This is a transcript of a Dr. Jay Show broadcast on 1560TheGame. Dr. J. Michael Bennett is a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon and a Fellowship Trained Sports Medicine Physician serving patients from Katy, Fort Bend County, Metro Houston and Southeast Texas from offices in Richmond and Sugar Land, TX. Call 281-633-8600 for an appointment. Our special guest today is Dr. Terence Chang, a family practice physician Board Certified in Sports Medicine from Physicians at Sugar Creek in Sugar Land, TX. Bob Lewis, from 1560TheGame, is also participating.
Here’s the transcript of the third portion of the Show:
LEWIS: Dr. Chang said that Gatorade and water are about the same. I mean you have so many sports drinks on the market; that probably is a whole show there. What do you doctors give your children?
BENNETT: There’s a lot of marketing, there’s a lot of smokescreens out there, and it’s hard to determine what’s good and what’s bad for you. Actually, back in the day before they had all these great sports drinks, when you had an athlete and they’d dehydrate or cramp up or they’d have an electrolyte imbalance, you would give them pickle juice. And that was because the amount of sodium in the pickle juice would actually help get rid of the cramps because it was an electrolyte imbalance. Now granted, we have improved. I mean nobody wants to drink pickle juice anymore.
LEWIS: But there is a difference between a sports drink and an energy drink.
BENNETT: Yeah, a big difference. That’s what I’m saying, there’s a whole marketing thing. People say this is a sports drink and it’s a drink full of sugar, full of caffeine, and it’s supposed to just give you energy, and they kind of cross market it as a sports drink, but that can actually cause you to have dehydration.
CHANG: A lot of the energy drinks actually have a high amount of caffeine in them, and so the amount of caffeine kind of raises your blood pressure, makes you urinate a little bit more, and you end up getting more dehydrated because of that. But what the energy drinks also do – even though you have more energy, I guess, to do the activity – is they put a load on the heart. So over time it can be harmful. As far as the sports drinks, I think it’s a balance with the sports drinks versus the water; I mean you definitely have to balance what you’re doing. If it’s something that is longer distance you definitely don’t want to do water alone. Let’s say you’re training for a half marathon or a full marathon; you definitely have to have some sports electrolyte drinks.
BENNETT: I think you have to do your due diligence; you have to check it and flip the can around and see what’s inside the can. If it’s a lot of caffeine, a lot of sugar, look at the sugar content. And you look at the serving size because a lot of these things are very misleading and the serving size is three, or one, or whatever and a lot of times they’ll break it down to the smaller serving size but they’ll have four servings in that one bottle. So you think, “oh yeah, I’m only getting 20 grams of whatever,” and you’re actually getting like 80 grams. And so it’s key that you really read the fine print. Like I said before, a lot of these things are really misleading in regards to the advertising aspects and I think if you stick with your classic, traditional, fluid type beverages when you’re competing, like water or Gatorade or something along those lines, well you know what you’re getting. You know you’re getting electrolytes, you’re getting fluid, and that’s about all you need. You don’t need the caffeine. You don’t need the sugar. You don’t need any of that stuff because that can cause problems.
If you have questions about sports medicine for you or your children, please call our office for an appointment at 281-633-8600.
