system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How are sport drinks supposed to hydrate you more than drinking water?
gpt
They don't. What sports drinks are supposed to do is replace minerals/salts/electrolytes (different words for the same stuff) that you may have lost during intense physical exercise. They also have sugar to replace the calories you burn during the same activity. Unless you are an elite athlete in the middle of an actual competition, you do not need a sports drink (even then, the evidence is pretty sparse that they help). A normal diet has more than enough minerals for even the most work-out obsessed individual. Even if you exclusively drink distilled water, there will be more than enough salt in your diet to keep you going.