration multipliers. They're performance blends and they promise better hydration. So the question I've been waiting to ask is, do we really need all of that? Or are we just buying expensive flavored water with a better story? So I'm going to talk about three of them that I've, you know, either tried or have been researching. And of course, the one is Element because I've seen all the commercials on there.

[6:41] The other is Liquid IV, and this is one where I've got a couple of packets, and I think I got these from a tech conference that I was at or something where they were part of the swag bags, and I've been hesitant to drink it because when I looked at the ingredients, it had 520 milligrams of sodium, and I've been on this thing where I need to lower as much sugar as I can and lower as much sodium as I can. And so that's one that I've got these packets, so I'm going to talk about. Then, of course, the meal hydrate, because that's what I was used to. I did meal for years.

[7:20] But another thing we got to do is talk about electrolytes. You know, what are they, what do they really do, and how to figure out what and when you actually need them. So the first thing I want to say is I do know electrolytes are real and necessary. So we do need that uh i do believe that, this industry along with a lot of others the marketing is often much broader than the science, and that these products should be more situational rather than pushed every day these are not to replace our daily drinks, Um, but the other thing is, is that zero sugar, just because they have that, just because they say zero sugar or vitamins or electrolytes in hydration, they do not automatically mean needed every single day. So let's now, I guess, get into what I figured out. And of course you can take notes, correct me, send me those comments, but, uh, electrolytes, uh, as far as I know. And listen, I probably should say this before we get going. This is general health discussion information, not necessarily medical advice. You know, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a dietician, nutritionist, or anything like that.

[8:48] But I do know that in this particular case, that if you have kidney disease, have had heart failure, if you're on some sort of fluid restriction.

[9:00] If you have uncontrolled high blood pressure, you need to talk to your doctor before doing stuff with electrolytes. That much I do know. And let's move on. So, electrolytes. I know that they are minerals that basically carry an electrical charge in our body fluids. They help regulate how water moves in and out of our cells. They maintain an acid-base level, support nerve signals. They have something to do with our muscle contraction, and they help maintain normal heart rhythm. Those things I know. And the main electrolytes that I know of are sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphate, I think those are the only ones that I can think of. Um, I do also know that this is not, this is not a trendy new supplement category. These are, these are things that are basic to our human physiology. Um, we depend on fluid to help balance all of our stuff off. So, um, needing electrolytes as human beings is not the same as needing electrolyte drinks all day. Uh, most of us do get a good source of our electrolytes from our daily food we get them in vegetables fruits.

[10:30] Dairy nut seeds proteins especially.

[10:35] One of the things that I’ve found in my research is that most Americans are not struggling to find sodium so that is something where I’ve learned over the years that we get way too much sodium in our processed foods. So that is why when we talk to, you know, people that want to help us with our health and our diets, you know, it's always about lowering sodium because we get so much of it. Now, I know that as you start to clean up your eating and you're getting off of the processed foods, well, the numbers change. So that's where you have to start knowing what those levels are something I’ve just, never really done but um so i do know that you know electrolytes are there we do get them from food sodium which is one of the things that these products talk about a lot that we've got to replace the sodium, um we already get a lot of that so if you're not eating healthy, assume you're getting enough sodium and you don't need one of these drinks um, let's see here so i dig a little i did a little digging on what a daily pitcher, should look like for each of these minerals uh so sodium, i looked up that an adequate intake is about 1500 milligrams a day.

[12:01] Most Americans are getting a lot of this already to the point where i think they say.

[12:10] We can be getting up to 4,000 milligrams of sodium, and that's considered high.

[12:18] Potassium I talked about is something where I think it's 2,600 milligrams for women, 3,400 milligrams for men is what should be a reference point for us. And then calcium is about a thousand milligrams a day that most of us need.

[12:40] But the one I want to focus on, of course, is the sodium. As I mentioned earlier, I do know sodium is essential. And under normal conditions, the body only needs a small amount to function. And the National Academy of Adequate Intake for Adults says that it's about 1,500 milligrams a day. So let me talk about now each of these drinks or drink supplements hydration multipliers and stuff i told you that the one that i did for many many years was the Mio hydrate that's about Mio, if you've been in the public stores you'll see there's shelves of these things all sorts of different flavors, What it does well, so one of the things is Mio does have zero sugar and most have zero calories. Of course, it's convenient and expensive. You just get those little bottles; you squirt it into your waddle bottle. It helps you drink more water when plain water feels boring. And it does provide a small sodium bump, about 110 to 115 milligrams per serving. So not a bad choice, in my opinion. It's a better choice than sugary soda or regular sport drinks.

[14:05] What obviously we need to watch out for, it is not a full electrolyte replacement product. So if you are active, if you are working out, if you are still playing some sort of sport where you are doing a ton of sweating and a ton of stuff, this is probably not going to be the product for you. Because it supplies much less sodium than a real sport hydration powder. If you are worried about the sweetener, it commonly uses sucralose and another one that are FDA approved, but some people either don't like the taste or have gastrointestinal or headache type systems. It does contain citric acid. So frequent all-day sipping can be unfriendly to your teeth, especially if you've got worries about enamel erosion, dry mouth, or dental sensitivity. And then some of them use food dyes. So I know a lot of people don't like to have food dyes in their food. So Mio hydrate is a flavored water tool with little electrolyte support.

[15:18] The next step up I'm going to talk about is this Element. And Element, if you haven't seen the commercials or if you are wondering, it's spelled L-M-N-T. They are all caps, and it is probably the biggest, newest energy drink. It's not an energy drink, but what they call a hydration drink.

[15:41] It delivers 1,000 milligrams of sodium in a zero-sugar stick. So you get a little packet and you throw that in, and it's useful for people with substantial sweat losses. So for people that are truly active, this makes sense.

[16:00] It's convenient for prolonged activity and heat, long endurance training, some outdoor activities, and situations where low-carbohydrate diets are the norm. And it does, of course, avoids the added sugar of standard sport drinks. So still better than Gatorade and Powerade as far as I know. But what it does not do is it does not give any meaningful carbohydrate energy for endurance. It does not detox the body. And it all it does not automatically fix fatigue headaches cramps dizziness or brain fog so, it does not do those things now element is one of those ones where this is not, it's not bad because it has a lot of sodium again if you are active, you may need that sodium but this is not automatically something you should reach for if you sit at a desk all day or if you're inactive it is not good for that so, again the sodium, is about a thousand milligrams and that's over 40 percent of what the daily recommended.

[17:22] Value is when the low acceptable rate is 1500 the recommended is 2300 that's already a lot and if you eat out at restaurants a lot you eat deli meats pizza uh, packaged foods uh you could easily be over your sodium count, Now, the stick that I've been holding on to that I've only done one of so far, and I've got several here, and I'm holding in my hand just for reference here, the Liquid IV Hydration Multiplier. This is the watermelon flavor, and it says electrolyte drink mitt right on the packet. And as I said earlier, the thing that stood out to me is that it has 520 milligrams of sodium, which I thought was high until I found out what the element was. So this is more of a middle ground sodium dose.

[18:20] It does have more potassium than element, and it does include glucose slash sugar. So that does help with fluid absorption and gives you a little bit of energy, during whatever activity you're doing. So it's still more of an energy hydration type thing. It makes sense if you are, you know, traveling away from home, if you're doing some moderate sweating, maybe a longer activity, walking or hiking or something.

[18:54] From what I can tell, this might be good for recovery after an unusually hot day. And I'm in South Florida. We've had a ton of those hot days. So I may think to start taking this at the end of a hot day. Things to watch out for with this is that it is not sugar-free. This has, let's see, in this packet, it is...

[19:19] 11 grams of sugar, so not horrible, but not necessary if you sit at a desk all day. And it's not, from what I can tell, technically not better than Element. It's just different. Less sodium, more potassium, and some sugar. So probably, like I said, Element, I would say if you're doing a ton of stuff at Stream, that's probably the one you want to look at. If you're just doing some moderate stuff liquid iv might um but i may go back to Mio because that's probably more my style right now, so why all of the marketing around these things um what do they get right i guess is that they always talk about you know, if you sweat a lot you're losing electrolytes and that of course is true and it's true especially when it comes to sodium So what these things are pushing, of course, is to replace that sodium. Um, so it'll increase the electrolyte levels when it comes to that.

[20:29] Um, when you're talking about low sugar options, obviously those can be helpful for people who don't need the carbohydrate calories that come along with it. But the biggest thing really is that it helps you drink water by putting flavor into it so that you drink more of it.

[20:48] Now what i have found is what i kind of alluded to earlier is that not everybody needs an electrolyte drink every day, and the fact that more electrolytes does not equal better hydration if you already have enough, electrolytes then drinking regular water is fine you know drinking more electrolytes isn't actually good. It actually could turn around and be worse. So there is a chance that if you have fatigue, if you have headaches or cramps or afternoon slumps, um, yes, that could be an electrolyte problem. And then you might want to get some sort of vitamin added drink to create energy, uh, so that you're not deficient. Um, but if you are somebody that, you know, you sit at a desk, you eat normal meals. Um, the best thing, I guess, this is a weird thing. I found out that if your urine is not dark, you probably don't need to take any of this stuff. So that's probably the easiest way to tell outside of the, the side effects of the headaches and the fatigue and stuff like that. So yeah.

[22:09] Let's see here. So all those words that, you know, we mentioned earlier, electrolytes, vitamins, clean, natural performance, they can make the product sound medically necessary. But bottom line is, look at the sodium, look at the sugar, check the serving size, you know, figure out if you're just doing one of those 16 or 18 ounces of water. Uh if it will work if you do the bigger jugs and ask yourself whether you're replacing loss or not are you just simply hydrating or are you truly replacing what you may have lost, uh from getting a you know a workout a walk or anything like that so, as far as i know this i think most of the friends that i know would probably say, water is usually enough so drink water first out of all of these that I’ve already talked about probably Mio, would be the second guess that if you just simply want to flavor your water, if you as i mentioned uh sit at a desk all day you're not active whatever I’m going to say you probably don't need element, But if you do something like, you know, a 30-minute workout.

[23:33] Again, water is still going to be enough for that. You may want to do Mio for, you know, a low-dose option.

[23:41] Propel, Gatorade are probably stuff you can look at. But again, Element or Liquid IV, probably not unless heat exposure and sweating are just super high. So for my friends down here in Florida element and liquid iv might come into handy i know I’ve got a lot of friends that are still doing, uh the workouts and they're you know going to the gyms and running and all of that stuff in the heat so um, then i would say step your game up water probably isn't enough and use one of these other things uh one of the things that i did there were some red flags to mention. So of course we talked about if you, if you were drinking this stuff every day and you've got, you know, issues with fainting, uh, headaches, if you have high fevers, uh, confusion, uh, or you just, you can't keep fluids down, then you may want to, you know, step back on these things and not take as much.

[24:43] So, uh, the practical, practical takeaways. And we'll start with this, and this will be the baseline that you can think of when it comes to water. First of all, water is the baseline. Most normal days, you won't need an electrolyte product. Match the dose to the sweat. So the more sweat, the more heat, the longer the activity within that would justify more sodium a thing that i took away here is do not confuse hydration with energy uh one of the things that, I learned a while back, and I can't go back and figure out where it is, and I don't have a note for it here, is that carbohydrates a lot of times are things that you need if you are working hard all day long. Element contains no meaningful carbohydrate fuel, while other drinks do. So those other drinks, Gatorade, Powerade, they have carbohydrates. So those are probably better products when it comes to long activities and stuff.

[25:59] Do not self-diagnose, of course. If you have persistent systems, then you need to go get yourself checked out. But always, bottom line, read the labels and know what it is that you're taking and putting into your body. So there you have it, folks. my quick study on all of these packets and stuff. Electrolytes are essential, but the hype is probably a little too much. We don't need branded electrolyte products all day, every day.

[26:36] Most days, water and food will get the job done. So check the show notes, folks, I'm going to have some research and other official nutrition links that if you want to go and research more, see where I got some of the stuff. If this helped, if this episode helped you stop treating everyday hydration powder as a miracle, uh, share it with friends who, uh, you know, might have a drawer full of these things and, uh, go from there.

[27:06] All right, so that is it for today's Unhealthy Podcast. Again, the big takeaway is simple. Electrolytes are real, important, and necessary, but that does not mean that everybody needs an electrolyte drink all day, every day. So before you buy that latest hydration product, ask yourself one question, what am I actually trying to replace today? If you enjoyed this episode follow or subscribe to the unhealthy podcast wherever you listen share this episode with somebody who has a cabinet full of hydration packets, and drinks electrolyte power before answering emails or thinks every headache, means they need more salt check out the show notes for research product information and all of that stuff thanks for listening thanks for taking your health seriously and remember live healthy and be happy