How do the Enterade products work?

Active rehydration is normally through glucose mediated sodium and electrolyte absorption in the small intestine. In other words, the glucose in your intestine binds to a site on a transporter protein (SGLT-1) that activates another site on the same transporter to bind sodium. At this point, the transporter protein pulls both the glucose and sodium into an intestinal cell. The sodium that entered the cell now pulls water inside along with it. Through this process, your body gets rehydrated.

When you are undergoing radiotherapy or chemotherapy or experiencing stress as in severe exercise, this normal rehydration mechanism based on glucose gets compromised. In this situation, if a drink containing glucose and electrolytes is taken, there is only very little absorption of sodium and electrolytes leading to suboptimal rehydration. Further, because the glucose is not absorbed, it concentrates in your small intestine causing diarrhea (osmotic diarrhea) on its own. 

In this situation, our scientists discovered that certain alternate rehydration pathways that are driven by specific amino acids in place of glucose kick in. This is our body’s own compensatory mechanism to rehydrate when the glucose mediated process is compromised during radiotherapy, chemotherapy or stress as in severe exercise. These specific amino acids that rehydrate have been combined with electrolytes in optimal proportions in Enterade products. This scientific discovery informed the development of both enterade–r (Medical Food) and enterade–s (Dietary Supplement). enterade–r has been optimized for hydration during radiotherapy and chemotherapy and enterade–s for hydration during heavy exercise. Both these products are available as flavored and unflavored versions and both versions do not contain carbohydrates or caffeine.

If you are a healthcare professional and would like to know more about our products, please check the Science page in our website for more detailed scientific information.

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