Sports Drinks “Oversold And Over-hyped”

Who needs a sports drink? Far fewer people than those who drink them, according to Chris Woolston of the Los Angeles Times. Woolston talks to Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, who says plainly that “Sports drinks are oversold and over-hyped. People are starting to figure out sports drinks, and criticism against them is only going to grow.” Why is that? Because, Woolston writes, a recent series of articles suggested that the benefits of sports drinks are meager at best, especially when compared with plain water, the original sports drink. Michael Bergeron, a fellow of the American Academy of Sports Medicine and executive director of the National Institute for Athletic Health & Performance, tells Woolston that many athletes believe they need sports drinks to replace the salt lost in sweat, but most of them can get by just fine with regular water. The bottom line: claims made by sports drink advertisements are as reliable as the claims of ads for most fitness products. Not so much. Read more about that here.