When To Take Electrolytes (And When We Shouldn’t!)

Any sports nutrition outlet will sell electrolyte supplements. Sometimes in the form of sports drinks that claim to be more hydrating than water, or tablets that can be dissolved in water to make the same. How do they work, and should we be drinking them?

What are electrolytes?

They’re called “electrolytes” because they are ionized particles (so, they have a positive or negative electrical charge, depending on which kind of ion they are) that are usually combined in the form of salts.

The “first halves” of the salts include:

• Sodium
• Potassium
• Calcium
• Magnesium

The “second halves” of the salts include:

• Chloride
• Phosphate
• Bicarbonate
• Nitrate

It doesn’t matter too much which way they’re combined, provided we get what we need. Specifically, the body needs them in a careful balance. Too much or too little, and bad things will start happening to us.

If we live in a temperate climate with a moderate lifestyle and a balanced diet, and have healthy working kidneys, usually our kidneys will keep them all in balance.

Why might we need to supplement?

Firstly, of course, you might have a dietary deficiency. Magnesium deficiency in particular is very common in North America, as people simply do not eat as much greenery as they ideally would.

But, also, you might sweat out your electrolytes, in which case, you will need to replace them.

In particular, endurance training and High Intensity Interval Training are likely to prompt this.

However… Are you in a rush? Because if not, you might just want to recover more slowly:

❝Vigorous exercise and warm/hot temperatures induce sweat production, which loses both water and electrolytes. Both water and sodium need to be replaced to re-establish “normal” total body water (euhydration).

This replacement can be by normal eating and drinking practices if there is no urgency for recovery.

But if rapid recovery (<24 h) is desired or severe hypohydration (>5% body mass) is encountered, aggressive drinking of fluids and consuming electrolytes should be encouraged to facilitate recovery❞

Source: Fluid and electrolyte needs for training, competition, and recovery

Should we just supplement anyway, as a “catch-all” to be sure?

Probably not. In particular, it is easy to get too much sodium in one’s diet, let alone by supplementation.And, oversupplementation of calcium is very common, and causes its own health problems. See:

• How Too Much Salt May Lead To Organ Failure
• Vitamin D and Calcium: Too Much Of A Good Thing?

To look directly to the science on this one, we see a general consensus amongst research reviews: “this is complicated and can go either way depending on what else people are doing”:

• Trace minerals intake: risks and benefits for cardiovascular health
• Electrolyte minerals intake and cardiovascular health

Well, that’s not helpful. Any clearer pointers?

Yes! Researchers Latzka and Mountain put together a very practical list of tips. Rather, they didn’t put it as a list, but the following bullet points are information extracted directly from their abstract, though we’ve also linked the full article below:

• It is recommended that individuals begin exercise when adequately hydrated.
  • This can be facilitated by drinking 400 mL to 600 mL of fluid 2 hours before beginning exercise and drinking sufficient fluid during exercise to prevent dehydration from exceeding 2% body weight.
• A practical recommendation is to drink small amounts of fluid (150-300 mL) every 15 to 20 minutes of exercise, varying the volume depending on sweating rate.
  • During exercise lasting less than 90 minutes, water alone is sufficient for fluid replacement
  • During prolonged exercise lasting longer than 90 minutes, commercially available carbohydrate electrolyte beverages should be considered to provide an exogenous carbohydrate source to sustain carbohydrate oxidation and endurance performance.
• Electrolyte supplementation is generally not necessary because dietary intake is adequate to offset electrolytes lost in sweat and urine; however, during initial days of hot-weather training or when meals are not calorically adequate, supplemental salt intake may be indicated to sustain sodium balance.

Source: Water and electrolyte requirements for exercise

Bonus tip:

We’ve talked before about the specific age-related benefits of creatine supplementation, but if you’re doing endurance training or HIIT, you might also want to consider a creatine-electrolyte combination sports drink (even if you make it yourself):

Creatine-electrolyte supplementation improves repeated sprint cycling performance: a double-blind randomized control study

Where can I get electrolyte supplements?

They’re easy to find in any sports nutrition store, or you can buy them online; here’s an example product on Amazon for your convenience

You can also opt for natural and/or homemade electrolyte drinks:

Healthline | 8 Healthy Drinks Rich in Electrolytes

Enjoy!

The Many Health Benefits of Garlic

We’re quite confident you already know what garlic is, so we’re going to leap straight in there with some science today:

First, let’s talk about allicin

Allicin is a compound in garlic that gives most of its health benefits. A downside of allicin is that it’s not very stable, so what this means is:

• Garlic is best fresh—allicin breaks down soon after garlic is cut/crushed
  • So while doing the paperwork isn’t fun, buying it as bulbs is better than buying it as granules or similar
• Allicin also breaks down somewhat in cooking, so raw garlic is best
  • Our philosophy is: still use it in cooking as well; just use more!
• Supplements (capsule form etc) use typically use extracts and potency varies (from not great to actually very good)

Read more about that:

• Short-term heating reduces the anti-inflammatory effects of fresh raw garlic extracts
• Allicin Bioavailability and Bioequivalence from Garlic Supplements and Garlic Foods

Now, let’s talk benefits…

Benefits to heart health

Garlic has been found to be as effective as the drug Atenolol at reducing blood pressure:

Effects of Allium sativum (garlic) on systolic and diastolic blood pressure in patients with essential hypertension

It also lowers LDL (bad cholesterol):

Lipid-lowering effects of time-released garlic powder tablets in double-blinded placebo-controlled randomized study

Benefits to the gut

We weren’t even looking for this, but as it turns out, as an add-on to the heart benefits…

Garlic lowers blood pressure in hypertensive subjects, improves arterial stiffness and gut microbiota: A review and meta-analysis

Benefits to the immune system

Whether against the common cold or bringing out the heavy guns, garlic is a booster:

• Preventing the common cold with a garlic supplement: a double-blind, placebo-controlled survey
• Supplementation with aged garlic extract improves both NK and γδ-T cell function and reduces the severity of cold and flu symptoms: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled nutrition intervention

Benefits to the youthfulness of body and brain

Garlic is high in antioxidants that, by virtue of reducing oxidative stress, help slow aging. This effect, combined with the cholesterol and blood pressure benefits, means it may also reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia:

• Antioxidant health effects of aged garlic extract
• Effects of garlic consumption on plasma and erythrocyte antioxidant parameters in elderly subjects
• Garlic reduces heart disease and dementia risk

There are more benefits too…

That’s all we have time to dive into study-wise today, but for the visually-inclined, here are yet more benefits to garlic (at a rate of 3–4 cloves per day):

An incredible awesome recipe using lots of garlic:

• Take small potatoes (still in their skins), cut in half
• Add enough peeled cloves of garlic so that you have perhaps a 1:10 ratio of garlic to potato by mass
• Boil (pressure-cooking is ideal) until soft, and drain
• Keeping them in the pan, add a lashing of olive oil, and any additional seasonings per your preference (consider black pepper, rosemary, thyme, parsley)
• Put a lid on the pan, and holding it closed, shake the pan vigorously
  • Note: if you didn’t leave the skins on, or you chopped much larger potatoes smaller instead of cutting in half, the potatoes will break up into a rough mash now. This is actually also fine and still tastes (and honestly, looks) great, but it is different, so just be aware, so that you get the outcome you want.
• The garlic, which—unlike the potatoes—didn’t have a skin to hold it together, will now have melted over the potatoes like butter

You can serve like this (it’s delicious already) or finish up in the oven or air-fryer or under the grill, if you prefer a roasted style dish (an amazing option too).