Do Gatorade and other sports drinks increase your risk of getting kidney stones?
If you have ever suffered the pain of kidney stones and you consume these drinks, you may be interested in the answer.
Developing kidney stones is only one health concern but a significant one.
Still worthy of mention is that the artificial ingredients and unhealthy sugars in many sports drinks do not provide health benefits, and they may be hurting your health.
What do you need to know about Sports Drinks and Kidney Stones?
When you are the leader in the natural food supplement industry, people sometimes test your products without you even knowing about it.
That was exactly what happened with a study comparing the effects of Shaklee’s Hydrate Performance drink and Gatorade on the risk of kidney stone formation.
Here is a recap from Dr. Steve Chaney:
This was the ultimate independent study.
Shaklee didn’t initiate it. They didn’t support it. And, in fact, they didn’t even know about it until it was published a couple of weeks ago (J.W. Goodman et al, Urol. Res., 37: 41-46, 2009).
Before I get into the results of the study, perhaps I should start with an explanation of why you would even want to do that kind of study. Let’s start with the problem – kidney stones. They are extremely painful, and they can damage the kidney – particularly if they form over and over again.
To a urologist the solution is simple – just drink two liters of water a day.
The problem is that you have to really, really, really like water to drink two liters a day, and most people just aren’t that into water. In fact, previous studies had shown that even when patients had a previous kidney stone and were told by their urologist to drink two liters of water a day, the average result was an increase of only 0.3 liters a day of water.
So this group of urologists asked what people were drinking instead of water.
The latest trends show that soft drink consumption is decreasing and consumption of sports drinks and energy drinks is increasing. And, there was absolutely no information on whether sports drinks increased or decreased the risk of kidney stone formation.
So they decided to look at two well-known sports drinks, Shaklee’s Performance and Gatorade, to see whether they would increase or decrease the risk of kidney stone formation compared to the consumption of an equivalent amount of water.
They looked at the effect of each sports drink on the amount of citrate in the urine and by how much they increased the pH of the urine because each of these decreases the risk of kidney stone formation.
They also looked at the effect of each sports drink on the amount of sodium and calcium in the urine because each of those increases the risk of kidney stone formation.
Performance significantly increased the amount of citrate and the pH of the urine, while Gatorade had no effect on either of them. Neither Performance or Gatorade had a significant effect on sodium or calcium levels in the urine.
Thus, they concluded that Shaklee’s Performance was superior to either Gatorade or water alone at deceasing the risk of kidney stone formation.
Now you might be tempted to say that this study was of more interest to urologists than the general public. But my guess is that if you have ever suffered through a kidney stone this study is of great interest to you.
But to me the more important conclusion is that, once again, independent clinical studies show the superiority of Shaklee products.
To your health!
Dr. Stephen G. Chaney, PhD
Full Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Nutrition
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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Dr. Chaney taught biochemistry, biophysics and nutrition to medical and dental students for over 30 years. In addition he had an active program in cancer research, focusing on chemotherapy. He has authored 80 publications in peer – reviewed journals. Dr. Chaney was instrumental in establishing nutrition education as an important part of the medical school training at UNC at Chapel Hill.
Shaklee Performance Hydration
This topic of kidney stones, as well as the broad topic of using HEALTHY SPORTS DRINKS vs options with high sugar and artificial ingredients, is another reason to learn more about the benefits of Shakee Hydrate Performance Endurance Electrolyte Drink.
Healthy sports drink choices are better than many popular sports drinks.
We have talked about Shaklee’s sports drink many times and we like them for so many different reasons.
NASA had Shaklee design a sports drink for astronauts who needed to hydrate and acclimate as they returned from space. NASA knew it needed to be a healthy drink and they turned to Shaklee, the #1 Natural Nutrition Company in America to take on the task.
Olympic athletes use Shaklee hydration drinks for their training and performance, as do many endurance athletes.
And then there are the every day athletes and weekend warriors who want to use natural, healthy ways to hydrate while they stay active – and use Performance hydration solutions.
To learn more about Shaklee’s Hydrate Performance, visit these links: Natural Electrolyte Drink and to for your low calorie, sports drink hydration choice: Low Calorie Natural Electrolyte Drink.
