Why Prime is a Terrible Sports Drink for Athletes

- May 14, 2024

Prime is one of the most popular sports drinks in the world right now, but it many areas it fails at being a good sports drink. So the question is, what is it about prime that makes it so popular, or is it just hype? And, most importantly, is it good for runners?

I've tried prime a few times before and I can see the one huge positive with this drink; it tastes great. It has a really sweet taste, but only has 1 to 2 grams of sugar in it. There are a few main reasons how its able to taste so sweet with only a small amount of sugar, the main one being the use of the artificial sweetener, Sucralose.

Sucralose is probably the most popular artificial sweetener being used right now, maybe only behind aspartame (which is on a decline in usage because it might case cancer) so it makes sense to put this in a sports drink to make it taste good. The reason Sucralose and other artificial sweeteners are able to be used, but not add any calories is that they are not digestible. These sweeteners are not digested so they leave the body with other waste and don't contribute any nutritional value to the body. The only real drawbacks of sweeteners like this is that they may damage gut health and cause digestion issues in some people.

Sucralose is able to be used in very small amounts though, because its over 600 times sweeter than sugar. So it makes sense to use this to sweeten a drink as an alternative to sugar, right? Well Sucralose is not the only sweetener in Prime, there's also the more controversial acesulfame potassium. So not only does prime have two grams of sugar and a sugar substitute 600 times sweeter than sugar, it has a third sweetener.

The second main reason prime is able to taste sweeter than other drinks, is the reason prime is not a good sports drink: it contains barely any salt. Prime may boast that they have 834 milligrams of electrolytes per bottle, more than Gatorade and every other sports drink, but most of these electrolytes are potassium. This is a problem because when an athlete sweats, they don't only lose water, but they lose key electrolytes, like potassium, but the main electrolyte lost is salt. That's why sweat tastes salty, because it literally is salt water. Salt is a important nutrient in the brain and nervous system, and we can't live without it because it is necessary to send electrical messages in the brain and to the muscles, and regulate water in the body.

Prime may say they have the most electrolytes, but it only has 10 mg of salt. Other sports drinks have a lot of salt , like Gatorade for example which has 306 mg of salt, because it's great for athletes who need to replenish all the salt lost through sweat. That's why Gatorade needs so much sugar to taste good, because if it didn't have all of that sugar it would be extremely salty. Prime on the other hand can use the sweeteners I mentioned earlier along with low sugar because they don't need to overpower any salty flavor. That's why it tastes so good, along with the fact that it also contains many artificial flavors and colors that aren't really the best for athletes (to be fair, most sports drinks do).

So, if Prime is such a terrible sports drink, then why is it so popular? Its because of genius marketing mostly aimed at young kids. The people who made Prime cleverly knew how to use influencers, and manufactured scarcity of the drink to make it get over hyped among kids. But at the end of the day, that's all it is. Its a good tasting drink, with clever partnerships, that's marketed as a sports drink without being a good sports drink, that's hyped up by kids who only want it because of scarcity that was manufactured.

I wouldn't recommend prime hydration to any runner for the reasons I mentioned above. There are plenty of better sports drinks out there that would be more beneficial and actually do what a good sports drink is supposed to do, rehydrate and replenish.