Does Gatorade Enhance Athletic Performance

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Gatorade is one of many sports drinks that is out in the market. It was first made back in 1956 by a group of scientists in the University of Florida. The main reason Gatorade was made in the first place was to help the athletes of the university by replacing the body fluids that they lost during competitions especially in the hot weather of southern Florida. In a competition athletes lose water, carbohydrates and electrolytes through lots of sweating so Gatorade’s first priority was to replace them and re-energize the athletes. The first ever bottles of Gatorade that were created did not contain as much ingredients as todays Gatorades, and at first 10 players from the University’s Football team tested the drinks. It didn’t take long for the effects to show and the team quickly started to win their games. After the team’s results started to get better, Gatorade gained lots of attention from around the athletic community and after a few short years it was the official drink of the NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA, AVP, and the MLS. After all the l success, it was bought by Pepsi Company in 2001. This meant that it would no longer distribute its products to only the USA and Canada, but to the entire world and since then Gatorade products have been sent to almost 80 different countries. But the big question now, is that does it really help athletes? Was this the reason behind all the success of the Florida Gators through the 60’s?

Gatorade sponsors many different franchises, players and associations, so its advertisements are always seen by many, so when they promote that their drinks are better than water for athletes during games and matches; one has to wonder if it actually is? Most of the time when something so big is advertised in TV commer...

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...ble in a Gatorade bottle but these are the most important ones. The most chemistry that is present in sports drinks and in this case, Gatorade, is seen through the electrolytes. In a nutshell electrolytes are substances that are soluble in water and after being completely dissolved, they give ions. Our body consists of Cation and Anion electrolytes which are nutritionally referred to as Macrominerals. As stated before the balance level of electrolytes is every crucial for the human body, and if imbalanced the person can have serious and life threatening issues. But the only way to restore our electrolytes level is by consuming these sports drinks, so this is the main reason as for why even though the sports drinks have some negative aspects to them they are one of the cheapest and easiest ways a person can get the required electrolytes for their body.

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