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Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

In Japan (and, for some reason, Australia and Mexico) you can buy a drink called "Pocari Sweat".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocari_Sweat

It's a soft drink specifically designed to avoid you getting hyponatremia, and was apparently inspired by doctors who would drink the contents of saline IV pouches.

Like many asian soft drinks it's not very sweet but it's not unpleasant. If you live on the US west coast you can find it in most Japanese supermarkets.

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Pocari Sweat is 67g/L of sugar and 490mg/L. This is on par with western sports drinks like Gatorade(59g/L sugar, 523mg/L sodium)or Powerade (57g/L sugar, 409mg/L sodium). This is less sweet than typical sugary drinks which can be 10-15% sugar, but normal for a sports drink.

Sports drinks certainly help if you are sweating moderately, but are inadequate for intense exercise in the heat. When you are sweating intensely (>1L/h of sweat), you can lose sodium at over 1000mg/L. Supplementing sodium and other electrolytes may be necessary.

> Pocari Sweat is 67g/L of sugar and 490mg/L. This is on par with western sports drinks like Gatorade(59g/L sugar, 523mg/L sodium)or Powerade (57g/L sugar, 409mg/L sodium).

As a comparison, for oral hydration, WHO/UNICEF has 13.5 g/L of glucose and 2.6 g/L of salt (NaCL) in their formula:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy

That's about 6 teaspoons of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt if all you have is volumetric measures.

For serious, medical dehydration use commercially-available oral rehydration salts: a homemade brew may not be enough (e.g., the packaged stuff also has potassium).

2.6g/L of NaCL ends up being ~1000mg/L of sodium, which sounds about right.

Nusalt or equivalent provides potassium.

Powerade and Gatorade both have sugar free alternatives

Note that sugar increases absorption of sodium[1] into the body, so sugar-free alternatives won't be as effective.

[1] https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(97)70034-9/...

I think this is mostly only an issue for people who need rehydration due to severe diarrhoea though.

It's important for any severe dehydration. Less severe dehydration means less water has been lost, and the loss of electrolytes is proportional to the amount of water loss. The absorbtion increase is important for cases of severe dehydration, but mild dehydration can often afford to wait for a meal to replenish the electrolytes fully.

As the article notes, it is not recommended to habitually consume sugary sport drinks unless you are exercising. It is simply unnecessary, ruins your teeth and the extra fast carbs will convert to body fat.

It is best to simply drink enough tap water with a meal. This will naturally balance the salt. If you are really concerned about your salt balance outside of meal hours, the article recommends you drink your tap water with a little snack like a banana, or drink milk or coconut water instead.

I've myself also used bottled spring water naturally high in minerals (mineral water). I find this water the best heat wave drink, but some brands are ruined by adding sugar or other sweeteners.

This makes me think of little packets of Oral Rehydration Therapy. It’s sold in pharmacies for times of gastrointestinal distress that leads to dehydration. Sugar is added, not for palatability, but to increase electrolyte uptake in the GI tract.

> Oral Rehydration Therapy

Does anyone know a recipe or brand that tastes good?

I've tried different brands, and it all tasted too unpleasant to drink for me, though I didn't have a critical need for it.

I also made it at home [1], and tried adding some lemon juice to that recipe. The taste resembled a sports drink, but again wasn't sufficient to drink daily.

[1] 1 liter water, 8 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt https://www.britannica.com/science/oral-rehydration-therapy

Anything functional will taste like a dog’s breakfast. IV normal saline tastes absolutely awful I never got the courage to try D5W or any other solutions.

1.5 cups orange juice, 2.5 cups water, 1 tsp salt. Comes out to about the same ratio, but doesn't taste like mud.

When you really need it, they taste amazing.

You can also buy proper oral rehydration solution 経口補水 in drugstores and (I think) convenience stores. Works wonders for hangovers :)

Pocari is still very sweet and tends to upset my stomach a bit if I drink more than a cup or so.

Pocari Sweat is also sold all over south east Asia. Great to help ward off a hangover as well. Will second it isn’t a normal western flavored drink but I quite enjoyed it while I was living where it was available.

you'd have to drink so much water to get symptoms of hyponatremia you practically have to set out to make it happen. most people puke before it gets too bad. if you do get it and your wits are still about you, suck on a bouillon cube, or eat a tablespoon of gatorade powder.

anyway i prefer boss coffee. the boss of all bosses. or bickle.

A DC cop died of hyponatremia some years ago. I remember being amazed at the amount of water he had drunk.

[edit: changed "killed himself with" to "died of"; the man wasn't suicidal]

It's fairly common in athletes. 13% of the marathon runners tested [0] had hyponatremia. This was at the Boston Marathon, a fairly exclusive race with experienced runners.

[0] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa043901

Runners with slower times, over 4 hours, seemed to be more likely to suffer. The announced qualifying times for the 2022 Boston Marathon include 3:55 for women 50 to 54 and 3:50 for men 60 to 64.

Running a marathon (or any endurance evening) is an extreme activity that is in the category of "make it happen". It burns double or more the calories of any pro sport.

The Tommy Lee Jones coffee.

I worked on Tokyo in the '90s and remember Pocari Sweat - which tastes exactly how it sounds like it would taste.

Never did find out what sort of animal a Pocari is, or how they collected its sweat.

Never seen it in Australia (Victoria), but could imagine it would be in smaller speciality grocers in some regions.

It's available at many Japanese restaurants and Asian grocers in Sydney, but it's not a stock mainstream supermarket product.

Pocari is well known and available everywhere in Japan (that makes it pretty good choice when dealing with hangover) but OS-1 is better https://www.os-1.jp/en/

If you're in the West, you can usually buy the Pocari bags meant to be added to those big coolers of water for quite a bit cheaper than buying it premixed. I just throw in a scoop and add some to my water bottle as I feel the need.

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