Dietary sodium intake practices of endurance athletes, and implications for sodium status during exercise

This thesis examined dietary sodium intake and urine and sweat losses in endurance athletes. Athletes believe they need more sodium than non-athletes because of exercise sweat losses, and most plan to consume more in the days before competition. The amount of sodium endurance athletes consume on non-training days is similar to the general population. Increasing sodium intake results in greater sweat sodium losses during endurance exercise, but the difference between usual and high sodium diets is unlikely to be practically important. Finally, the effect on endurance performance of consuming sodium during exercise is unclear and requires further research.