How Our Body Balances Electrolyte Levels

To fully benefit from optimal hydration, it's essential to understand how the body regulates electrolytes, especially sodium.

Firstly, it’s important to recognise that our body has a very sophisticated system in managing our electrolyte levels. People often make the mistake of thinking that electrolytes are just stored away and then used and we have to top them up. That is not at all how it works.

Our body has a sophisticated physiological system in which we regulate the levels of our electrolytes. For example, sodium is the primary electrolyte that lives ‘outside’ of our cells. This means our body has a whole detection system which tracks sodium. 

Now this is where it gets interesting, this system doesn’t track how much sodium there is, but how concentrated that sodium is. That is a really important difference. It’s the change in concentration of sodium that determines what we do.

For example, if we drink a big bottle of water, it dilutes the sodium in our body. In order to bring the concentration back into a good range, our body will urinate out the excess water. If we are active and sweating profusely, our body will become saltier as we lose a lot more water in our sweat than we do salt. This increased saltiness is detected, our body increases our thirst response and we consume more water so the body can bring our saltiness back down into range. 

Our body does not just mindlessly release or burn through electrolytes, our stores stay relatively consistent, even when we train and sweat for 1-2 hours a day. This is important when it comes to optimising our hydration levels because the key factor to doing so is not replacing electrolytes, but using electrolytes to replace water. 

Let’s say that one more time; the key factor to optimal hydration is not replacing electrolytes but using electrolytes to replace water. 

You can do this by using a combination of electrolytes + glucose + water in a way that creates what is called a hypotonic solution. This means that the concentration of that drink will cause the water to be rapidly moved into your body after you drink it.

It does this by utilising transports called Sodium Glucose transporters in the gut and this formula of drink has been used for decades for rapid rehydration. At Trainade, we have taken this formula and our team of world leading experts have further optimised it to get the fastest hydration on the market. 

That is why so many athletes and everyday people feel SO great once they consume Trainade Hydration, it gets into their body and hydrates them faster than anything else. That is all because of our elite level science that has been put into all of our products. 

Try it for yourself and feel the difference scientific hydration can make to your day.