Friday, June 8, 2007

Enlyten SportStrips

We have stumbled upon, with the help of our nutritional consultant, a relatively new style of electrolyte replacement that just recently came to the market. The product is similar to the notorious Listerine Pocket Packs in that it is a cassette filled with little strips. The benefit of this style of dispenser is that it is compact and not messy like mixes can be. Also this is another version of electrolyte replacement that not only helps replace the salts that we lose during exercise, yet also helps provide a balanced electrolyte solution and not another sugary simple drink like a Gatorade or Powerade. The two king sport drinks, Gatorade and Powerade, while remaining very popular, contain way too much simple sugar (which can actually cause cramping or crashing) and do not contain a spectrum of electrolytes that we desperately need. The ultimate benefit of Enlyten strips is that they claim a greater efficiency than what we have found in Nuun or in Camelback's Elixir in that they actually bypass the GI tract. The GI tract can actually not absorb every bit of the electrolytes that are contained in our drinks causing us to waste some of the needed compounds. The idea of Enlyten is that the product goes directly into the bloodstream through the membranes of the cheek causing a much greater efficiency and more sudden intake of the electrolytes, therefore when we may have gotten behind on our electrolyte intake and we are bonking out or cramping one of these strips could theoretically help us faster than drinking a Nuun solution and waiting for the effect. While we have not tried these strips out yet, idea is fantastic, and we will blog more about how much they help us. They are being adopted by many professional athletes, and they have been tested at Duke in their sport's medicine department so I think they definitely will give us an edge. Although we are not scrapping the Nuun or Elixir products, because these products provide a greater spectrum than Enlyten, yet i think that these products combined with the Enlyten strips will give us multiple ways to insure a proper electrolyte balance.

1 comment:

Mayor of Moogis said...

Well Troop 215 crew set out today for the 50/80 mile AT hike in VA. Hopefully the 80 milers may catch up with you around Thu/Fr 14th 15th.

Mr B troop 215