The latest television ads for the popular sports drink Gatorade got the wheels of my mind to spinning. The focus of the ad campaign is on “sweat” and how the body exerts sweat during physical activities; and how much sweat goes into being athletic. The commercials go on to claim that no other drink aside from Gatorade can return to the body what is lost when we sweat; not water nor any other product. When I was a kid my basketball coach told us that sweat and urine were basically the same thing, so immediately I wonder: is Gatorade bottled urine? Or is it indeed bottled sweat?
First let’s tackle the issue of urine versus sweat. Urine is a liquid secreted to flush out waste molecules collected from the blood via the kidneys, and helps keep conditions within the body in their regular state of stability. Sweat or perspiration is excreted from sweat glands and when it is evaporated from the skin it works as a coolant for the body. However, there are two types of sweat glands and not all sweat is produced for mere temperature regulation. Scientists seem to debate the usage of the other type of sweat with many leaning on the theory that it is a pheromone for attracting members of the opposite sex. Obviously the Gatorade commercials are referring to the body temperature regulating sweat, so that is the type to be compared with urine here. Urine itself is composed of too many elements for me to list and differs on a person to person basis. Sweat on the other hand is composed mainly of water and various salt compounds. However, sweat does have other things within in, roughly guesstimated on average to compose 1% of sweat, such as NaCl, Vitamin C, uric acid, urea, ammonia and lactic acid. Of course in the same way as urine all ingredients fluctuate from person to person. Looking at the ingredients of sweat though, in that 1% you will note “urea.” Yep, urea is a big ingredient in urine, which also by the way tends to be beneficial to plants. Therefore, urine and sweat do indeed share some of the same ingredients in varying degrees.
Gatorade as a beverage was created at the University of Florida in 1965 to help the football players. It was theorized that certain elements lost from the body via the sweating process were in need of replenishment and could therefore hydrate the body better, while maintaining the sweat for cooling and therefore boost an athlete’s performance overall; since they will be at their maximum state of comfort and functioning. The elements lost during sweating are sometimes referred to as electrolytes and it was the study of sweat that helped develop the drink product. What does this mean in context to my curiosity?
If one wishes to interpret the ingredients of Gatorade in a basic sense, the product is attempting to replace what you lose via sweat; which theoretically includes some of the ingredients. Therefore, drinking Gatorade in a basic sense is indeed drinking sweat. However, I don’t know about you, but my sweat probably doesn’t have artificial flavoring.
The basic ingredients of a bottle of Gatorade are: water, sucrose syrup, high fructose corn syrup (glucose-fructose syrup), citric acid, natural flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, yellow 6, glycerol ester of wood rosin, brominated vegetable oil, red 40.
I don’t see urea as a common ingredient and it is a fairly good guess that they do not actually bottle up sweat. So, even though Gatorade can be viewed as drinking sweat and is designed to replenish that which sweat takes away, it seems to be chemically different enough that you’re not drinking urine. Also, if you are grossed out by calling Gatorade drinkable sweat, just think that the main component of each is water, as is the main component of most everything else you’ll drink or ingest in life and therefore the same claim could be made about anything and everything. Besides, having worked in the food industry previously I can tell you you’re eating urine and sweat on a daily basis regardless of whether you order it.
