Sports Drinks

You're headed to the gym or for a bike ride after work. Should you sip a sports drink before, guzzle it afterward or stick with water? The answer, according to sports nutrition experts, is … it depends. These drinks — Accelerade, Gatorade, Gatorade G, PowerAde, Pure Sport and more — provide water for hydration, energy in the form of carbohydrates and electrolytes that help the body retain fluids. Their ingredients are calibrated to meet the needs of athletes.

Just weeks after PepsiCo Inc. announced it would remove a controversial ingredient from its Gatorade sports drinks, an online petition is urging Coca-Cola Co. to remove brominated vegetable oil from its Powerade sports drinks. The petition , started by a Norcross, Ga. woman, has so far garnered more than 49,000 signatures urging Coca-Cola to nix the ingredient from its sports drinks. "BVO is very controversial due to the health effects it can have on people and animals," the Norcross woman, Aveyca Price, wrote.

Will sports drinks affect my heart rate? And are they better for me than water? There is no research indicating that sports drinks will elevate the heart rate. In fact, they seem to have an opposite effect. Because the cardiovascular system is less efficient when dehydrated, not drinking enough fluids can increase the heart rate. Therefore, consuming fluids, such as water or a sports drink during activity, reduces the risk of dehydration and limited physical capacity.

For parents, the costs of youth sports can add up. There are fees for leagues and competitions, plus expenses for equipment, training and uniforms. How can you keep the spending under control? Mark Hyman, the author of "The Most Expensive Game in Town," has some advice: • Start an equipment exchange. Hyman has used this himself in youth leagues. "Families bring us their used, outgrown, no-longer-needed baseball pants, lacrosse sticks, soccer shoes, etcetera," he explained. "We then make them available to others at no charge.

Looking for something more exciting than water to drink after a workout? One alternative is Ginseng Up soda, an old brew recently reformulated with less sugar and less carbonation. The New York-based company touts the soda--available at health food stores--as the "original sports drink." It stops short of claiming the ancient ginseng root can improve athletic performance, but notes that some research suggests it may improve circulation and speed metabolic rate. Is it worth a try?

Forget the vitamins. The best supplement to help athletes' bodies recover from the stress of heavy-duty exercise is good old-fashioned sugar -- found in sports drinks. That's because the drinks, which are 6% to 8% sugar, help restore much of the body's depleted supply of carbohydrates. Sports drinks supply forms of sugar, such as glucose and sucrose, that are quickly absorbed and in optimal concentrations. Fruit drinks contain fructose, which can lead to cramping or stomach upset.

Jane rides an exercise bike three times a week for half an hour at a time. Hillary takes aerobic dance, a 1-hour class, four evenings weekly. Kate is training for a marathon; she runs 6 days a week, 45 to 90 minutes at a stretch. All three toss down sports drinks during and after their workouts, but only one of them really needs to. Sports drinks won't hurt any of these exercisers, but they won't make a difference in health or performance either, unless exercise goes on 90 minutes or longer.

Every couple of years a food or beverage is crowned with what nutrition experts call a "health halo. " Some of the foods -- wild salmon, blueberries, flax seeds -- deserve it. But others gain status for no apparent reason. Acai berry, anyone? It's not that the trendy food is unhealthful. It's just that if you're already eating a well-balanced diet it's unnecessary. And possibly expensive. The latest entrant in this category: coconut water. Coconut water -- the mildly sweet liquid from the center of young, green coconuts -- has been popular in tropical areas since, well, as long as people have lived among coconut palm trees.

The Great Bottle Controversy bubbled over Thursday when Fernando Vargas was granted permission by the Nevada State Athletic Commission to use a sports drink in his corner for Saturday night's junior-middleweight rematch against Shane Mosley at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Athletes are urged to consume carbohydrates frequently -- before they start activity, during exercise to "keep the tank full" and as soon as possible after a workout to replenish carbohydrate stores. But it wasn't always so. Only 100 years ago, it was widely believed that beef was the cornerstone of an athlete's diet. Then, in 1920, came the first published study demonstrating the importance of a high-carbohydrate diet to fuel activity.

Anywhere someone is lifting a weight, strapping on a football helmet or lacing up running shoes, there's probably a big bottle of green, blue or neon orange liquid nearby. Gatorade, Powerade and other sports drinks have drenched just about every sport in America, from triathlons to pee-wee soccer. But sports drinks are also popular with spectators in the stands, kids playing video games, long haul truckers and office workers. Lots of people chug down sports drinks without ever breaking a sweat.

Was the American Beverage Assn. trying to defend sugary sodas when it said last week that they amounted to just 7% of the typical American's caloric intake? The association may have thought that sounded like very little, but it's actually a lot. For a person eating 2,000 calories a day - the level the federal government assumes in calculating nutritional requirements - consuming 7% fewer soda calories would theoretically lead to a loss of 14 pounds a year, with little if any loss of nutrients.

The federal food assistance program SNAP pays $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion for purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages every year, a new study has found. Meanwhile, the government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that we cut back on consumption of sugary drinks. A disconnect? The authors seem to think so. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are important, they stress, but "allowing annual use of multibillions of SNAP benefits to purchase products that are at the core of public health concerns about obesity and chronic illnesses appears misaligned with the goals of helping low-income families live active, healthy lives.” They suggest that reauthorization of the SNAP program, set for later this year, "could be a good time to reconsider the program priorities to align use of public funds with fostering public health.

Every couple of years a food or beverage is crowned with what nutrition experts call a "health halo. " Some of the foods -- wild salmon, blueberries, flax seeds -- deserve it. But others gain status for no apparent reason. Acai berry, anyone? It's not that the trendy food is unhealthful. It's just that if you're already eating a well-balanced diet it's unnecessary. And possibly expensive. The latest entrant in this category: coconut water. Coconut water -- the mildly sweet liquid from the center of young, green coconuts -- has been popular in tropical areas since, well, as long as people have lived among coconut palm trees.

This post has been updated. See note below for details. The high school or middle school student who can grab a sugar-sweetened soft drink on school grounds during class hours is becoming a rarity, a new study finds. But lots of kids still can buy high-sugar beverages in schools: Fruit juices and sports drinks that are designed for serious athletes engaged in vigorous physical activity remain widely sold in U.S. middle and high schools. In 2010-11, 25% of high school students had access to sugary sodas during school -- either at cafeteria concessions or from vending machines.

A third of kids in U.S. public elementary schools can buy such beverages as sports drinks and full-fat milk at school, according to a study looking at wellness policies in schools. And that's an improvement, the researchers said. “Elementary schools across the country are improving the beverage landscape, showing that change is possible and it's already happening,” the lead author, Lindsey Turner, said in a statement. The work is part of an effort funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; it was published this month in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

ONE little milk study and everyone's having a cow. For decades, biochemists and physiologists in the dog-eat-dog world of sports drink technology have struggled to find the perfect elixir -- the right balance of carbohydrates, electrolytes, protein and fluid to keep athletes in peak form after various types of exercise.

Anywhere someone is lifting a weight, strapping on a football helmet or lacing up running shoes, there's probably a big bottle of green, blue or neon orange liquid nearby. Gatorade, Powerade and other sports drinks have drenched just about every sport in America, from triathlons to pee-wee soccer. But sports drinks are also popular with spectators in the stands, kids playing video games, long haul truckers and office workers. Lots of people chug down sports drinks without ever breaking a sweat.

Take a look at the most popular endurance sport drinks and you'll notice a surprising similarity in ingredients. There are carbohydrates (usually in the form of sugar), sodium, potassium and sometimes a touch of protein. You'll notice something else - these drinks are expensive. It can cost $1.75 or more to fill one 24-ounce water bottle - and you have to drink a bottle an hour to keep up a good flow of nutrients and liquid while you work out. There's an easy way around the expense: making your own endurance drink.

Say it ain't so, Rudy. Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, the 5-foot-6 walk-on Notre Dame football player whose underdog story became the 1993 movie "Rudy," has seen his sports drink venture turn out less happily — with allegations of securities fraud. In a lawsuit Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Ruettiger, 63, and 12 others of swindling investors in Rudy Nutrition, a Gatorade challenger he started with a college friend in South Bend, Ind. Ruettiger got in trouble when he moved the company to Las Vegas in 2007 and joined a fast crowd that pumped out promotions to penny-stock investors.