Revive

Most hydration products do not have enough electrolytes or the right ratio. They contain sugar and other additives. REVIVE is scientifically formulated to give you all that you need, without the things you don’t

CAREFULLY CHOSEN INGREDIENTS

There are no short-cuts to a great product, especially one that is truly healthy. We'd like to share the thought process behind each ingredient in our formulation.

To start with, REVIVE contains no chemicals, colouring, fillers or artificial ingredients. Nothing should be added that isn't necessary. Things like colouring are a red flag for us. They are designed to trick your senses - typical industry behaviour that we don't want any part of.

All our ingredients are chosen for quality and purity. Through a special partnership with Oryx Desert Salt, our sodium comes from one of the cleanest sources in the world - ancient and unpolluted, with no micro-plastics.

Our main electrolyte ingredients are sodium chloride, potassium chloride and magnesium malate. The chloride form of sodium and potassium provides the negatively charged chloride, which is also an electrolyte, needed for cellular hydration. Magnesium comes in many forms (glycinate, taurate, citrate etc). Our malate form helps with ATP (energy) creation and is well-tolerated, in other words unlikely to cause GI distress.

Electrolyte salts on their own are unpleasant to drink (think of sea-water). We add sodium citrate and calcium carbonate (also electrolytes) to soften the tartness of the other salts. For flavour, we use high-quality, imported natural, spray-dried flavour that gives REVIVE its great taste. The aroma is distinctly noticeable when opening the sachet.

For sweetness, we use stevia leaf extract. The unpalatable saltiness of electrolytes needs some sweetness. In the health world, sweetness is always controversial. There are only a handful of sweetener choices that meet our criteria, which are:

1. Non-artificial ie natural. This rules out things like sucralose

2. Non-caloric, which rules out many

3. Non-glycemic, meaning it causes no rise in blood sugar

4. Insulin neutral, meaning it doesn't provoke an insulin response

5. Easy on the gut, which excludes xylitol, erythritol and other sugar alcohols

6. Powdered, which rules out syrups like yacon

We chose stevia. We could have used monk fruit perhaps, or allulose. In addition to meeting all the above criteria, stevia doesn’t have a lingering aftertaste, pairs well with electrolyte salts and because it is much sweeter than sugar (unlike alluose or erythritol), a tiny amount is required for each sachet.

The final ingredient is citric acid, needed for freshness and to preserve quality. Citric acid is found in citrus fruit; particularly high quantities are in lemons.

By sharing the thought process behind the formulation, we hope to provide transparency, facilitate understanding and help customers develop confidence in our brand.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND REVIVE DAILY ELECTROLYTES

The Basics

Electrolytes are produced when essential minerals such as sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and chloride, are broken down into their ion form, meaning they carry an electrical charge that is necessary for our bodies to function, our nerves to fire and our muscles to contract. Electrolytes are also necessary for the movement of substances into and out of our cells.

Most electrolyte products have sodium and potassium, and some have magnesium. REVIVE has all three, in the optimal quantities and ratio.

What about chloride? Chloride (which carries a negative charge) comes attached to sodium, and usually potassium, as in sodium chloride or potassium chloride. Calcium doesn't need to be supplemented.

Let’s talk about sodium. This is the main electrolyte found in extracellular fluid, meaning fluid outside your cells, like in your blood. Out of all the electrolytes, sodium is lost in the greatest quantity (think of sweat) and needs the most replacement.

However, for the longest time, sodium, which comes from salt, has been vilified. Excess salt, we were told, raises blood pressure, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Things have changed. Yet, despite ample science debunking the myth that salt is bad for everyone, many people, including medical professionals, are still locked in the past. Old dogma doesn’t die easily.

An often-quoted study, published in 2011 in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that our official guidelines for sodium are out of whack. If reading scientific papers isn’t your thing, there are 3 important takeaways:

1. Too LITTLE salt is actually dangerous.
2. Too much salt occurs at more than 8g of sodium per day (that’s 21g of salt)
3. The sweet-spot, or lowest risk of cardiovascular disease, is 5g of sodium per day (13g of salt), more than DOUBLE the official recommendation.

* Importantly, sodium is not the same as the salt. Regular salt - the stuff we sprinkle onto our food - is sodium chloride (NaCl). The amount of sodium in sodium chloride is about 38%. So, to get 5g of sodium, you need to consume 13g of salt. This is a critical point often lost on people who aren’t doing chemistry for a living.

For an in-depth look at salt, The Salt Fix, by Dr James DiNicolantonio, provides an extensively researched view on why we can erase our guilt for this important mineral. For something shorter than a whole book, here is an excellent article by Dr Jason Fung, called The Truth About Salt, from the always reliable Diet Doctor website.

Now, if salt is ok for unhealthy folks, what about healthy people? After all, the above JAMA study was done on people at HIGH risk for cardiovascular disease. Are the needs of health-conscious people different from the average couch potato? It turns out the answer is YES, and that’s where REVIVE comes in.

REVIVE Daily Electrolytes has been designed for active, health-conscious people.

For more info: https://getrevive.co.za/pages/science