Salt Pills Don’t Boost Endurance

First, the bad news: salt pills do nothing to boost the performance of endurance athletes. The good news? There is none really, although the same researchers at St. Louis University who found no benefit from salt pills also found that they don’t hurt performance either. A U of St. Louis news release reports that the researchers put 11 endurance athletes through a double-blind study in which they did two hours of endurance exercise at 60 percent heart rate reserve followed by an exercise performance test–exercise that resulted in more than two liters of water loss in the form of sweat. During one session, the athletes received 1800 mg of sodium supplementation and during the other, they received a placebo. The envelope please….When the investigators calculated sweat rate, perceived exertion, heat stress, cardiovascular drift (increased heart rate after a period of exercise even when exertion remains constant), skin temperature and dehydration, they found that none of the measures showed significant statistical difference between trials. That’s right, the pills did nothing. The scientists warned that because high sodium intake is associated with high blood pressure and other health problems, it’s probably better to leave the pills alone.