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I thought I’d write a piece on how well different types of drinks are retained in the body as that’s a question we get a fair bit and it’s of some practical use.
"}},"slug":"how-well-do-different-drinks-hydrate-you","blogTags":"Hydration","featuredPost":false,"author":{"name":"Andy Blow","slug":"andy-blow","facebookHandle":"https://www.facebook.com/andy.blow.3","twitterHandle":"https://twitter.com/andybl0w?lang=en","instagramHandle":"https://www.instagram.com/andyblow","linkedInProfile":"https://uk.linkedin.com/in/andy-blow-47b90133","stravaProfile":"https://www.strava.com/athletes/6999012","bio":{"childMarkdownRemark":{"html":"Andy Blow is a Sports Scientist with a BSc Honours degree in Sports and Exercise Science from the University of Bath. An expert in hydration, he has co-authored a number of scientific studies and books.
\nHe was once the Team Sports Scientist for the Benetton and Renault Formula 1 teams and remains an adviser to the Porsche Human Performance Centre at Silverstone.
\nAndy has finished in the top 10 of IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 races, as well as winning an XTERRA Age Group World title. It was his own struggles with cramp that led to him specialising in hydration and founding Precision Fuel & Hydration.
"}},"title":"PF&H Founder and Sports Scientist","headshot":{"file":{"url":"//images.ctfassets.net/428xzyjdw7rf/2LTns8O1ZGOHSfDQGv2jZz/f6470d62f0c1f14e7239432f60a0b765/Andy.png"}}},"scientificallyReviewed":null,"image":{"resize":{"src":"//images.ctfassets.net/428xzyjdw7rf/3PbrUZyWwKNr3p6gZ8xhVE/068f7ac14bad180600ba4f1c2ee35e01/How_well_do_different_drinks_hydrate_you.jpg?w=1200&h=630&q=70&fit=fill","width":1200,"height":630}},"socialMediaImage":null,"body":{"childMarkdownRemark":{"excerpt":"How well are different types of drinks retained in the body? It's a relevant question that has practical implications for athletes as the longer you can keep…","html":"How well are different types of drinks retained in the body? It's a relevant question that has practical implications for athletes as the longer you can keep the fluids you drink onboard, the greater the chance those fluids are absorbed into your bloodstream and used effectively in the body.
\nThere’s also the side benefit of less interruptions for bathroom breaks, which is useful during training and competition...
\nThere’s also the side benefit of less interruptions for bathroom breaks, which is useful during training and competing.
\nWhilst you’re inevitably going to pee out a good proportion of all the liquid that passes your lips, all drinks are definitely not treated equally by the body in this particular regard.
\nSubstances like caffeine and alcohol have the potential to increase urine output and reduce fluid retention, whilst calories and electrolytes in drinks can slow the emptying rate of the stomach and positively influence the absorption of fluid from the gut into the bloodstream.
\nAlthough most of the factors affecting how your body processes various drinks have been studied pretty extensively, until very recently no-one had actually put a range of different, commonly consumed beverages into a controlled ‘head to head’ situation to compare their potential to hydrate.
\nIn 2015, a respected group of UK scientists published a paper that compared the hydrating potential of the following drinks…
\nThe study compared how well each of the drinks were retained in the 2-4 hours immediately after consumption. Volunteers downed 1 litre of fluid and then had their urine output monitored to indicate how much had been retained.
\nThen, to create a straightforward comparison of the drinks, each beverage was given a BHI (Beverage Hydration Index) score. Still water was used as the reference point in the scale with a rating of ‘1’.
\nSo if a drink ended up with a BHI of 1.3 it would mean that 30% more of it was retained in the body 2 hours after consumption than when drinking the same amount of water and so on.
\nThere were a few interesting conclusions that came out of the data…
\nWhilst most of the findings of this study are essentially in line with ‘common knowledge’, the data does reinforce and quantify the anecdotal evidence in this area. It also helps to dispel some myths about certain drinks being ‘dehydrating’, at least when they’re consumed in moderation. For me the main take home points are…
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Something that the paper perhaps doesn’t shed much light on is the impact of consuming certain foods and drinks together might be on fluid retention and urine output. It’s rare that we take on fluids in isolation and on an empty stomach, as was the case in the study.
\nIt doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to reach the conclusion that taking in some calories and/or salts in food alongside water is likely to result in increased retention of fluid when compared with drinking fluids alone.
\nTo be fair to the researchers, they were seeking to control as many variables as possible to look solely at the properties of each of the drinks, and introducing the interactions of food and fluid together would have made things extremely complicated.
\nAnother question the research failed to address was the effect that drinking different types of red wine has on hydration status. A glaring omission. If any of the researchers involved are reading this, I’d be prepared to take part in any follow-up study to correct this...
\nProfessor Raj Jutley is a consultant heart surgeon who co-founded Precision Fuel & Hydration with Andy Blow. He trained in Scotland and worked as a consultant in Nottingham, UK.
\nHe now spends the bulk of his time in Nairobi where he's worked as the Director of Cardiac Surgery at the Aga Khan University Hospital and he's currently setting up affordable healthcare systems in Kenya.
\nIn the UK, Raj was the medical consultant to the Porsche Human Performance Centre, as well as to the highly successful Racing Steps Foundation (www.racingsteps.co.uk).
\nRaj - who drives classic rally cars and won the South African National Championship Classic Class in 2019 - continues to be involved in a scientific capacity with Precision Fuel & Hydration and provides valuable input, specifically in response to medical-based queries.
\nProfessor Raj Jutley earned the following qualifications during his time in Scotland:
\nQualifications: BMedSci (Hon), MB ChB, DM, FCS ECSA, FRCS Eng, FRCS CTh\nEducational Bios:
\n- Pan Africa Heart Foundation Bio
\n- The Open Science Research Network Bio
Raj has over 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles to his name, with the aim to add more on the topic of customised hydration, and you can find examples of his published work below:
\nBooks
\nPublications
\nNormative data on regional sweat sodium concentrations of professional male team sport athletes (Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition)
\nPhD Supervision
\nPhD Thesis: The effect of individualised electrolyte supplementation on physical and cognitive performance in elite motorsport drivers (Justin Holland, University of Queensland, Australia, 2019)
\nPresentations/Abstracts
\n