By now, we’ve all heard that electrolyte stability is completely essential for total hydration, which in the end impacts not solely your athletic efficiency restoration, but additionally your well being, and doubtlessly, your longevity.
The query we have to reply is which electrolyte formulation is greatest? As all the time, not all dietary supplements are created equal, and never everybody’s mineral necessities are the identical.
Right here on the PricePlow Weblog, we’ve written a number of articles summarizing analysis literature on the consequences of hydration dietary supplements. There’s no scarcity of research evaluating key hydration endpoints and their results on athletic efficiency.
Not often, although, can we get into the weeds on how hydration dietary supplements differ from one another mechanistically. However immediately, due to a relatively distinctive research on NNB Diet’s ElectroPrime, we’re going to do precisely that.
What’s ElectroPrime?
NNB Diet’s ElectroPrime™ is a low-carb ingredient designed particularly for hydration — it consists of a mixture of glycerol, glucose, and electrolytes, together with sodium, potassium, and magnesium.
NNB is well-known for HydroPrime, their industry-leading glycerol powder that’s been stabilized to cut back clumping. Utilizing HydroPrime’s know-how, they have been in a position to make a shelf-stable electrolyte answer that reinforces hydration due to the inclusion of glycerol, which is ready to induce a state of “hyperhydration”. They named it ElectroPrime.
This mixture of components can present improved hydration standing past commonplace hydration formulation, and it might probably assist the physique preserve water stability with a complete hydration impact. However NNB Diet wished to see the way it carried out in motion, so that they put it to the check in an osmotic strain research detailed on this article.
Earlier than entering into the research, we should first clarify the background:
Hydration – A Primer
Osmotic strain is a crucial idea in physiology and chemistry, and it’s the important thing idea behind human hydration and electrolyte stability. Within the easiest phrases, osmotic strain refers back to the power exerted by solutes in an answer to attract water throughout a semipermeable membrane.[1] This course of is called osmosis.
With regards to hydration, the semipermeable membranes in query are the phospholipid bilayer membranes that enclose the contents of all of your physique’s cells. This makes osmosis important for sustaining mobile well being – when an answer has the proper osmotic strain, water flows into cells effectively, thus enabling correct mobile operate, hydration, and nutrient absorption.
So, the osmotic strain of a hydration answer performs a crucial function in figuring out how efficient the product is at hydrating the physique and sustaining electrolyte stability. When an individual loses fluids by means of sweat, that individual loses solely water, but additionally sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and chloride. If the answer ingested to switch these losses is just not iso-osmotic, it might probably disrupt the physique’s means to successfully rehydrate and stability electrolytes.
The best for any hydration complement is to assist your physique obtain osmotic equilibrium. If the complement disrupts this equilibrium, it’s more likely to have a counterproductive impact.
For example, an answer with too excessive osmotic strain (hyper-osmotic) could cause dehydration, as a result of such options draw water out of the physique’s cells and into the digestive tract, which might result in discomfort corresponding to bloating, nausea, or diarrhea.[2] Clearly, diarrhea wastes plenty of water, and might result in catastrophic dehydration all by itself.
Low sodium: when hydration goes incorrect
However, an answer with too low osmotic strain (hypo-osmotic) could cause an extra of water to flood into cells, doubtlessly resulting in cell swelling or edema. For extraordinary individuals, this in all probability isn’t of any sensible concern. However in excessive instances, corresponding to while you’re working very exhausting in an extremely sizzling setting, this may end up in hyponatremia, a situation the place the sodium focus within the blood turns into dangerously diluted.
Hyponatremia happens as a result of extra water consumption reduces the focus of sodium within the extracellular fluid, which disrupts the stability between sodium and water. As water continues to enter the cells, significantly in tissues just like the mind, it might probably result in swelling (cerebral edema), inflicting signs starting from complications and nausea to seizures or, in extreme instances, coma and dying.[3]
Train-associated hyponatremia, which is a really actual concern for every type of aggressive athlete,[4] is precisely the factor any good hydration complement must be particularly designed to forestall.
Hyponatremia is a danger when consuming plain water, particularly after dropping plenty of sodium in sweat — it’s the primary purpose for hydration formulation to exist within the first place.[5]
What We Need Is An Iso-Osmotic Resolution
Iso-osmotic options, then again, preserve the identical osmotic strain as bodily fluids after ingestion, in the end preserving the balanced and environment friendly motion of water into and out of cells, and making certain the physique can correctly rehydrate with out disruptions to its delicate, all-important stability of electrolytes.
Contemplating the function of carbohydrates
Moreover, carbohydrates play a major function in electrolyte absorption and hydration enhancement. That is due to the small gut’s sodium-glucose cotransporter SGLT1, which transports glucose and sodium collectively, pulling water together with them.[6,7]
Most hydration dietary supplements include sodium in an try to preserve the mineral balanced within the wake of fluid loss, and lots of additionally embody not less than some carbohydrates and/or glucose to boost its impact. However there’s one other issue we are able to contemplate: how the hyperhydration properties of glycerol could make an influence.
NNB’s new research explores this:
New Inner Research – NNB’s ElectroPrime Is An Iso-Osmotic System
Fortuitously for us, it simply obtained just a little simpler to search out the correct stability. That’s due to a latest inside research that straight in contrast the osmotic strain of NNB’s ElectroPrime to a number of business electrolyte merchandise, demonstrating within the course of that ElectroPrime is a real iso-osmotic formulation.
On this research, 5 totally different top-selling hydration options have been evaluated, together with some which might be low-carb, one with zero sugar, and one with cane sugar. The research measured the osmotic strain of every answer based mostly on the concentrations advisable by its model.[8]
The outcomes have been putting: whereas the business merchandise had osmotic pressures starting from 117 to 246 mosmol/kg, ElectroPrime measured between 295-298 mosmol/kg,[8] which falls inside the isotonic vary of 300±10% mosmol/kg.[9]
The research used a freezing level despair osmometer to find out osmotic strain, simulating situations akin to these within the human physique.[8,9] The gadget works by measuring how a lot the freezing level of an answer drops as solutes are dissolved into it. Because the variety of solute particles will increase, the freezing level continues to lower, permitting scientists to calculate the focus of particles within the answer.
Utilizing this methodology, the research authors discovered that top-selling merchandise didn’t present isotonicity, which means they’ll’t hydrate or stability electrolytes as successfully as ElectroPrime (or, extra precisely, a complement that’s formulated with ElectroPrime).
These are high quality merchandise, however there’s an enormous differentiator right here: glycerol.
Constant WIth Earlier Research Exhibiting Glycerol’s Efficacy
This affirmation of ElectroPrime’s isotonicity ought to come as no shock to us, since a number of research have already proven that its trademarked mixture of electrolytes and glycerol enhances fluid retention, endurance, and total hydration higher than electrolyte-only or glycerol-only merchandise.
One such research demonstrated that in comparison with sodium-induced hyperhydration (SIH) or glycerol-induced hyperhydration (GIH), ElectroPrime’s sodium-glycerol-induced hyperhydration (SGIH) was far simpler, resulting in a 28.9% discount in urine manufacturing and 27.3% improve in fluid retention in comparison with sodium alone.[10] This discovering is essential for athletes, since retaining further fluid will help forestall dehydration and preserve efficiency ranges over prolonged intervals.
Moreover, one other experiment discovered that glycerol supplementation decreased urine quantity by 700 mL and maintained a mobile hyperhydrated state for as much as 49 hours. Once more, due to its mixture of glycerol and balanced electrolytes, ElectroPrime extends the interval throughout which the physique can stay successfully hydrated, permitting for higher endurance and restoration.[11]
Lastly, a 3rd research confirmed that point to exhaustion throughout train elevated by 24% after administering glycerol together with electrolytes, with topics exercising for a mean of 94 minutes in comparison with 44 minutes for individuals who took a placebo. Imply coronary heart fee was additionally lowered by 4.4 beats/min within the glycerol group, which underscores the significance of hydration for well being.[12]
The purpose is evident: glycerol is an unbelievable hydration agent, however mixed with sodium, potassium, and magnesium, it’s now an {industry} chief in a class that’s due for some disruption.
Conclusion: ElectroPrime is Poised to Reignite the Hydration Area
The osmotic strain research solely confirms one thing that savvy {industry} observers have lengthy identified – glycerol is a star ingredient within the hydration formulation product class, which has been rising within the early 2020s however has stalled out a bit in 2024. We now have an ingredient to offer the following stage up: ElectroPrime.
We’re now extraordinarily assured that ElectroPrime promotes environment friendly water and electrolyte absorption by sustaining the osmotic equilibrium of bodily fluids, thus lowering the dangers related to hypo- or hyper-osmotic typical of different merchandise.
The science is easy: together with glycerol provides an extra layer of hydration, enabling longer-lasting fluid retention and enhanced athletic efficiency. This mechanism has been well-known for some time, however NNB Diet’s the corporate to make powdered glycerol extra steady, due to their improvement on HydroPrime through the years.
ElectroPrime represents the following technology of hydration merchandise – one that actually ensures optimum fluid stability, enhanced endurance, and higher total well being for athletes and anybody needing superior hydration. To remain tuned, you possibly can join our NNB Diet information on PricePlow:
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