Soft drinks after exercise damage the kidneys

 

Soft drinks after exercise damage the kidneys

After exercising, people like to refresh themselves with a soft drink. Not a good idea, as a study, showed, because the drinks have been shown to damage the kidneys and lead to persistent dehydration.

Soft drinks bad for the kidneys

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Soft drinks are anything but healthy. They often contain caffeine, flavorings, sugar, fructose-glucose syrup, or sweeteners. In the meantime, they are made responsible for the increasing numbers of overweight and diabetics worldwide.

Researchers from University that the sweet drinks can also impair kidney health if you drink them during or after training. The study appeared in the Journal of Physiology.

Dehydrate soft drinks

Earlier studies from the 1990s already showed that exercise - when practiced in summer at high temperatures - increased blood values ​​that naturally only rise when the kidneys have a problem.

At the same time, there were studies, e.g., from July 2016, in which it could be shown in rats that soft drinks with a high fructose content increase the risk of kidney damage if the animals were very thirsty, i.e., already dehydrated.

The New York researchers now linked these two theses in their study. They wanted to find out how soft drinks - compared to water - changed dehydrated athletes' kidney values ​​during summer training.

Study: How do soft drinks affect exercise?

Twelve healthy and sporty adults with an average age of 23 years were available as participants. They did a 30-minute workout on the treadmill and then did 20-minute exercises designed to simulate farm work.

After the 45-minute workout, participants rested for 10 minutes, during which time they were given either a popular caffeinated and flavored soft drink with a high fructose content or water. In total, they repeated this 1-hour process four times, so the participants trained a total of four times for 45 minutes each and then rested for 15 minutes each. During the break, there was always a good drink.

A week later, the same event retook place, but the groups were swapped this time. Those athletes who had previously received the soft drink now drank water and vice versa.

Kidney values ​​worsen after consumption of soft drinks

Of course, blood samples were also taken regularly on the training days - before training, immediately after, and 24 hours afterward. The creatinine levels and the glomerular filtration rate were tested - both are markers that can detect kidney damage. Heart rate, body temperature, body weight, and blood pressure were also checked.

As expected, both kidney-relevant blood values ​​in the soft drink groups were elevated. The soft drink users were also slightly dehydrated and had higher vasopressin levels. Vasopressin is a hormone that increases blood pressure and at the same time ensures that the body releases as little water as possible in the urine, so that increased vasopressin levels also indicate dehydration.

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Never drink soft drinks while exercising or doing physical work!

So if you think you can keep yourself hydrated with soft drinks after summer training, you are mistaken. Soft drinks do not rehydrate extensively; on the contrary, and they leave the body in a dehydrated state.

Of course, these results refer to athletes who train in the heat and people who (have to) perform physical work at high temperatures.

It would be best if you quenched your thirst - regardless of which group of people you belong to - preferably with water. Especially in summer or when you sweat a lot, train a lot or even compete and sometimes drink a lot of water, you should avoid water that is low in minerals and instead enrich the water with minerals or some sea or rock salt. Occasionally, coconut water can also be used as a high-quality isotonic thirst quencher.