Originally Posted by MoAlpha

Actually, sodium and potassium are absorbed into the body by independent mechanisms, which don't affect each other. You may be referring to the Na/K ATPase, which maintains the charge and concentration gradients for Na+ and K+ across cell membranes, but you would die in ventricular fibrillation long before your potassium could get that low enough to affect that.

Both, Na and K, however, are made significantly more efficient in the presence of glucose. This is one reason there is sugar in electrolyte drinks. The other is that potassium salts taste horrible. There probably is an excess of sugar in most of the commercial stuff.