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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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lightheir wrote:


If you say it this way, I actually doubt that hyponatremia was the sole cause of your problems. In fact, odds are FARRRRR more likely that the overall fatigue (multifactorial, but sheer fatigue being the most likely culprit) was the major factor, and that hyponatremia may have been a total nonissue given that you didn't say you were forcefully drinking against thirst.

Tough race and training days do happen. With certain conditions, you push harder than you're capable of. With Ironman, the intensity is low, so you might not think you're going hard, but in reality, compared to your fitness level for the time and with challenging conditions, you almost certainly went to blow up zone. Once' you're blown, everything can hurt. Even breathing can hurt.

But that does not mean you should invoke hyponatremia as the cause. Hypoonatremia is a real entity in endurance sports, but is still considered a rare event. Like 1 out of thousands, or less.

Ok. Taking hyponatremia purely out of the picture. I was in very good physical shape (for me). This race was a "training" race for me. I wasn't pushing hard at all. I was nowhere near going at a hard race pace. To blow up so early something had to be terribly wrong. It wasn't a matter of hurting. My body literally locked up over and over to the point where I couldn't move. I know you want to dismiss what I'm saying but it's the truth. I had cramps where I had never cramped before and haven't since but I will be sure to never use hyponatremia as a possible cause ever again.

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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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lightheir wrote:
BionicMan wrote:
lightheir wrote:
BionicMan wrote:
Spoke wrote:
Noakes argues the sodium content of drinks makes little difference but that it is the amount you drink that matters.


Drink too much and sodium levels drop. He advises drinking to thirst.

http://sweatscience.com/...-noakes-vs-gatorade/


First off, are you Noakes? I just want to understand since it's not clear and you have posted his information many times. Almost seems like a sales pitch.

Secondly, if you drink to thirst, it's too late, unless you are really slow at the event/effort. If I wait until I'm thirsty, I'm screwed. Period.

I have encountered the situation where I drank too much water leading to a 70.3 race without supplementing electrolytes. I got to into a hyponatremic state (or at least darn near it). Ended up in the med tent for over an hour. My caretakers even brought over the rookie caretakers to see what could happen to people when they were severely undernourished.


I received fantastic care (Racine 70.3) and 6 weeks later fixed my nutrition/hydration issues at IMKY when the temps were 92 during the run. I modified my full IM race based on what happened in Racine and I know it helped in IMKY.


Believe what you want but some of us have our own physical experiences to confirm the science.





Uhhh, I think you explained your own mistakes above.

You can slightly lead thirst, but it is a grave error to drink by plan only and ignore thirst.

If you drank enough to actually get hyponatremic, you clearly GROSSLY ignored your thirst. This cannot happen by accident. The only way you get hyponatremic with normal kidneys is to ingest free water wayyyy over what your thirst mechanism tells you. If it were so easy to do this, the human race would have died off eons ago, since sodium balance is so crucial for metabolic functions in cells.

The thirst mechanism is one of the most powerful, crucial evolutionary traits we have. It is so accurate that it rehydrates your fluid levels down to the 1cc level reliably (we've tested this in class - people who are hydrated will drink exactly enough, and once fully hydrated, will pee out EXACTLY the extra fluid they've taken in, down to the 1cc, It's amazing, actually.)

Doing hard effort endurance sports in hot weather may allow for slight leading of the thirst (drinking early), but you clearly missed the boat on that if you drank so much you were actually hyponatremic. (Make sure you know you actually WERE hyponatremic before saying you were - that typically requires a blood electrolyte check - it's definitely not the same as just saying 'based on how I felt I know I was hyponatremic', since there are so many other factors that can land you in the med tent for an hour that are NOT hyponatremia.)


I'm not sure how the problem happened. It had never happened before and hasn't happened since. I've done several long events, including several 70.3s. This particular one was a few weeks before my first full IM so I was really trying to dial in my hydration plan. I live in the south and am a heavy sweater and during hot and humid times a very salty sweater. I like working in the heat and had trained in it so it wasn't as if I wasn't prepared for high temps and humidity.

I normally don't take in enough fluids, so the days leading up to the race and especially the day before I really drank a lot of water. I thought with my normal diet I wouldn't need to be consuming extra electrolytes. The day before the race I probably peed a dozen times or more and the color was clear. I thought that was a good sign but clearly I did something wrong, because I started cramping during the bike. Even my arms, shoulders and neck were cramping, in addition to my quads and calves. When I got off the bike I couldn't move. Literally. I had to stand there for a few seconds before I could take a step. It was one of the most painful experiences I've ever had - and I have an artificial hip so I know pain.

It's not like I exerted myself harder than before because I didn't. I put way more effort into the bike at Kansas and Branson the year before. My training didn't change and my diet didn't change except for drinking more water leading to this race. I took it as a good lesson and made changes for IMKY and had a successful race with zero cramps.

I don't know if I was hyponatremic or even how close I was but my research made it seem possible. I tried to add a qualifier but I guess I shouldn't have mentioned it. Regardless, it was a terrible experience and I'm convinced it was directly related to my hydration leading to the race.


If you say it this way, I actually doubt that hyponatremia was the sole cause of your problems. In fact, odds are FARRRRR more likely that the overall fatigue (multifactorial, but sheer fatigue being the most likely culprit) was the major factor, and that hyponatremia may have been a total nonissue given that you didn't say you were forcefully drinking against thirst.

Tough race and training days do happen. With certain conditions, you push harder than you're capable of. With Ironman, the intensity is low, so you might not think you're going hard, but in reality, compared to your fitness level for the time and with challenging conditions, you almost certainly went to blow up zone. Once' you're blown, everything can hurt. Even breathing can hurt.

But that does not mean you should invoke hyponatremia as the cause. Hypoonatremia is a real entity in endurance sports, but is still considered a rare event. Like 1 out of thousands, or less.


If you haven't already read this, it's probably worth reading for those following this thread. It's a discussion with Noakes and the Dr.'s at Ironman Hawaii among others...

https://ce.gssiweb.com/...;level=2&topic=6

"The majority of the hyponatremic athletes at the Ironman are markedly clinically dehydrated, and the mechanism for their hyponatremia would appear to be related to high sodium losses in association with inadequate sodium and fluid intake."

tj

Badig| Strava


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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [tjfry] [ In reply to ]
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I believe those comments have been updated in the past 2 decades. Not completely revised, but there have been refinements to those claims made since. (Article is from 1993!)

(As an aside, I am aware you know of the bias inherent in the institute, but just to be explicit, I do not consider the Gatorade Sports Institute a legitimate unbiased institution.)
Last edited by: lightheir: Apr 24, 14 17:24
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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lightheir wrote:
I believe those comments have been updated in the past 2 decades. Not completely revised, but there have been refinements to those claims made since. (Article is from 1993!)

(As an aside, I am aware you know of the bias inherent in the institute, but just to be explicit, I do not consider the Gatorade Sports Institute a legitimate unbiased institution.)

It might be old (1993) but people have been using salt for this purpose since the 1700's, so it's not a new discovery or concept.

Based on my own experiences with hyponatremia and dehydration (and the top docs at kona giving some stats), I think it's dangerous advice to tell someone to drink to thirst with little or no salt for a 90 degree plus Ironman. While GSSI might be biased, most everything in nutrition is. If you want to believe something..anything, you'll find the science to back it up.

Badig| Strava


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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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lightheir wrote:
(As an aside, I am aware you know of the bias inherent in the institute, but just to be explicit, I do not consider the Gatorade Sports Institute a legitimate unbiased institution.)

The GSI is a much more reliable source than Noakes.
Last edited by: Nick_Barkley: Apr 24, 14 19:13
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [Nick_Barkley] [ In reply to ]
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I briefly worked for Pepsi Americas a few years ago (horrific job, but that is a different story). I worked on thee non-carbonated side of the business, so dealt with the Gatorade people a fair bit.

Since they were local, I went to GSSI one day (now renamed, BTW...but I can't remember the new name). Anyway, one thing is for sure....the people at GSSI take sports hydration VERY seriously. There is no hidden agenda, no master capitalistic plan to dupe society that they need sodium, sugars and anything else. Just a bunch of folks trying to make better product / help athletes perform better.

Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [Power13] [ In reply to ]
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I will still believe less biased sources like the British Medical Journal any day over a Gatorade-sponsored institute.

In 2012 the BMJ published a "scathing investigation" into this whole 'don't trust your thirst' issue. Sure, it's only one point of view of a two-sided debate about corporate funding for research, but I'm going to side with the noncorporate interests on this one.

(Article link here, but layman's summary here)


From the summary:
"
  • Undermining the body's signals: Cohen claims that one of the greatest accomplishments of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, established in 1985, was to convince the public that thirst is an unreliable indicator of dehydration. There is ample evidence of ways in which the experts who propagated this information were funded or "supported" by sports drinks companies, and while this in itself isn't necessarily wrong, she argues that researchers who have conflicts of interest are not objective enough to be writing guidelines, as is the case here. There is no good evidence to support the ideas, for example, that "Without realizing, you may not be drinking enough to restore your fluid balance after working out" (Powerade), or that urine color is a reliable indicator of the body's hydration levels."

I work in the sciences myself, and funding source is THE biggest source of bias. Even if you fully well believe and even go out of your way to do unbiased work, your work must be judged as potentially compromised if a primary funding source is from a direct financial beneficiary of your work. This is why all the leading scientific journals demand full disclosure of funding source and conflicts of interest before publishing. It does not mean all corporate sponsored work is worthless, but it does raise the bar for examination based upon the claims made and the potential commercial impact. Tobacco companies didn't need a hidden agenda in their early research as well - it was enough to put researchers on their payrolls, and that was enough to sway them to conveniently finding avenues of 'productive' research that wouldn't put them out of a job by tanking the industry. In fact, that's one of the best, well known ways to silence a strong critic who could destroy your industry - hire them as a consultant or researcher. You don't even need to tell them what to do or what not to do - just give them their paycheck, and odds are high things will go your way.
Last edited by: lightheir: Apr 24, 14 21:54
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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Diuretics not only promote water loss but the loss of sodium and other electrolytes in urine.

Diuretics are also used as masking agents to flush out performance enhancing drugs.

Anyone stupid enough to be abusing diuretics for weight loss or to mask performance enhancing drugs may well find they do need to supplement sodium and other electrolytes.
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [Spoke] [ In reply to ]
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Spoke wrote:
Diuretics not only promote water loss but the loss of sodium and other electrolytes in urine.

Diuretics are also used as masking agents to flush out performance enhancing drugs.

Anyone stupid enough to be abusing diuretics for weight loss or to mask performance enhancing drugs may well find they do need to supplement sodium and other electrolytes.

So...are you just trying to start a new conversation with this post? It seems kind of non sequitor. It also seems like you are implying that people who need to supplement their salt intake are abusing diuretics. I'm not sure where you think this is going.
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [jl2732] [ In reply to ]
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from looking at many of his post, i think he is simply a troll because he clearly show poor understanding on the subject so far

Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [jl2732] [ In reply to ]
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jl2732 wrote:
Spoke wrote:
Diuretics not only promote water loss but the loss of sodium and other electrolytes in urine.

Diuretics are also used as masking agents to flush out performance enhancing drugs.

Anyone stupid enough to be abusing diuretics for weight loss or to mask performance enhancing drugs may well find they do need to supplement sodium and other electrolytes.


So...are you just trying to start a new conversation with this post? It seems kind of non sequitor. It also seems like you are implying that people who need to supplement their salt intake are abusing diuretics. I'm not sure where you think this is going.

No, I was thinking more along the lines of educating people who may not understand that diuretics especially thiazide diuretics, make the body get rid of more sodium in urine and could cause hyponatremia.
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [Spoke] [ In reply to ]
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Yes - we generally speaking have an over-supply of salt in our diets

Yes - there is some minor variation in individual sweat rates from person to person.

Yes - that variation can lead to some confusing results, due to the first, "yes"

No - generally speaking, you do not need to take in significant extra salt/sodium when training/racing.


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [lightheir] [ In reply to ]
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lightheir wrote:
I will still believe less biased sources like the British Medical Journal any day over a Gatorade-sponsored institute.

In 2012 the BMJ published a "scathing investigation" into this whole 'don't trust your thirst' issue. Sure, it's only one point of view of a two-sided debate about corporate funding for research, but I'm going to side with the noncorporate interests on this one.

(Article link here, but layman's summary here)


From the summary:
"
  • Undermining the body's signals: Cohen claims that one of the greatest accomplishments of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, established in 1985, was to convince the public that thirst is an unreliable indicator of dehydration. There is ample evidence of ways in which the experts who propagated this information were funded or "supported" by sports drinks companies, and while this in itself isn't necessarily wrong, she argues that researchers who have conflicts of interest are not objective enough to be writing guidelines, as is the case here. There is no good evidence to support the ideas, for example, that "Without realizing, you may not be drinking enough to restore your fluid balance after working out" (Powerade), or that urine color is a reliable indicator of the body's hydration levels."

I work in the sciences myself, and funding source is THE biggest source of bias. Even if you fully well believe and even go out of your way to do unbiased work, your work must be judged as potentially compromised if a primary funding source is from a direct financial beneficiary of your work. This is why all the leading scientific journals demand full disclosure of funding source and conflicts of interest before publishing. It does not mean all corporate sponsored work is worthless, but it does raise the bar for examination based upon the claims made and the potential commercial impact. Tobacco companies didn't need a hidden agenda in their early research as well - it was enough to put researchers on their payrolls, and that was enough to sway them to conveniently finding avenues of 'productive' research that wouldn't put them out of a job by tanking the industry. In fact, that's one of the best, well known ways to silence a strong critic who could destroy your industry - hire them as a consultant or researcher. You don't even need to tell them what to do or what not to do - just give them their paycheck, and odds are high things will go your way.

Let me be clear - I am not weighing in on any particular paradigm re: hydration. I am just stating, from experience, that GSSI is not the great Satan that some have purported it to be.

Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [Power13] [ In reply to ]
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It's not Satan, no.

But it's no different than self-interested corporate-sponsored science 'institutes'. It's less egregious to the public because it's just a sports drink, but had it been a tobacco company, oil company, or patent troll company, the problems with accepting this kind of research become much more obvious. Even if the scientists have legitimate credentials.
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [Spoke] [ In reply to ]
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I went to my doctor before doing my first Ironman last year. It turned out she had volunteered as a course doctor for Ironman Canada for several years. She had one piece of advice for me: whatever you do, take an electrolyte supplement, and a lot of it - not just sodium, but a complete electrolyte, with potassium and magnesium as well.

Coming on to a triathlon forum and telling people they don't need sodium supplements is extremely, medically irresponsible.

My personal experience correlates very highly with what Jonnyo has said. After testing I found that I am on the very high end of the bell curve in terms of both sweat rate and sodium content of sweat. After numerous trial rides of the Whistler and Penticton bike courses I found that my performance suffered dramatically if I did not take in a lot of fluids combined with heavy doses of electrolytes. Does this apply to everyone? No. But for some people it is critical for performance, and for some could make the difference in surviving a long distance triathlon at all.

Graham Barron Design: Custom west coast house design http://www.grahambarron.com/
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Re: Salty Sweater Myth [Spoke] [ In reply to ]
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Got through most of this thread, and Jonnyo hit the nail on the head. First of all, all human bodies do not react the same way in similar conditions. And there is a huge variance(just as with diets) in folks physiological responses to stress. You fail in your assertations from the very point that you do not recognize this one simple truth.

There will be a 100 people that can get on here and tell you that their experience is the exact opposite of what you propose. In my case if i had listened to you, i could be dead, almost was. There are just some people that are hyper excreters, and it is not because of too much intake. I listened to someone like you very early in my career and so i tried the low sodium diet, and for quite awhile. What happened was my already low blood sodium levels just got lower and lower. I did not adapt, my body did not make corrections, i just put myself in a place where i could do some serious heart damage if the right conditions were met. And it is not just sodium, but magnesium too. That one finally did me in, found out for no apparent reason, i pee out twice as much as a normal person. Got so low that those conditions did present themselves one day, and now i have permanent heart damage. Blood tests at the time showed me with dangerous low magnesium and very low sodium levels. I did not have the information at the time about salt pills which i knew i needed, and the no one even mentioned stuff about magnesium.

I have done dozens and dozens of trials and blood tests, and it appears that i'm like a lot of pros who suffer from this. It is really good that most now know they can do something about it, and they do, and it works. Like Jonnyo said, he does not know why or how, it just does. And don't give me any horses shit about placebo affects. If you have ever had a cramp, you know it is not in your head. I can be from things other than an electrolyte imbalance, but it could just also be that. And that one can be very dangerous if it is pushed too far..
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