GFuel Hydration: Can A Powder Really Help Quench The Thirst?
The state of dehydration is very easy to quantify when visualized on the far end of the spectrum. Consider an athlete at the end of a marathon having run for hours on end in the hot sun. Their jersey is soaked, their face is red. This athlete has lost pounds of body weight worth of water throughout the race trying to keep cool through sweating. Ideally this athlete will have remained hydrated during their run to maintain the high level of energy output required to be competitive. This scenario makes logical sense. Work hard in the hot sun and you’ll eventually need to replenish those lost fluids. But what about those that do not compete in the sun? What about those that are not exerting mass amounts of muscle energy to compete? Do they still need to hydrate? GFuel believes the answers to these questions to be a resounding Yes! Enter the GFuel Hydration formula available now (both on Amazon and DTC via GFuel.com). Today we look at what hydration means to gamers and what GFuel has introduced to address this easily forgotten variable to maintaining peak performance.
*Disclaimer: GFuel has provided the product to be reviewed. I am not being otherwise being compensated for this review in any way. The opinions in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
In a recent meta-analysis (a study of multiple studies put together) of data looking at hydration and its effect on cognition, it was found that minute changes in hydration status can have a profound effect on your ability to perform at your peak. This means that not drinking enough water can lead to significant, negative effects in executive function, attention, and motor coordination. Being able to assess a situation, focus on a solution, and execute those actions are all negatively affected by dehydration. Yikes!
So what does “dehydration” mean? At what point does a person go from just being thirsty to being technically dehydrated? According to both this meta-analysis (LINK) as well as the ACSM’s (American College of Sports Medicine) “Exercise and Fluid Replacement” guide (HERE), loss of function seems to appear when a person has lost as little as 2% of their total body weight in water loss. For example, if a 150 lb person lost 3 lbs worth of water (46 oz, or a little over a third of a gallon), they would start to experience the effects whether they were conscious of them or not. This may seem like a lot of water to lose, but it does not happen all at once. You lose a little today, a little tomorrow, a little more day after day and eventually you may get there unless you are careful.
This is where GFuel looks to help out! With the introduction of their newest GFuel Hydration product, the company claims that they can help you stay ahead of dehydration with an extra sprinkle of electrolytes, vitamins, and an ingredient to promote focus. The electrolytes here include modest doses of potassium, magnesium, and sodium. Many times, we associate the inclusion of these salts with improved hydration. The perception is that we need to replace the salts that we lose from sweat to stay healthy and active. Technically this is true, but in reality, the modern diet is already fairly high in salt so there’s rarely an opportunity for even the most elite athletes to run low on these ingredients. That being said, there is data to show that the inclusion of these electrolytes enhances the flavor of the drink in such a way that people are more likely to drink more of it when they are present. More water consumed = better hydration.
There are also a wide variety of vitamins present in this formulation. Vitamins C, B12, B6, D3, E, as well as Zinc and Biotin are all here in surprisingly strong doses. These vitamins have a wide range of activities in the body from keeping the immune system functioning strong, helping your energy systems run at full capacity, acting as antioxidants, supporting body hormone balance, and a vast number of other roles within our biochemistry. When I heard about this product announcement in June, I did not expect it to provide nearly this many micronutrients to help support a gamer’s health. I wouldn’t say that these ingredients support the hydration effect of this product, but they are absolutely a welcome inclusion here.
Finally, I wanted to address the “focus” claim made on this product. Tyrosine is an ingredient that is extremely prevalent in both the gamer and sport nutrition pre-workout products. The reason that we see it so much in products such as this is that L-Tyrosine is the precursor to the very important signaling molecules norepinephrine and dopamine. Claims associated with L-Tyrosine always coincide with the actions of these two end products including statements such as focus, energy, ability to cope with stress, decision making, and many more. The main problem with these claims is that while the theory of precursor consumption makes logical sense, it has yet to be shown be clinically effective in a lab setting for L-Tyrosine, at least to my knowledge. I know of two different studies (Mahoney et al, 2007 and Shurtleff et al 1993) that looked at how large doses of L-Tyrosine benefited subjects who were placed in stressful conditions and then told to complete cognitive tasks. In both studies, subjects were put in extremely cold environments and those that consumed the L-Tyrosine showed improved performance on cognitive tasks for memory and dexterity. The discrepancy arises when you look at doses. In both of these studies, subjects were ingesting >12 grams of L-Tyrosine. Compared to the 1000 mg in this product, it’s tough to say that the benefits would be visible.
In the end, though, the most important way to gauge the effectiveness of a hydration product is asking the question “Does this make me drink more water?” With flavors like Blue Rocket Pop, Dragonfruit and Peach Pineapple, it’s hard to deny that everyone will find something delicious here. While I don’t believe that this drink will provide any major cognitive benefits like GFuel’s main product, this one is hardly a waste. Sure, you could drink water with no flavor, a sport drink, or soda, and you would get the same amount of water with each serving. But the real win here is that you are able to get the water your body needs without any calories, while enjoying every sip.
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