What are Electrolytes?

Question

Context:

Drinking water (especially bottled water) makes me just… *more* thirsty for water.

I generally don’t feel very thirsty through the day. Like, I just don’t feel like I need a drink. But whenever I drink water, like I said, it makes me feel a lot more thirsty like I *need* more water.

It’s as if I’m eating snow, the more “water” I consume the more I feel like it’s actually dehydrating me. And admittedly, sometimes my throat feels more dry, or *still* feels dry after drinking (if I already felt dry).

Someone said it may be because I need more electrolytes. What are those and what do they do? How does this help me not feel like I’m dehydrating when I drink water?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Electrolytes are salts (not necessarily table salt, but it counts as a salt), electrically charged minerals that are key components in our body chemistry. They’re important because your body depends on having them to function.

One example I remember from HS bio is the sodium-potassium pump. What that is is a very small structure your cells have that allows potassium into the cell and salt to flow out of the cell. This sounds small, but maintaining the right levels of salts in your body allows this, and many other functions, to happen. Without the right chemical balance, we start to encounter all sorts of problems, depending on the missing salt.

Now, salts are expelled from our body when we pee, sweat, etc. As a result, we need to keep them up. That’s why sport drinks like Gatorade exist, and contain so much salt and other minerals if you look at the label. Replenishing electrolytes is vital for athletes since they expel so much through sweat. But if you’re not low on them, drinking sports drinks is pretty much like drinking soda.

Over-drinking water can make you need to pee, which carries out some electrolytes. If you’re not intaking any, then you could end up low. An easy remedy is some lemon or other fruit in the water. It adds some salts and sugar for your body, while still being healthy enough for every-day use.

Edit: added more onto the end