Originally Posted by Old Gammy Leg
- Surely it is better to have a drink with both malodextrin and electrolytes, than just malodextrin? Or is it better to fill one bottle with Go and one with PSP22?
Electrolytes are very valuable. When you sweat, you lose electrolytes, particularly sodium, as well as fluids. If you only replace the fluids, you can throw off your body's osmotic gradients. This can be extremely dangerous. It's called hyponatremia or water intoxication. It has many of the problems of dehydration, but it is more complicated given that the body's osmotic gradients are out of whack do to TOO MUCH water around. You can't drink yourself back to health. Because people are always drinking on rides/runs/whatever, they usually assume that they're not going to run into hydration problems, but it just isn't true. It usually is, but on hot, dry days when you're drinking more during a long ride, you really need to replenish your electrolyte stores.