Drivn Nutrition Hydration Mix Ingredients

• 1000mg of sodium
• 250mg of potassium
• 40mg of magnesium
• 1000mg of creatine
• 500mg of taurine
• 0g of sugar

Note: We also include some ingredients for flavour (natural flavour), sweetness (stevia), and sourness (citric acid). Our unflavoured mix contains none of these. 

It’s different to some of the other hydration mixes you may have seen out there (given that we include creatine and taurine). 

In this article, we’ll explain why we created this formulation (with these specific ingredients and ratios), and the research that informs it. 

But first, let’s touch on the story of how our Hydration Mix came into being in the first place.

My Story

In summary - I’ve been involved in sweaty endurance sports for a number of years. When I was younger I was a cyclist, and in the past 2 years or so I’ve taken up the sport of squash. Both sports are physically demanding and can cause extensive fluid loss when training in hot weather.

In the past several years I’ve also begun to experiment with low-carb diets and intermittent fasting, to address chronic autoimmune issues. Most people in my family struggle with autoimmune related conditions. There may be a genetic component to it. My main issues were joint inflammation, mild skin conditions like psoriasis, issues with cognitive function (like brain fog), and pretty lackluster mental health.

It wasn’t until I removed most of the carbohydrates, sugar, and other inflammatory foods (like wheat, grains, nightshade vegetables and seeds) from my diet that I was able to put these symptoms into remission. 

Nowadays, I eat what most people would call an animal based diet (popularized by Paul Saladino), but while keeping the carbs from fruit and honey pretty modest.

Throughout this journey, I learned that consuming enough electrolytes was essential to feeling good, having plenty of energy, and preventing unwanted symptoms of hyponatremia like headaches, low blood pressure, fatigue, and poor cognition.

Most of the time, half a teaspoon of salt in a glass of water with some lime juice would do the trick. I’d supplement magnesium and creatine separately, and then aim to round out the other electrolytes through my diet.

After a while though, I needed something that was more portable and convenient, either to take to work or to squash tournaments.

Most of the other hydration products out there were full of junk, too weak to be useful, or very expensive. There also seemed to be a difficulty in getting sufficient supply of the well-known brands in Australia.

So, I decided to create my own product… and here we are.

Creating a Recipe

Creating a recipe for a consumer product can be boiled down to a few essential steps.

The first thing you do is that you look around at what everyone else is doing and learn about what products are on offer and what the feedback is like from customers. You’ll only proceed to the next step if you can’t find anything that addresses the specific pain points or problems that you’re looking to solve. Otherwise, just buy the product that already exists, and save yourself the headache of creating something that nobody needs! 

Researching Your Idea

Once you have a rough idea of what type of product and recipe you want to make, you move onto the research stage. 

For some consumer products (e.g. ice cream), research will focus on things like mouth feel, taste, and texture. Given that our core focus is nutrition, our research involved reading the hydration science in the sports nutrition literature, and studies related to sodium and other electrolytes. 

We also spent plenty of time testing different ingredient ratios and flavours to arrive at a taste profile that we liked (i.e. not too sweet!).

The last part involved making some test batches and getting feedback from family, friends, and strangers. My squash friends proved to be a great group of people to test this product with - as we were all very thirsty and in need of a hydration fix after training! 

There’s also a lot of boring administrative stuff involved (like complying with the food standards code, setting up a company structure, organising your supply chain, and building an ecommerce store) that I won’t bore you with…

Today we will focus on that research piece and unpack some of what we learnt that informs the formulation we created.

Our Formulation

1. Sodium:

Each serving of our hydration mix contains 1000mg of sodium.

Sodium Lost in Sweat

We lose water and electrolytes as a consequence of thermoregulatory sweating during exercise. Sodium is the electrolyte that is lost in the greatest quantity through sweat, and so it has the most significant impact on body fluid balance than any other electrolyte. 

If we don’t replace the sodium that we lose through fluid loss, we can face a deficit in our total body water or plasma volume (known as hypohydration), which increases cardiovascular and thermal strain and degrades aerobic performance. Drinking fluid alone (without any electrolytes) will lead to hyponatremia, a condition of low blood sodium that can cause unwanted side effects and can be dangerous in long-duration endurance events. 

Athletes training intensely in hot conditions can need to replace as much as 7-10g of sodium (and drink several litres of water) in order to restore or maintain optimal levels of total body water (i.e. hydration).  

Pre-loading

You can also use sodium to pre-hydrate before intense training or competition. This involves consuming a salty drink mix (i.e. ‘saline’, which is about ~0.9% sodium) and 500-1000ml of water, which equates to about 3500mg of sodium in 1L of water. The result is that you will increase your blood plasma volume, and prevent the decrease in blood plasma that occurs once intense exercise begins.

There are some other reasons why people may need more sodium. 

Whole Foods Eating: 

Firstly, it’s quite common for health conscious people who move to a more whole-foods approach to eating to experience symptoms related to low sodium (such as headaches, low blood pressure, and fatigue). 

The common story is that someone eliminates the high-sodium processed food in their diet, starts to exercise and sweat in the sauna, and doesn’t use much salt in their cooking. After several weeks of this, they feel fatigued, exhausted, and have cramps and migraines - all from not getting enough salt. 

So, 1-2 servings a day of a formulation like ours can help (or you can just use more salt in your cooking!). 

Low Carb Diets 

The other category of people for whom hydration supplements are relevant are people following a low carb diet or who are intermittent fasting. Being in a ketogenic state (low carb) and fasting both reduce the body’s production of insulin, which impairs the ability of the kidneys to hold onto sodium and other electrolytes in the body.

Failing to supplement adequate sodium while adopting a low-carb diet can produce a range of negative symptoms known as the keto flu. 

The research shows that it’s ideal to consume around 4-6g of sodium per day, but this will vary based on your circumstances (like diet, training load, fluid intake, etc.). 

Our formulation contains plenty of sodium for a reason. It’s because you need it! 

Hydration products that contain a low amount of sodium when mixed with water (e.g. Gatorade, Powerade, and many others) are not optimal to address your hydration needs. They can be a good fuel (i.e. carbs/sugar) source for a long-duration endurance athlete (like a triathlete), but for a hydration supplement they provide a heap of sugar and a very low concentration of sodium. 

2. Potassium

Each serving of our hydration mix contains 250mg of potassium. 

Physiology of Potassium

Our product is tailored towards people for whom sodium loss is the biggest issue they are facing (i.e. athletes, low-carb dieters, people who are fasting, and people who need to correct hypohydration and increase their blood plasma to get rid of symptoms of low sodium). 

However, it’s still important to consume some amount of potassium. 

Potassium is the main intracellular cation in the human body where it plays a key role in maintaining cell function. It functions with sodium (which is the extracellular cation) through the sodium potassium pump (also known as an electrogenic transmembrane ATPase). This basically means that it uses electrolyte concentration gradients to function (electrogenic), operates across a membrane (transmembrane), and consumes ATP (as it pumps 3 sodium molecules out of the cell for every 2 potassium molecules pumped into the cell).

Having a sustained concentration gradient (between sodium and potassium) is crucial for many physiological processes in the body, such as the maintenance of filtering waste products in the nephrons (kidneys), sperm motility, and neural signaling. Potassium also helps to regulate blood pressure (we’ll write about this in a future article coming soon). 

The recommended daily potassium intake is 4700mg for optimal health. This number was largely based on meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials investigating the effect of potassium supplementation on reducing blood pressure. Most people don’t get this amount (the average daily intake in the US is ~2500mg per day). Depending on your circumstances though, it may not be necessary to consume this much (research shows that getting above 3500mg is likely sufficient). 

Potassium Ratio to Sodium

We could have included much more potassium in our hydration mix. Some other hydration products have a 1:1 ratio of sodium to potassium. Some even have much more potassium than sodium. We think both of these approaches are wrong, and in the case of athletes experiencing fluid loss and low blood-sodium, potentially harmful. 

The truth is that a very small amount of potassium is lost in sweat, and so it isn’t really necessary to get a large dose of potassium in a hydration supplement. We’ve included 250mg per serving (in a ¼ ratio with sodium) to help you get closer towards your daily potassium needs, and to prevent an imbalance between sodium and potassium, but the formulation is still tilted towards sodium. That’s by design.

3. Magnesium

Each serving of our hydration mix contains 40mg of magnesium. 

Benefits of Magnesium

I think magnesium is fantastic, and regularly consume ~400mg of magnesium glycinate every night before bed. Anecdotally, it makes me sleep much better, helps with muscle relaxation and recovery, and improves my aerobic exercise capacity. 

Magnesium is a cofactor for more than 300 enzymatic reactions and is involved in muscle contraction, neuromuscular conduction, glycemic control, myocardial function, and the maintenance of regular blood pressure. It also plays a vital role in energy production and mitochondrial health. Low magnesium can cause a range of symptoms like headaches, cramps, and increase your risk of developing insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. 

Magnesium Intake

Most people in the Western world consume less than the recommended amount of magnesium (~6mg/kg, so roughly 500mg for an 83kg person) due to consumption of processed foods, demineralized water, and industrial agricultural practices that result in soil that is deficient in minerals. 

The inclusion of magnesium in our formulation helps you to get closer towards your daily magnesium intake goal, and creates a more balanced electrolyte profile.

However, we wouldn’t recommend you rely on our formulation to meet your magnesium needs. Try to get magnesium from your diet first, and thereafter consider supplementing with a high quality form of magnesium (like magnesium glycinate) at night. 

A magnesium recovery mix may be coming from us sometime in the future… stay tuned!

4. Creatine

Each serving of our hydration mix contains 1000mg of creatine. 

Wait… What? Creatine for Hydration?  

Ok, I know what you’re thinking. Why did you put creatine in a hydration supplement?

Well, first of all, taking creatine has extensive benefits which are well researched and documented. 

It’s one of the most studied and popular supplements for athletes and recreational fitness enthusiasts to improve exercise performance, augment training adaptations, and improve recovery time. It has also been shown to have other health benefits like improving cognition, recovery time from injuries, and metabolic health. 

Our detailed guide to creatine is coming soon. 

Secondly, it turns out that creatine actually has a role to play in improving hydration. 

For example, research shows that creatine-induced hyperhydration of muscle cells can result in a more efficient thermoregulatory response during prolonged exercise in the heat. This means that your body is better able to prevent itself from overheating during intense exercise.

Another study published in 2003 monitored injury rates in Division IA NCAA collegiate football players where environmental conditions were hot and humid. They found that creatine users had significantly less cramping, heat illnesses and dehydration, muscle tightness, muscle strains, and total injuries compared to non-users. This is likely due to the hyperhydration effect of creatine which we briefly mentioned previously. 

There is also this study on endurance runners which showed that hyper-hydrating with creatine and glycerol were effective in reducing thermal and cardiovascular strain during exercise in the heat without negatively impacting running economy. While creatine supplementation led to a statistically significant increase in body weight (mean increase of 0.9kg +/- 0.4kg), this had no effect on VO2 max (which depends on body weight), due to the benefits of creatine (i.e. they were able to sustain a higher pace/effort). 

Creatine is a great supplement to use for both endurance and strength/power athletes looking to improve their performance and recovery. It’s also great for the general public given its benefits to metabolism, muscle strength and function, and cognition (I even recommend it to my mum!). 

5. Taurine

Each serving of our hydration mix contains 500mg of taurine. 

Taurine for Hydration 

Taurine is one of the most abundant amino acids in the brain, retina, muscle tissue, and organs throughout the body. It serves a variety of bodily functions. 

It turns out that taurine, like creatine, also has some unique benefits when it comes to hydration and maintaining cell volume.

There are two main physiological mechanisms that regulate cell volume (i.e. swollen or shrunken cells returning to a normal volume). The first is that volume can be regulated by the gain or loss of osmotically active solutes (i.e. electrolytes - sodium, potassium, chloride), or by osmolytes.

Osmolytes are small organic molecules that are found in high concentrations in the cytosol (i.e. liquids inside cells) of all organisms from bacteria to humans.

In animal cells, organic osmolytes are grouped into three distinct classes: 1) polyols, 2) amino acids and their derivatives (e.g., taurine, alanine, and proline), and 3) methylamines. See below:

 

Image credit: Cellular volume homeostasis | Advances in Physiology Education

As you can see above, taurine is an osmolyte. Together with other osmolytes, taurine corrects cell shrinkage and regulates cell volume, and has been shown to play a key role in the prevention of chronic cell hyponatremia and in other pathologies that lead to brain edema.

Benefits of Taurine for Athletes 

Taurine also provides a number of benefits as it relates to exercise and physical performance. 

Firstly, taurine modulates fat metabolism. Acute supplementation of taurine can increase lipolysis and reduce the contribution from glycolytic metabolism, which improves the metabolic efficiency of exercise. Previous research has demonstrated taurine may reduce lactate concentrations, and so it may also provide benefits to anaerobic metabolism.

Taurine has also been shown to function as an antioxidant and promote recovery after exercise. 

Anecdotally, I’ve found that supplementing with taurine has improved my sleep and ability to focus. Combined with the benefits that taurine provides in terms of maintaining cell hydration, we think that it’s a great inclusion in a hydration supplement, especially for people who care about their physical fitness, metabolic health, and cognition. 

6. Sugar

Each serving of our hydration mix contains 0g of sugar.

Sometimes, what you leave out is just as important as what you include.

The main problem with sugar is that it is inflammatory. This inflammation can contribute to conditions like psoriasis, arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, cardiometabolic diseases, and inflammatory bowel diseases. 

Some athletes swear by sugar and regularly consume gummies or sugary sports drinks during or after training. I’m not one of them - doing this makes me feel inflamed and sore! 

Occasionally I’ll consume sugary carbs during very intense or long sessions (when I was a cyclist, the recommendation was about 60g of fast absorbing carbs per hour), but for the most part I just consume water and electrolytes. 

There’s evidence that you don’t need sugar to rehydrate (your body has ways of absorbing salt other than the sodium and glucose cotransport system), contrary to what companies like Gatorade and Powerade will tell you. We’ll go into more detail on this in a future article. 

Note: We’re working on an endurance mix product for our endurance athletes out there that contains electrolytes and also a bunch of carbs. Stay tuned! 

We’re Confident You’ll Enjoy It

So there you have it.

We believe that our hydration mix is one of the highest quality formulations that money can buy. We’re proud to serve it to our family, friends and customers every day.

We made our hydration mix to specifically solve for hydration needs. Our choices of ingredients and ratios are made based on science and tangible evidence which we are happy to share in public. We don’t believe in using proprietary formulas or unproven ‘fad’ ingredients. 

Any nutrition company that is selling you something, and either not telling you what’s in it or not providing the evidence to substantiate their choice of ingredients, is not acting in the best interests of their customers. Usually they’re just using clever marketing tricks and trying to make money. 

The fact is that taking the time to read all of the research, understand it and synthesize it, and then write about it takes time and effort. Unfortunately, a lot of people and brands in the nutrition and supplements business don’t have time for things like that - they just want results! 

So, we thank you if you’re happy to place your trust in our products. Take a serving to start your day, before or during training sessions, or anytime you feel like you need a hydration fix. 

Thanks for reading!