Every once in a while a debate rages on news group forums about whether Ascorbic Acid is Vitamin C or not. Purveyors of whole food supplements make a ridiculous argument that vitamin C is more than just ascorbic acid and must include bioflavonoids and other co-factors.  I just want my readers to understand that this is nothing more than a marketing scheme to get people to buy expensive products which have limited or no additional benefits.

In order to justify their higher prices, whole food supplement sellers have to concoct wild stories that sound good on the surface but in reality are hollow claims with little or no scientific basis to them. 

Having said that, is it beneficial to get your nutrients from a food source over a pill?  Of course it is. This is the absolute optimal way to get nutrients into your body.  Is buying supplements that are made from whole foods more beneficial than synthetic nutrients?  A qualified yes.  Is it worth the added expense?  Absolutely not.  In fact, if the whole food supplement companies were telling you the whole truth, they’d have to tell you that many of them use synthetic vitamins to bolster their whole food supplements because the cost of having pure food extracted vitamin C of say 500 mg you’d be paying 100 times the amount you are now.  It’s that expensive.

Save yourself some money and stay away from those whole food derived supplements and use synthetic when necessary.  But don’t forget to eat right as there is no way to make up for a lousy diet with pills no matter how “food based” they are.

One of the first things I always do when talking about electrolytes is to define them in a broad sense and then to refine the definition.  The reason for this will become rapidly understood.

An electrolyte in the strictest sense is any fluid that can conduct electricity. Using this definition, Coke^® can be considered an electrolyte although a weak one.  Obviously, no real athlete, especially a professional would ever rely on that product to be their electrolyte of choice. So what would a “good” electrolyte be?

First off, a good electrolyte certainly wouldn’t be one laden with sugars.  Most everything on store shelves these days are just that, sugar packed soft drinks.  Did you ever really look at the label of Gatorade^® ? It nothing more than sugar water.  They can’t even call themselves a balanced electrolyte.  The drink that is on the store shelves today isn’t the same as the one that the Florida Gators used all those years ago.

Just about all of the others are the same; glow in the dark sugar waters.  Not bad if you want to hydrate yourself (as long as you can stand the sugar) but as far as providing needed electrolytes used up in athletic endeavors, they’re a no go. When talking about what a good electrolyte is you need a balance of sodium, potassium, magnesium, chlorides, bicarbonates and phosphates.  The only one I know of, (here is where I pat myself on the back) is one I created about 9 years ago, Peltier Electrolytes which is now known as Synerplex Electrolytes.

Peltier is a balance of all of the aforementioned salts with no sugars, colorings or any other additives.  It has no calories and since it’s a concentrate, you can add it to pretty much any fluid you like. You can even cook with it in thinks like stews and soups.

Over the years, professional athletes from all of the major sports have used it with sometimes spectacular results.  Think about it, when you sweat you lose salts and not just sodium. So anyone who enjoys a good workout or is a professional athlete can benefit from it. 

Here comes the plug. The only way to get it is through Knowledge Through Solutions (a company I have a vested interest in) at 775.815.0867. To find out more about the product, go to www.kt-solutions.com or to call the number above and ask for me. Beware of imitations as a few of the ones who claim to be similar aren’t.  We sent a couple of our competitors products out for independent analysis of their electrolyte and what was on the label and what was in the bottle were wildly different.  One was so high in potassium that it had the potential of causing heart arrythmia’s in susceptible individuals.