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Energy Drink or Sport Drink? How About Neither.

December 12th, 2010 Leave a comment Go to comments
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Nice writeup last week in NY Times about sports drinks, energy drinks, and athletes. Our position is well known by now, 99% of the US population do not engage in athletic activity so intense that they would need a special liquid to recover lost bodily fluids, salts and electrolytes. Basically, it’s a marketing play.

But let’s say you are a distance runner, cycler, dancer, or running after your 3 kids 24/7. Which would work better for you, sport or energy drink?

Energy drinks…are beverages that contain whopping doses of sugar (up to a quarter cup per can), caffeine and other ingredients, like the stimulatory herb guarana and the amino acid taurine. Although often marketed to (and by) athletes, they are not sports drinks. “Sports drinks,” like Gatorade, “contain far less” sugar or other sweeteners than energy drinks and rarely if ever contain caffeine…

OK. Energy drinks have more sugar. So what?

In many stores, you’ll see the energy drinks displayed right next to the sports drinks in store aisles, as if they were interchangeable. They’re not.

According to research cited by the article, a bit of caffeine can give people a kick and improve their athletic performance slightly. The problem is that the amount required varies wildly from person to person, and for the same person who gets used to the caffeine after a while.

On the downside – caffeine is a diuretic and can lead to dehydration. The huge quantity of sugar can cause diarrhea and other gastro problems. Another study on pre-teens showed that consumption of energy drinks led to higher affinity for fat and sugar laden food.

Conclusion – energy drinks are not what you or child needs to be a better athlete≥

That’s not to say that Gatorade is any good either.

What to do at the supermarket:

Water, milk, banana, dried fruit, even chocolate, will do you as good or better than expensive artificially colored and flavored performance drinks.

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  • R

    As far as I know, I’ve never seen anyone lump energy drinks with Gatorade. It’s ALWAYS used for the caffeine, sort of a coffee replacement. In my previous office, you could stand at the front door at 8am and watch people walk in with coffee cups or energy drinks in hand, gulping them down in order to stay awake. Many people would brag about never drinking coffee, but down 2 RockStars before lunch.

    And of course, energy drinks are used a lot on Friday nights by people who have been up since 5am, worked a full day, commuted home, and are now trying to rally and make it out to see friends. Those “5 hour energy” shots are super popular as well.

    Energy drinks may be marketed as sports drinks, but in practice I’ve rarely seen them used that way, especially by 20/30 somethings in an office/business-type environment. I feel like the NYTimes and others are missing the point and don’t understand the motivations behind the use, and thus their warnings won’t be as effective.

  • R

    Sorry, forgot to add: In my current job, I take public transportation and see many more people with energy drinks in the morning. And I work with kids who think coffee tastes gross, but like the sugary/syrupy taste of Monster and Red Bull. Most of them buy it at the convenience store in the morning, or drink their parents’ stash. Mostly it’s gone before they get to school, or they’ll drink it with lunch. Again, they’re using it as a way to get caffeine but avoid the bitterness of coffee, and it does lend a bit of “grownup” cool as well since all their college-age siblings are drinking it (as opposed to high-sugar, high-caffeine soda like Mountain Dew).

  • Jen B

    Powerade is a good, cheap alternative to Pedialyte when trying to replenish electrolytes and fluids! Otherwise, yeah, no use to ‘em.

  • http://www.cassandraforsythe.com Cassandra

    Caffeine is not a diuretic. This has been proven scientifically:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16131696

  • Mike H

    I’m a serious long-distance cyclist and gatorade (or the other performance-type drinks, even Cytomax) actually doesn’t have the caloric density you need or the electrolyte quantities you need for actual race-intensity efforts of more than 3-4 hours (typical top-level cycling road races will be 4+ hours – so this matters).

    No need to despair or run into the arms of the marketing machines behind most drinks, just grab some long-chain carbs from your local “health food” store (Carbogain works well here) and dump the right amount of calories per hour into the right amount of water per hour to fill your bottles. Find an electrolyte supplement that has the right dosage for you (varies by weight, heat etc) and punch those into Clif Bloks or something similar for easy handling/downing, and you’re set.

    Cheap and purpose-built for real race intensity. Any other intensity can and should get real food unless you’re specifically training tolerance for the race stuff.

    All IMHO of course :-)

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  • http://infusionart.co.uk/ Ethan

    Wise words from Mike H there, no more will I be tempted by the Powerades and Redbulls of the world!