Why you need electrolytes
Why Electrolytes are necessary for effective hydration and for prevention of cramping
Why are electrolytes so important for sporting performance?
Every time muscles move, electrical impulses facilitate these functions. Each time your heart beats, electrical impulses make it happen. Every nerve impulse is dependent on a tiny electrical charge. A number of minerals in electrolyte form are essential for all of these essential functions including magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride.
The charge that electrolytes carry is essential to regulate fluid balance (hydration) and pH balance. Also if is dehydrated and their electrolyte levels are low or out of balance, one of the results can be that muscles go into cramps or spasms.
When playing or participating in sports there is an increased need for electrolytes, so deficiencies of electrolytes are more common when involved in such activity.
The competitive athlete is predestined to evolve a magnesium deficiency due to increased sweat and urine excretion. During strenuous activity magnesium is required by the organs (including muscle) and a situation is created whereby there is an increased difficulty to supply magnesium to the athletes by natural sources in sufficient amount.Continuous magnesium supplementation to the athlete must be considered as a supportive and beneficial measure during periods of long physical stress.
Golf S. Magnesium and physical exercise. Journal of Trace Elements and Electrolytes, 2008; 25(4): 231.
What is an electrolyte?
Electrolytes are charged minerals (ions) that are balanced with a positively charged mineral (such as sodium, magnesium and potassium) and a negatively charged mineral complex (such as chloride, sulphate and carbonate), in such a way that they will dissolve and split in water making the liquid electrically conductive. Electrolytes are therefore known as being ionically charged.
Minerals that are known as electrolytes in common parlance, such as magnesium, are in fact only electrolytes when in present in an ionically charged form (eg: Magnesium Chloride), but are frequently found in non-electrolyte form (eg: Magnesium Chelate).
Unless the mineral is ionically charged (attached to a negatively charged mineral complex) it is not an electrolyte and does not have the properties associated with electrolytes - such as enabling effective hydration and preventing cramping.
An overview of some important electrolytes and their functions:
The electrolytes which are necessary for enabling optimum hydration and also to prevent cramping are a combination of magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride, all in the right balance and in an ionically charged form. Here is some information about each of these essential minerals:-
Magnesium: The most expensive electrolyte is essential for all energy conversion, muscle function, nerve conduction, more than 300 different enzyme reactions, bone and tooth formation and pH balance. Magnesium is essential for the production of ATP energy, insulin production and insulin uptake. It's also essential to optimum working the sodium:potassium cell pump. Physical and emotional stress will deplete magnesium from the body.
Potassium: Should be the most abundant electrolyte inside the cells and is essential for muscle function, nerve conduction, water balance and pH balance..
Sodium: The least expensive of all electrolytes and most common one found in the modern diet. Sodium is essential for thirst response, heat tolerance, muscle contraction, nerve conduction, water balance and pH balance..
Chloride: The most abundant negatively charged electrolyte in the body is essential for oxygen exchange, digestion, water balance and pH balance.
What is homeostasis and how does it relate to electrolyte replacement?
Electrolytes in general and electrolyte balance in particular are so crucial to health that the body works very hard to maintain fluid levels of electrolytes within narrow ranges. This is part of the process called homeostasis.
If the body is deficient in an electrolyte, efforts will be made to absorb more from the digestive system in addition to other attempts to retain that electrolyte. As any athlete knows, when he/she becomes electrolyte deficient sweat looses its salty flavour. If there is an excess of a particular electrolyte, the body will excrete more through sweat or urine. The typical European diet is high in sodium and as a consequence our perspiration may be initially high in sodium, yet very low in potassium and magnesium. For this reason, clinical studies measuring the electrolytes lost through sweat are not necessarily the best guide for what to consume and replace. The body maintains stores of critical electrolytes to be used as needed. Calcium is stored in the bones and magnesium is stored in the muscles. For those with a high need for electrolytes, it is possible to retain stores in the body by consuming electrolytes on a daily basis.
The elete™ range of 100% natural, ionically charged electrolyte products are derived from the evaporation of the mineral-rich water of the Great Salt Lake in Utah with nothing else added. elete™ contains all four of the key electrolytes (magnesium, potassium, chloride and sodium) in an ionically charged form together with other beneficial, naturally occurring, trace and ultra trace elements.