Do I actually need electrolytes to stay hydrated?

Look around: Does it seem like everyone has been pouring little packages of electrolyte into their beverages lately? Pre-workout, post-workout, without a workout at all? Powders and tablets like LMNT, Liquid I.V., and Nuun are everywhere, from TikTok ads to your office snack counter. The concept of hardcore hydration isn’t new — athletes have been adding stuff to their water for millennia. And electrolyte-filled drinks like Gatorade have been mainstays in sports culture for decades. But today’s electrolyte supplements aren’t just for football players or ultramarathoners. Companies like Nuun market their tablets for everyone from aspiring endurance athletes to regular people going to yoga classes during their lunch breaks. These brands are “playing into people’s perception of what is healthy,” said Samantha Coogan, a nutrition sciences educator at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And it seems to be working: According to Precedence Research, the global electrolyte drinks market is worth over $40 billion and is expected to grow to nearly $75 billion in the next decade. The concept of hydration has become a point of fixation in wellness culture, even though experts still don’t entirely agree on how much hydration we need or the ideal way to get there. With electrolytes making their way from the world of endurance athletes to brunch cocktails, it’s tempting to believe that they might indeed be a magic cure for everything from leg cramps to hangovers. While electrolyte supplements are great for athletes and lifesaving for cholera patients, they’re not magic. Here’s what you need to know about what electrolytes can and can’t do, and whether you need them. What is an electrolyte, anyway? Our bodies need to maintain a certain balance of essential minerals to function properly: sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, chloride, phosphate, and bicarbonate. These minerals are all electrolytes, substances that carry electricity through the body, controlling fluid balance, muscle function, and communication between the brain and the body. The “electro” in “electrolytes” comes from the electric charge produced when they’re dissolved in a fluid like blood. Without electrolytes, these electrical signals get disrupted, causing muscle spasms and cramps, headaches, and trouble thinking clearly. Sodium in particular is an important electrolyte because it aids in controlling the amount of water in your blood. Electrolytes like sodium “basically help water in the body go where it’s supposed to go,” said Holley Samuel, a registered sports dietitian who works with endurance athletes. When we sweat, we lose a lot of sodium and chloride (a.k.a. salt). But if a person profusely sweating only chugs water without also replenishing the salt, it throws off the balance of sodium and water in the body, pushing too much fluid inside of cells. This can eventually make those cells swell like raisins soaking in water, a potentially dangerous condition called hyponatremia. When you drink water with electrolytes, that water is better able to stick around inside your body where it’s needed. It’s important to note that “electrolytes don’t exist only in a magic packet,” said Stavros Kavouras, director of the Hydration Science Lab at Arizona State University. Beyond tablets, packets, and powders, electrolytes exist in regular foods we eat all the time, like bananas (potassium), cheese and crackers (sodium and calcium), and spinach (magnesium). Electrolytes as pre-packaged water supplements, as we think of them today, have only been around for a few decades. In the 1960s, assistant coach Dewayne Douglas noticed that his University of Florida football players were struggling to recover after practices in the swampy Gainesville heat. Athletes shed weight — Douglas recalled losing up to 18 pounds per game himself, when he played — but barely felt the need to pee. After conducting studies with UF first-year football players as subjects, kidney disease specialist J. Robert Cade found that players felt terrible because in addition to experiencing low blood sugar after working out, they were sweating out tons of electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium. So he created a new sports recovery drink for the Florida Gators, called Gatorade: basically water, salt, sugar, and lemon juice for taste. The sodium-enriched drink helps athletes retain water while sweating, and the results were remarkable. “One Lil’ Swig of That Kickapoo Juice and Biff, Bam, Sock — It’s Gators, 8-2,” the Florida Times-Union celebrated in December 1966, after Gatorade’s first season with the team. Sports drinks took off, and other companies began capitalizing on Gatorade’s success. All sports drinks are variations on Gatorade’s theme: Water for hydration, sugar for energy, and electrolytes to aid in fluid absorption, as well as flavoring to get it down. Sports drinks act as “one magic bullet” for athletes, Kavouras said. “You take one thing, and it has everything in there.” This formula is so effective it’s recommended by the World Health Organization for rehydrating people, especially cholera patients or children experiencing diarrhea. At first, these beverages were primarily marketed to professional athletes. Today, Powerade and Gatorade are advertised as soft drinks for anyone. In 2024, the year of the giant water bottle, there are also a bunch of new-wave electrolyte supplements like Nuun, LMNT, and Liquid I.V. in grocery and convenience store aisles, which swap sugar for alternative sweeteners like stevia leaf extract or allulose to target consumers who don’t want to drink too many extra calories. These supplements market themselves as hydration superfoods: something to help athletes, sure, but also a hangover cure and overall vibe-booster for regular, health-conscious people. If your body needs extra electrolytes, supplements — whether a Gatorade or a Nuun — can be an efficient way to rehydrate. But, Coogan said, if you’re eating a balanced diet and aren’t training for a marathon, you probably shouldn’t be pounding back electrolyte packets. “Too much of a good thing is not always a good thing,” Coogan said. Okay, but what about hangovers? Pedialyte, an oral electrolyte solution meant for babies and children, has become the go-to hangover cure for young adults at music festivals and fraternity parties. College students are even trying to sidestep the consequences of binge drinking by swapping beers for BORGs (“blackout rage gallons”): a half-gallon of water mixed with a bottle of liquor and an electrolyte additive. Alas, electrolytes are not a magic hangover cure — trying to undo a night out with electrolyte supplements is “just going to be an uphill battle,” Coogan said. While pre-hydrating with an electrolyte supplement before a night out might help mitigate some of the consequences of the impending alcohol-fueled dehydration, the only real hangover cure is time. [Image: MIAMI, FLORIDA - JUNE 15: Más+ by Messi, a new beverage made with a blend of electrolytes, vitamins, and minerals, and created by global soccer icon Lionel Messi, hits shelves for the first time. (Photo by Rodrigo Varela/Getty Images for Más+ by Messi) https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/11/electrolytes.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] Electrolytes are great for super-sweaty times. Otherwise, meh. The best time to consume extra electrolytes is when you’ve been sweating a lot, or otherwise losing a lot of fluids through something like food poisoning. Training for a long-distance run? Working on a construction site on a summer day in a place like Phoenix? Experts say electrolyte supplements are definitely a good call. Many people (myself included) fall somewhere in between couch potato and ultramarathoner. I asked experts how I should think about electrolytes, as someone who spends most of the day sitting in front of my computer, then goes to a CrossFit or pole dancing class after work. Samuel says that for casual gym rats and recreational athletes, how you should rehydrate largely depends on how much you sweat, and what your sweat is made of. Some people “go to do a spin class and they’re on the bike for five minutes, and there’s a puddle around them,” Samuel said. “If that’s you, you’re a heavy sweater.” Sodium levels in sweat can also vary anywhere from 200 milligrams per liter to 2,000, depending on the person. If your sweat tends to sting your eyes or leave white streaks or crystals on your skin and clothes, you might be a salty sweater. Both heavy sweaters and salty sweaters should consider electrolyte supplements before, during, and after working out. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends consuming at least 300 milligrams of sodium per hour if you’re going to be out sweating for more than an hour, whether you’re participating in a sport or simply working outside on a hot day. Read labels, too: Try to stay below 14 grams of sugar per 8 ounces of fluid (that’s about half of the amount in a Gatorade Thirst Quencher). Make sure to check the sodium content on the label of your electrolyte supplement, though: Some popular supplements, like Liquid I.V., contain 500 mg of sodium, which is more than what’s necessary for all but the sweatiest endurance athletes. Those athletes usually need to consume more sodium than other people, Samuel said. For everyone else, supplements with more moderate levels of sodium (around 200 to 300 mg), should be enough to rehydrate. About one-third of otherwise healthy people are sensitive to salt, meaning that consuming high amounts of sodium causes an increase in blood pressure. “That’s why you have heard that a high sodium diet can lead to hypertension and cardiovascular disease,” Kavouras said. If you’re sensitive to salt, you’ll want to be careful. The FDA recommends Americans limit their sodium intake to 2,300 mg per day. Nevertheless, for most people, it’s next to impossible to consume a dangerous amount of electrolytes. If you eat more carbs, fat, or protein than your body needs, they get stored as fat. But electrolytes aren’t stored — they’re eliminated. “If you drink too much sodium,” Kavouras said, “you will be peeing more sodium.” You don’t necessarily need an electrolyte supplement after your workout. Low-fat milk (or soy milk, for lactose-intolerant and plant-based athletes) offer enough electrolytes, carbs, and protein to rehydrate, repair muscles, and stabilize blood sugar, and smoothies can incorporate protein and fats in addition to electrolyte-rich foods like bananas, dates, leafy greens, and coconut water. Electrolytes have another counterintuitive benefit: making you thirstier. “Electrolytes help in maintaining the thirst drive for a longer period of time,” Kavouras said. This can be helpful for those who struggle to drink enough water, because they aren’t thirsty enough to reach for it — or because they don’t like the taste of water. “If it tastes better, and if it drives thirst longer, you will be drinking more on your own,” Kavouras said. While drinking an electrolyte supplement when you don’t really need one is rarely dangerous, Samuel cautioned that consuming extra sodium without enough extra water (or sweating it out) is dehydrating — say pouring two LMNT packets into one regular-sized water bottle, although that would taste pretty bad. “You’re basically creating jerky out of yourself by salting too much,” she said. “We want to be a nice, hydrated steak.” You don’t need them all the time, but electrolytes can help rebalance a sweaty body and make drinking water a little more fun. Just remember that they’re hardly magic — they’re salts.