Electrolytes - Endurance Athletes

[deleted-664855]

Hello
i am doing a science fair project and what I am testing is the amount of electrolytes in beverages (5 of them) and their effects on endurance athletes. After measuring the conductivity of the beverages I do a test wear people run for an hour at 6 miles per hour then they fill out a questionnaire saying how they feel. My main problem now is that the people that said they would do it, quit.

My question is if any of you have any other ideas of how i could test this.

"The Varying Amounts of Electrolytes in Beverages and their Effect on Endurance Athletes"

Sorry if I was vague but I really don't know any alternative ways of testing this.

[deleted-648789]

Hello,

This sounds like a really cool project with electrolytes! As for testing the effect of electrolytes on performance, I would try and create a procedure that can easily quantify your data. Using examples like heart rate and pH as your dependent variable can help show biological effects of electrolytes beyond the thoughts of a subjective individual.

As for finding a new way to test the effect of electrolytes, I suggest trying planaria. Planaria are very popular organisms to test in a lab environment because they are very resilient and relatively similar in biological processes to humans. By feeding planaria electrolytes, you can analyze their energy levels by observing how much they move within their petri dishes. Many of my classmates put a piece of grid paper underneath their transparent petri dishes and counted how many units the Planaria traveled across for a minute. They used this rate to determine how much the planaria traveled.

I don't know what your access to resources is for this experiment, but I think moving away from human test subjects may be the best course of action realistically.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

[deleted-664855]

Thank You so much
The only thing is my teacher does not know where you can buy Planaria
Is there a store that sells it ? (like Walmart, Superstore, etc.) I guess I should mention I am living in Canada

[deleted-648789]

Hello,

you can find Planaria at science supply retailers like Carolina. Carolina does ship internationally, although I don't know how their shipping rates would apply. I attached a link to where you can find it below.

https://www.carolina.com/browse/product ... ubmit=true

If you need anything else don't hesitate to ask!

[deleted-664855]

The only problem i can think with Planaria which only came to my mind now and which i should of done when I did the test with humans is that wouldn't the sugar in the beverages create energy for the Planaria to move ? So I couldn't be sure if it is the sugar or the electrolytes which is causing them to move. The other thing is that you said that Planaria "relatively similar in biological processes" to humans. Isn't the difference that they are like little worms which can regenerate body parts cause them to have different results than with humans ? Maybe that was a dumb question, it is just i don't understand it Sorry.

[deleted-664855]

Hello

[deleted-664855]

Hello I figured out that I can't get planaria so do you have any other suggestions. I am sort of in a hurry because I only have the school facilities for another week. Then I only have access to stuff at my house which is not much Please
So sorry

[SciB]

Please keep all your posts in one thread to avoid confusion.

I like your original idea better than planaria. Instead of running for one hour, however, I would recruit volunteers to use a tread-mill or stair-stepper for 15 minutes and record the heart rates. To limit the number of subjects you need, I would choose one endurance drink to test and test it against a juice drink that has approximately the same amount of sugar so that you compensate for any possible effects of sugar. You should be able to get at least four friends to help you out with the project--two male and two female,

Be sure to measure the resting heart rate accurately. The peak heart rate will be measured at 15 minutes at the end of the exercise session. You should also measure the time it takes for the heart rate to return to baseline as this is also a variable that could be affected by electrolyte balance.

You could test the two drinks on the same day but it would probably be more accurate to do the experiment at the same time of day but on a different day. Also, do not do the test right after eating or if the person is sick.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have more questions.

Sybee

[deleted-664855]

Thank You very much
The only problem is that all the people who I had recruited previously for my project are very unhappy with me for asking them to run for a hour so they don't want to run again. The other problem is that everybody has to do their own science fair project so they don't have time to help with mine.

To be honest my preference is to move away from human test subjects. I was wondering if you could help me modify my project so that it does not involve humans.

I am thinking of something else I could measure besides electrolytes. Maybe I could do something related to sugar and what the healthiest option for a electrolytes replenishing beverage is. But that seems too basic for my liking so I was wondering if there is something else I could do besides that to make my project more interesting.

For measuring sugar I am planning to boil away the liquid in the beverages ( Orange Juice, Chocolate Milk, Gatorade, Coconut water and Distilled water as a control.
Thank you again !!!!

[SciB]

OK, you can't recruit any more friends and you can't get planaria--how about Daphnia, water 'fleas'? These are tiny multicellular critters, just visible to the unaided eye, that are common in pond water and which are often used for experiments because they are easy to grow and use. They also have a heart that is visible through their clear bodies so you can count heart beats as a dependent variable. Other dependent variables can be life-span and egg formation.

You can buy cultures of Daphnia magna from Carolina Biologicals (https://www.carolina.com/daphnia/daphni ... on=daphnia) for $10. They are easy to grow and maintain or you can just plan on using the Daphnia 24-48 hours after you receive them (https://www.carolina.com/teacher-resour ... tr10492.tr).

There is a project in Scibuddies that uses Daphnia to test water samples for toxic contamination (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure). You can use the same procedure to test the sports drinks, although you will have to decide on a suitable amount of drink to add to a specific volume of spring water. If you test several drinks, make sure you keep the proportions the same so you can compare them.

This project measures the number of living Daphnia at the end of the experiment, but there is another project to test the effects of caffeine in which the heart rate of the Daphnia is measured: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... hnia-magna
The only problem with this project is that you need to magnify the Daphnia in order to see the heart and count the beats. They recommend using a microscope but I think you might be able to use a smart phone video camera with an accessory lens to make it like a microscope. I have done this for still photos but haven't tried videos.

There are many clip-on lenses that you can attach to your phone to magnify the image through the camera but I have not tested them so you will have to read and decide on your own if you want to try it. I think a 30X lens would be sufficient to see the heart of a Daphnia and count the beats. They move around a lot so you don't want a lens that magnifies too much or you woun't be able to track them.

If you can borrow a microscope and some well slides to use then you are good to go, otherwise the camera might be the only way you can count heart beats.

I think Daphnia are your best choice for test subjects and for getting some real data. I'm sure you will have questions, so post again and I will continue to help.

Sybee

[deleted-664855]

Hello Sybee

Thank for all everything you have done to try to help me. I am really really sorry but it is just that I can't spend anymore money then I already have. I have spent $40 and it would have been more if I did not have the multimeter for the first part of the experiment. MY budget will buy the Daphnia shipping it will cost more money.

I know that you feel like you wasted your time trying to help me and I really appreciate it. I also know that I sound cheap for not being willing to pay for the Daphnia and I am really sorry. Right now I am just trying to do as much as I can with resources from my school - which is not much.

I have done the Electrolytes Challenge from Sci Buddies and I have used five beverages like I previously said. I got the results from it but I want to add to it in some manner. I want to talk about how healthy each of the options are comparatively to how much electrolytes it has. That is what I meant when I talked about measuring sugar. What I was wondering was what other unhealthy/healthy nutrients,vitamins, etc. that I could measure with minimal resources.

Sorry Once again, and Thank You and will very much appreciate it if you can give assistance as I go.

[deleted-664855]

For measuring sugar I am thinking of using a hydrometer. But I don't know what to do for everything else (vitamins, nutrients, Carbohydrates, proteins) and I am also considering eliminating chocolate milk from our project because we cannot use the hydrometer because there are other dissolved solids in chocolate milk other that primarily sugar.

[deleted-664855]

I am thinking of measuring vitamin c with cornstartch and iodine

[deleted-664855]

I am thinking of using the liebermann burchard reaction for testing cholesterol if I my school has the chemicals necassery but I don't know yet.

[deleted-664855]

I am thinking of using the bendicts solution for sugar instead of the hydrometer if I my school has it.

[deleted-664855]

What can i do to measure carbohydrates ?

[SciB]

Hi,
Sorry you weren't able to do the experiments with Daphnia. That would have been really interesting--maybe next time.

B vitamins and most others would be too difficult to measure, but you can measure vit C using iodine and starch indicator. If you are going to determine the actual concentration of vit C you will need some vit C powder to use as a standard. Don't use vit C tablets as these have fillers and you want pure vit C.

You can use a hydrometer to measure the density of the sports drinks relative to pure water but this only tells you how much dissolved solids are in the drink. To measure the sugar content, you would need to use Benedict's solution.

I don't know what else you can measure accurately. To get an actual concentration, you usually run standard solutions of known concentration along with your unknown. You take the data from running the standard solutions and graph it with the readout (what you measure) on the y-axis and the concentration (g/mL, %, moles/L, etc.) on the x-axis. Here's a video that explains how to make a standard curve in case you need help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0luczWOo0rQ

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-664855]

Final Important Question (For Now)- Does the benedicts solution work if the liquid is pre coloured and does it affect it ? I am not sure because the research I did showed that it is used for sugar in foods with the foods being dissolved in water and then tested. Since it is a clear liquid that is okay,... but for me all of my beverages are coloured except two - chocolate milk, orange juice and gatorade

[deleted-664855]

I have figured out that I have to dilute the liquid if it is too concentrated
One Question:
1) Maybe I have this sort of wrong in my head but if I were to dilute the solution in water I have to make sure that the amount of beverage before dilution is the same as all the other beverages and so when I get the results from the experiment they will be accurate right ?

[SciB]

Please put all your questions in ONE thread. It makes it much easier for us to keep track of what questions were asked and answered.

In order to compare several different solutions you need to dilute them all the same.

[SciB]

Benedict's solution is clear blue before it is used. In the presence of reducing sugars such as glucose it turns orange after heating. Testing for sugar in chocolate milk will be a problem and orange juice definitely. I'm not sure about Gatorade.

If you can do a dilution of one part drink plus two parts water (1:3 dilution) that might help to make the color change visible.

Remember that Benedict's does not react with sucrose because it is a non-reducing sugar, so if your drinks have sucrose, this test will not register it. You can convert sucrose to its component sugars--fructose and glucose--by heating it with dilute hydrochloric acid or with an enzyme called invertase, which splits sucrose into the two simpler sugars.

Also, unless you test glucose solutions of known concentration (standards), you will not be able to say how much reducing sugar is in your drinks--only that there is some, more or a lot. Comparing the resulting colors you might be able to say that one drink has more sugar than another, but it would be much better for your science project if you could say what the actual sugar concentration was.

Hope this is helpful. Let me know if you have more questions.

Sybee

[deleted-664855]

Yes that was what I was planning to so with the HCL.

Thank You that helped me with my question for dilution.

I am sort of confused by your comment about posting on one thread, I have only posted on this one thread after you told me not to ask on other ones so I am not sure what you are referring to.

Thank You !!!!!!

[SciB]

My mistake. I thought there was a separate question when there wasn't. Sorry

[deleted-664855]

Hello Sybee,

I have one question which i couldn't figure out the answer to online.

When I measured the conductivity of distilled water (because I needed a base) I got a negative number on my multimeter. I don't think this affects the results but one other thing I did was that since my multimeter did not have a microamps function I did the test test with just milliamps. I had assumed that it would just come to 0 regardless but now I am confused why I have a negative number.

Thank You

[SciB]

Hi,
Distilled water cannot conduct an electric current because it contains too few ions. That's why your multimeter gives a negative reading. I don't know why it does not read zero which is what i would expect--or maybe just slightly positive.

If you are curious, you could add a tiny, measured amount of sodium chloride, NaCl, to the DW and measure the conductivity again. This time it should be positive because the Na+ and Cl- ions will conduct electrons through the solution and give a reading on the meter. You could keep adding measured amounts of NaCl and measuring the conductivity. Afterwards, you could graph the data and you will have a conductivity chart. Then you could measure the conductivity of an unknown solutions and find it on the graph so that you can read off the salt concentration from a given current reading.

Sybee

[deleted-664855]

Hello Sybee
I am really confused because I spent a lot of time researching this topic but i could't find the answer to my question.
While I was doing the electrolytes challenge I noticed that only on one side where the copper is connected to the straw and the alligator clip (which is connected to the battery clip) it changed into a black colour. The thing is that this only happened when the beverage was high in electrolytes. I am not sure what happened and I did not notice any fizzing or anything else.

Thank You

[SciB]

Do you understand now why distilled water does not carry an electric current? There's a lot of chemistry involved with electrolytes and you probably haven't had most of it in school yet.

Passing an electric current through a solution of electrolytes can result in electro-plating of a metal onto the electrodes [the copper wire in your case] and I think that's what caused the darkening of the copper.

Eventually, you should also notice bubbles of gas forming at the wires because the electric current will cause the water [H2O] to break down into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which will appear at the electrode.

I don't want you to feel confused, so please keep asking questions until you understand what is happening in the solution.

Sybee

[deleted-664855]

Hello Sybee, Thank you for your explanation.

Yes ( I knew that distilled water did not carry an electric current because they covered that at school), I figured out why there was a negative number, it was because I had connected the wires the wrong way to the battery and so it gave a negative reading. All I had to do was switch the negative to a postitve and I had the right reading which was like you said slightly positive.

As for the electroplating, the research I did showed that it is done between to different metals. So I don't understand why copper and copper would make a difference. Also I don't understand why it does so only on one electrode.

Sorry I don't understand would really appreciate if you could explain it to me.

Thank You

[SciB]

Excellent question! You saw the flaw in the explanation. Yes, electroplating does take place between two different metals, but what I think might have happened was an electrolytic reaction in which hydroxyl ions were produced at the electrode by breakdown of some compound in the drink. The hydroxyl ions will increase the pH next to the positive electrode and this could cause a reaction with the copper wire.

The one problem with this hypothesis is that copper compounds are nearly always some shade of green or blue, not black. That's why I was thinking more of electroplating. Maybe the drink has some other metal ions like iron that could be attaching to the copper and causing it to appear dark. Which electrode does the color change at, positive or negative? Iron ions are positive, Fe3+ or Fe2+, and thus would be attracted to the negative electrode.

Here's a reference for electrolysis of a water solution: http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/electrolysis.html
Here's some information on the copper compound, copper hydroxide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper(II)_hydroxide
Here's a video on plating iron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj8KXdbuyJ4

As a control, you could try measuring the conductivity of a salt solution, NaCl, because this would have no iron in it. Clean off the copper, or use new wire, and attach it to the battery and see what happens. You should see bubbles of gas forming at the electrodes as the water is electrolyzed into oxygen and hydrogen, but I think the copper should not turn black.

Let me know what happens. Electroplating is a lot of fun and I used to try various metal salts and metal items to see what i could do. Copper is a good one to try because you can usually buy copper sulfate in a hardware store and use it to plate copper onto tools or other metal items.

This is kind of off the subject of your sports drink conductivity measurements, but it is good that you questioned the discoloration of the copper. Lots of things in science were picked up by accident that way.

Let me know what happens.

Sybee

[deleted-664855]

Hello Sybee
When I said that the copper is black i meant like a dark brown.
The copper wire piece that I said was turning that colour was the one that is connected by a alligator clip to the negative terminal of the battery.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

the right side wire in the 4th picture down form above

Thank You