Sweat: amino acids are lost while you exercise

Research Findings

Sweating is an important process that helps with cooling the body and also removes some waste products. The sweating is exacerbated during exercise and work in a hot climate. When you sweat, you also lose a lot of amino acids and electrolytes in the fluid, which then need to be replenished. 

Our major findings were

1.  A group of 6 amino acids (High Demand Amino Acids HDAA) were lost in the sweat lost at disproportionately faster rates than the others.
2. The same HDAA amino acids are also lost in high proportions in the urine.

Considerable quantities of these key amino acids can be lost when you consider that:

• 1-2 L of sweat can be lost per hour during exercise.
• Manual laborers can lose 10 L of sweat per day in a hot climate
• Links were established between the losses of amino acids in sweat with the processes of resorption of sodium and chloride in the sweat glands.

Shaping product development

These research findings have been fundamental to our generation of the product concept. We have measured what is lost in sweat and concluded that six amino acids were lost in much higher quantities than other amino acids during exercise. The rationale for the InnovAAte product range is simply to replenish these key factors.

Since digestion is greatly diminished during and after exercise, our research has also led us to identifying the time immediately after exercise as a critical opportunity to replenish these amino acids.

If one can replenish these key amino acids during the exercise or immediately after, then this can help maintain muscle mass.

You can download our Peer-reviewed & published papers

1. Sweat facilitated amino acid losses in male athletes during exercise at 32-34°C. PLoS ONE, 11(12). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0167844

2. Relationships between electrolyte and amino acid compositions in sweat during exercise suggests a role for amino acids in reabsorption of Na+ and Cl- from sweat. PLOS ONE 14(10): e0223381. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223381