E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Thursday, December 31, 2009
A cure for boozing or running
By Toby Smith
Journal Staff Writer
Imagine, if you will, a sports drink that may also help over-imbibers.
Holy New Year's Day hangover, you gotta be kidding!
Nope. Not according to the makers of elete, an electrolyte and trace mineral drink that is primarily used to assist athletes who suffer muscle cramps from physical exertion and dehydration.
Let's say you swig some elete before, during or after a half-marathon. You might find the same good results if you downed the stuff before or after you knocked back a half-gallon of Old Grandad.
No one is suggesting that drinking more than in moderation is OK, least of all elete's manufacturer, Mineral Resources International Inc., or MRI, of Ogden, Utah.
As a liquid add-in, elete has been around for five years. MRI, a family-run business, has been around since 1969, marketing health products.
Val Anderson, elete's executive vice president and a member of the founding family, says, “Elete is a pure electrolyte concentrate, a sports drink without all the garbage.”
In other words, elete has no sugar or flavorings. As a matter of fact, it has no carbohydrates or calories, either.
“You can drop a small amount in plain water or you can mix it with your favorite juice, soft drink or even coffee,” Anderson says. “Some athletes even squirt it directly in their mouths. It's very versatile.”
If you add elete to water, Anderson cautions, you may experience a slightly salty taste. After all, some of elete's sea mineral concentrates come from the Great Salt Lake, not far from company headquarters.
A 1-ounce pocket or purse-size bottle of elete, that comes with a measuring cap top, can make up to 2 1/2 gallons and sells for $4.99. An 8-ounce refill bottle is also available, for $14.98. Elete can found in Albuquerque at Bike World, 1820 E. Central Ave., 247-8033.
The qualities of elete as a sports drink have been endorsed by such endurance athletes as U.S. ski team member Alex Miller, competitive rock climber Devin Wayman and cross-country snowmobile racer Micah Huss.
Says Anderson, “Athletes like to use it in training to keep their electrolyte levels up.”
Elete has also been given a thumb's-up by Val Anderson's mother-in-law, who was getting leg cramps until she started adding the liquid to her morning smoothie.
Perhaps the most impressive support for elete comes from a medical study that appeared last year in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. Using wildlife firefighters as a study group, medical researchers found that the firefighters who used elete drank far less water to achieve the same hydration as those who drank just plain water.
OK, enough about scientific revelations. How did the hangover cure come about?
“I was on a trip to Amsterdam,” Anderson says with a laugh. “A customer there took me out on the town one night. I had to get up early and do a lecture the next morning. I thought, well, yes, this is going to be a hydration issue. We'd already had lots of feedback on the drink. So, I had some that night and I was OK in the morning.”
Anderson said he began hearing about elete's “other” benefit at the annual Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, the outdoor industry's largest trade show. (It will be held in Salt Lake City from Jan. 21-24.)
“At a lot of these trade shows,” Anderson says, “drinking plays a big part. The same people who did athletics very often are the same crowd that have hangovers. Alcohol is served at the trade show, starting about noon. Well, MRI was giving out samples at our booth and the hangover information spread quickly. Our electrolyte drink all of a sudden was a preventative for a different kind of pain.”
Many people who drink, Anderson says, seldom think they're going to get a hangover. “When it happens, they're often shocked.”
Most hangovers, Anderson goes on, are due to low-level dehydration and electrolyte imbalances. “So, if you can rehydrate rapidly and balance electrolytes quickly, you're going to feel better.”
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
