QUESTION: There are two schools of thought among fluid replacement company principals as to how many nutrients need to be included in a beverage meant to be used during exercise. One end of the spectrum holds that carbohydrate and a couple of electrolytes are sufficient, while the other that a drink with upwards of 100 nutrients is optimal, since that's what the body will use during exercise. What is your company's approach; if you want you may include any scientific reasoning to support your company's position.

ELOAD: The position of e load™ and it’s medical director and formulator, Dr. Douglas Stoddard, is the simpler, the better. Why? Because the more nutrients/ingredients/calories crammed into your drink, the more difficulty you will have digesting and absorbing them. This is due to several fundamental physiological truths, including:

• Gastric emptying is reduced with increasing levels of calories (i.e. with increasing energy content) in your drink
  
• Gastric emptying is reduced with increasing solute (i.e. increasing levels of dissolved substances) in your drink.
  
• Gastrointestinal function (digestion and absorption) is reduced during intense physical activity for many reasons.
  

There are literally thousands of possible things one could put in a sports drink, as human physiology and metabolism requires thousands of compounds and chemicals to work, especially during exercise. However, where to draw the line, and on what basis to draw it, are the crucial questions, especially considering the above physiological "laws". e load‰ believes that a sports drink absolutely, unequivocally, has to help the athlete battle the following:

a). Dehydration
b). Bonking (falling blood glucose levels)
c). Lactic Acid Buildup
d). Falling electrolyte levels (primarily sodium and potassium), but also including Calcium, Magnesium and Zinc.

These problems I call the "Famous Four". If your drink does not optimize these four things, but chooses to try to optimize other aspects of physiology instead, it has missed the mark.

QUESTION: What type of sugar do you use, and why?

ELOAD: Dextrose and sucrose are the carbohydrates used in e load™. Dextrose (d-glucose) is a simple, high glycemic index sugar, and is e load’s principal sugar. It is also the sugar of choice in medical intravenous solutions when an individual needs rapid, life-saving infusions of sugar-an example of this is a diabetic who overdoses on insulin. An athlete pushing to the limits also needs sugar rapidly and continuously in order to fuel performance, and to prevent the dreaded bonk! Dextrose is also the sugar of choice in medical oral rehydration solutions, used with illnesses causing vomiting and diarrhea. This is because dextrose actually helps stimulate water/sodium absorption from the gut and water/sodium reabsorption from the kidney, which is crucial for normal rehydration. Dextrose, when taken orally, tastes great, is moderately sweet, causes no gastrointestinal irritation, is rapidly absorbed and needs no processing by your liver before it can be used by your hard working muscles. This truly is an optimal sugar for athletic performance!

Sucrose (table sugar) a simple, moderate glycemic index sugar, is the second sugar in e load™. It is easily absorbed and pleasantly sweet, improving palatability. Once inside the body, it provides instant glucose for use by working muscles. Some people are concerned about sucrose, and some companies take advantage of this concern by continuing to perpetuate the myth that a little table sugar is somehow going to lead us to our destruction! Nonsense! In truth, no one single carbohydrate should be the principle carbohydrate in our diets, and for some people, sucrose is the principal carbohydrate ingested because it is found in so many foods. The medical staff at e load™ agree that this is not ideal for optimum health. However, some sucrose in our diets is perfectly fine, and as a palatable, natural, non-nauseating sugar that offers rapid absorption and fueling, sucrose works very well!

QUESTION: Most companies describe the ratio of solute-to-solvent in terms of their beverage's percent solution. Do you feel that this is sufficient for the discussion, or whether the discussion of osmotic pressure is germane? Please add any detail on this subject you feel is needed.

ELOAD: Describing the ratio of solute to solvent (grams/100 ml or percent solution) is only a start when characterizing a sports drink. Osmotic pressure (osmolarity or osmolality) is a more useful number. Why? Because this property of solutions ultimately determines the physical characteristics of the solution, and how this solution will interact with human physiology. The lower the osmotic pressure of a solution, the less irritating it is to the human gut. Bear in mind that equal percent solutions of different substances will have different osmotic pressures-this is why percent solution has only limited use.

For example, 1 gram of NaCl (sodium chloride or table salt) in 100 cc of water is a 1% solution. This same solution has an osmotic pressure of 340 mOsm/Liter. By comparison, 1 gram of KCl (potassium chloride) is also a 1% solution. However, this solution has an osmotic pressure of 270 mOsm/Liter, less than the table salt solution. Theoretically, even though they are the same percent solutions, the KCl solution will be less irritating to the gut, if it was ingested, due to its lower osmolality.

e load™ has published its’ osmolarity, along with all other physical information, on its website: www.eload.net.

QUESTION: There has been a lot of talk recently about supplementing salt to one's during-race intake, especially in long, hot races where salt loss is extreme. Can you offer your company's position on this, and perhaps your view on the pros and cons of this?

ELOAD: The staff at e load™ believes very strongly in several physiological principals, one of the most important being that you must replace electrolyte from sweat at the same rate at which you are losing it. Obviously, thousands of triathletes all over the world feel the same if the sale of salt tablets is any indication of this. This advice is contrary to traditional thinking regarding electrolytes, which says that one’s diet should be enough to supply all of your sweat electrolytes lost during training and competition. WE DISAGREE! Since each of us loses electrolyte in sweat at varying rates, we also believe that you should be able to customize the amount of electrolyte ingested.

So, the questions are:

1. Where should you be getting your electrolytes from?
2. Why might you need salt tablets?

The simple answers are that during training and competition, you should be getting your electrolytes primarily from your sports drink, and you are not, which is why you may have needed salt tablets in the past. (e load has at least 2-3 times the amount of electrolyte, especially sodium, then any other drink currently sold)! e load™ has developed the first customizable electrolyte loading sports drink system, effectively replacing the hit and miss approach of using low electrolyte drinks plus salt tablets. The e load™ system uses a BASE formula plus separate ZONE CAPS™ to achieve this. We also believe that if you give your body more of what it is losing in the way of electrolytes, it has to work less to maintain normal hydration and electrolyte levels. The energy your body would normally use to fight dehydration and falling electrolyte levels can then be used for other things, like training and racing!

QUESTION: It is customary for a race organizer to offer a variety of food and drink. In particular, one might find bananas on the course, gels such as GU, and defizzed Coke. What is your company's position on these other food and drink sources, and is it in the athlete's best interest to take any of them? If so, which, and when, and under what circumstances?

ELOAD: The principals of human physiology must always be kept in mind when considering food/drink intake during training and competition:

1. Maximum 4-8% carbohydrate drinks are recommended, and we at e load‰ like to limit the upper end at 6% for maximal palatability, optimal digestion and absorption. Coke has a whopping 15% carbohydrate-a recipe for gut irritation if you ingest too much.

2. Fruits like bananas contain fructose, or fruit sugar, as do many sports drinks. Fructose is an undisputed gut irritant, and we at e load‰ do not recommend ingestion of any fructose containing foods/drinks both before or during training/competition, especially if you are "gut sensitive".

3. Gels are a very concentrated source of carbohydrate (very high osmolarity), and have the potential to promote gut irritation because of this fact-if you are "gut sensitive", use with caution, and try to substitute other sources of calories like meal replacement drinks or bars, which contain other nutrients and are not so highly concentrated in carbohydrates.