| Drinks that contain salt and sugar are better than | | | | pumping oxygen-rich blood to your muscles. If |
| just plain water during exercise, unless you are | | | | you heart has difficulty serving both functions, it |
| also eating foods. A study from the Medical | | | | cannot pump enough hot blood from muscles and |
| College of Georgia shows that tennis players have | | | | your temperature rises. |
| lower body temperatures when they drink fluid | | | | You do not have to take sports drinks to protect |
| with electrolytes and sugar, rather than just plain | | | | yourself from high body temperature. During |
| water (British Journal of Sports Medicine, May | | | | exercise, you need energy, salt and water and |
| 2006). Higher body temperatures during exercise | | | | your body doesn't care how it gets these |
| slow you down and tire you earlier. | | | | nutrients. Eating any salted food with water or |
| More than 80 percent of the energy that supplies | | | | any beverage you like will supply your body as |
| your muscles is lost as heat. Less than 20 percent | | | | efficiently as sports drinks. You will drink less of a |
| drives your muscles. So during exercise, your | | | | beverage that does not taste good to you, no |
| heart has to cool your body by pumping hot | | | | matter what its advertised advantages may be. |
| blood from your muscles to your skin, as well as | | | | |