Let’s Talk About Prime

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Prime Hydration launched in January of 2022 and quickly took over the hydration space. Logan Paul and KSI founded the company and got investors Max Clemons and Trey Steiger interested in bringing this product to market.

With spokespeople like Logan Paul and KSI, the 8 to 18-year-old demographic has been all in when it comes to Prime. But, is Prime a good option when it comes to hydration? We’ll talk about that today.

What is Prime?

Prime is a hydration formula that competes with drinks like Gatorade, Powerade, Liquid IV, and the like. Prime contains between 20-25 calories per bottle, with minimal sugar (<1g) compared to the original Gatorade and Powerades. Prime contains vitamins, minerals, and branched-chain amino acids, along with some electrolytes (also minerals), which are the real selling point of a hydration drink.

Prime is made with water, coconut water, natural and artificial flavors. This isn’t all that much different from a typical hydration formula, it just has added coconut water which is a more expensive ingredient so most companies will leave it out.

Prime ready-to-drink bottles come in eleven different flavors at the time I’m writing this article. They also offer hydration powder that comes in the form of sticks and they have eight different flavors. Prime also got into the energy drink game, and they offer eight different flavors of this version.

The Importance of Electrolytes

Prime contains electrolytes, vitamins, amino acids, coconut water, and water. The purpose of a hydration drink is to replace what is lost from sweat when training or playing sports. Hydration drinks often taste salty because sodium is the electrolyte we lose the most in our sweat, up to 1-2 grams per liter of sweat.

We often hear of electrolytes being lost in sweat and needing to be replenished, but I’d venture to guess that you probably couldn’t name any outside of sodium. So what is considered an electrolyte?

• Sodium

• Potassium

• Calcium

• Magnesium

• Chloride

• Phosphate

• Bicarbonates

Electrolytes are more than just hydration, they all have various functions. Electrolytes are responsible for regulating nerve and muscle function, hydration of the body and muscles, they help to balance blood acidity and blood pressure, and even help rebuild damaged tissue in the body.

Electrolytes all carry an electric charge when placed into a solvent like water (or blood). This allows the solution to carry electricity, which is essential for normal bodily functions, not just athletic performance. That being said, if you want to perform at the highest levels and you train incredibly hard day in and day out, rehydration drinks should be in your toolbox along with a sound diet filled with these electrolytes.

It’s important to replenish electrolytes for many reasons when exercising, the biggest one for most athletes is hydration. When we’re as little as 5% dehydrated, performance starts to suffer. This is because your body is no longer running efficiently. Calcium is the catalyst for every muscle action in the body, not enough and you won’t be able to recruit maximum muscle fibers, you’ll be weaker and slower. Potassium and sodium help to regulate how much water is inside the muscle cell. Not enough and the processes within that muscle cell aren’t nearly as efficient since electrical pulses are slowed down. Magnesium is used within pathways that produce energy in the muscle, not enough and you’ll stop being able to keep up with the high demands of sport. Phosphates are part of the ATP-CP energy system, not enough and you’ll run out of ATP much quicker. And finally, bicarbonates help to buffer the acidity in your muscle cells, not enough and you’ll struggle to shuttle lactic acid out fast enough which can/will increase the intensity of the burn we get when exercising or playing sports.

Another often overlooked aspect of hydration is what’s called anabolism. Anabolism is the part of your metabolism that is responsible for building and repairing. If we’re as little as 1-2% dehydrated, our body can shut off anabolism slowing down recovery and muscle growth.

While there is a large emphasis placed on electrolytes, I think they’re even more important than most are led to believe. Electrolytes are vital to success in athletics.

What’s Actually in Prime?

Honestly, not enough of the stuff you need. Back in 2023, Derek of More Plates More Dates did a scathing review of Prime, and while I’m going to break all this down I encourage you to go and watch it.

Prime contains coconut water, filtered water, citric acid, dipotassium phosphate, trimagnesium citrate, natural flavorings, Sucralose, L-leucine, L-isoleucine, L-valine, D-Alpha tocopheryl acetate, acesulfame potassium, retinyl palmitate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, and cyanocobalamin. I know that reads like Greek so I’ll break what it means down below:

• Citric Acid

  • Often conflated with vitamin C, citric acid is a weak acid, is considered an antioxidant, and is considered nonessential in your diet.

• Dipotassium Phosphate

  • This is a potassium salt, and obviously contains phosphates as well.

• Trimagnasium Citrate

  • This is a kind of salt with citric acid and magnesium.

• Sucralose

  • An artificial sweetener that is generally considered health-neutral.

• L-leucine, L-isoleucine, L-valine

  • These are branched-chain amino acids. The “L” is just the way the amino acids are organized (left-handed vs right-handed)

• D-Alpha tocopheryl acetate

  • This is a kind of Vitamin E

• Acesulfame potassium (also referred to as acesulfame K)

  • This is a potassium-based artificial sweetener

• Retinyl Palmitate

  • This is a kind of vitamin A

• Pyridoxine Hydrochloride

  • This is vitamin B6

• Cyanocobalamin

  • This is vitamin B12

I know a while back there was this trend to not consume anything that you couldn’t pronounce because it was “chemicals” and not food, but everything you consume is a chemical, especially when we get down into the micronutrients ie vitamins and minerals. The above ingredients to the Prime formula are all regarded as generally safe.

Now, ingredient lists are, by law, listed in order of how much goes into the product. For example, the base of Prime is coconut water so it makes sense that the first ingredient on the list is coconut water. But they don’t actually have to tell you how much. In fact, most companies hide behind “proprietary blend” labels and do not have to tell you how much of something goes into a supplement or product. It’s kind of crazy.

With Prime, we can actually see how much of these ingredients go in because they’re all listed on the nutritional label. Here’s a breakdown of the average Prime hydration nutrition label:

• Calories - 20-25

• Fat - 0g

• Cholesterol - 0mg

• Sodium - 10mg (more on this later)

• Total Carbohydrates - 6g

  • Dietary Fiber - 0g

  • Total Sugars - 2g

    • Added Sugars - 0g

• Protein - 0g

At first glance, it doesn’t look like much, but if you look just under the part of the nutritional label with the macronutrient detail, you’ll see the breakdown of the micronutrients. It looks like this:

• Vitamin D - 0mcg

• Calcium - 0mcg

• Iron - 0mcg

• Potassium - 700mg - 15%

• Vitamin A - 900mcg - 100%

• Vitamin E - 15mg - 100%

• Vitamin B6 - 3.4mg - 200%

• Vitamin B12 - 4.8mcg - 200%

• Magnesium - 123.9mcg - 30%

• Zinc - 1.1mg - 10%

The bottom of this nutrition label tells a better story as to what is really in Prime. If you look at it, it’s essentially a bunch of B vitamins, potassium, vitamin A, Vitamin E, and a decent amount of magnesium. It all looks to be in order if you consider the list of electrolytes from the beginning of this article, BUT (and this is a big but) the totals are completely out of whack. There’s almost no sodium, a ton of potassium, and a bunch of B vitamins. Why is this important?

The Importance of Dose

The dose makes the poison

Now, in saying this I’m not saying that Prime is poison, this saying just points out that dosage matters. Water is the most important thing that we put into our bodies. Our bodies won’t function without water and after more than 2-3 days without it, you’ll die. On the flip side, too much water (6 liters or so) can throw your electrolyte balance off and kill you. Another example is omega-3 supplementation. A typical daily dose of 2-6 grams can be great for your heart and help to fight inflammation in the body, but 13-15+ grams will thin your blood and make it hard to stop simple bleeding. An often overlooked example of the dose making the poison is cinnamon. Cinnamon contains antioxidants and has been shown to reduce the likelihood of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. Too much cinnamon and you’ll be ingesting too much coumarin which is toxic to your liver.

All this is to say that the amount of something you are ingesting is just as important as what you are ingesting. I mentioned earlier in this article that we lose about 1-2 grams of sodium per liter of sweat. Do you happen to remember how much sodium is in Prime? 10mg. That’s 0.01 grams, well short of the 1-2 grams we lose when we sweat. Something else we lose in sweat is potassium, which Prime has in spades to the tune of 700mg. The only problem? We only lose between 160-320mg per liter of sweat. The most abundant electrolyte in Prime is mostly useless.

Another mineral lost in sweat is magnesium so it’s a good thing that Prime has what looks like a decent amount. Prime contains about 124mcg (~30% RDA) of magnesium per serving/bottle. Magnesium is lost at a rate of ~2mg per liter of sweat. It’s a subtle difference, but if you didn’t notice the difference between what’s lost via sweat and what’s actually in Prime, what is present in Prime is measured in micrograms, and what’s lost in sweat is measured in milligrams. While you’re losing 2mg per liter of sweat, you’re only getting 0.124mg per serving, or about 6% of what’s lost.

Prime has electrolytes, but the amounts that are present are out of whack with what’s needed. It lacks virtually any sodium, has entirely too much potassium, and the amount of magnesium is insignificant when it comes to how much you need to replenish and perform.

Branched-Chain Amino Acids

Another big selling point of Prime is the branched-chain amino acids, aka BCAAs. BCAAs are considered essential amino acids, meaning your body cannot produce them on its own. These amino acids are valine, leucine and isoleucine. For many years BCAAs were touted as one of the most important supplements you can take. The studies showed that fasted cardio while taking BCAAs yielded better fat loss while maintaining muscle mass. The problem? It’s just not true.

As long as you’re eating protein, any BCAAs you consume are completely useless. BCAA powders are a great addition for people who eat vegetarian or vegan (or don’t eat at all), but for anyone who takes protein powder/shakes, or eats quality protein sources it’s a completely insignificant addition to their supplement regimen.

A typical dose of BCAA as a supplement is somewhere between 3 and 5 grams. The Prime nutrition label doesn’t say exactly how much BCAAs go into the formula, but they are listed as the 8th, 9th, and 10th ingredients on the label. Remember that ingredient lists legally have to be ordered by the amount that is included, so we can make a rough estimate of how much is actually included in the drink. We can do this based on how much of the other listed ingredients there are in the drink.

There is a total of 700mg of potassium per the Prime label. Dipotassium phosphate is the fourth ingredient listed, and if the entirety of the 700mg came from this diphosphate potassium (it doesn’t) then there would be less than 700mg of BCAAs. Far lower than the typical low-end dose of 3 grams. We also know that there is another potassium source, so chances are the 700mg doesn’t come exclusively from the diphosphate potassium.

BCAAs are useless, but they’re especially useless when the dose is so low that it doesn’t even register as 1 gram of protein on the label. They include BCAAs in this formula for one reason: they believe it gives the drink added perceived value, thus they can charge more for Prime.

How Does Prime Measure Up to the Competition?

Prime is probably the best-marketed hydration formula on the planet right now. They sponsor/partner with 12 sports teams and leagues including UFC. They have athletes such as Auston Matthews, Kevin Durant, and Patrick Mahomes as brand ambassadors. Couple all this with the fact that Logan Paul and KSI are the creators of this drink and you’ll see how much potential this company really has.

When it comes to function though, I’m afraid it falls incredibly short. The biggest pitfall in my opinion is the lack of sodium, the unnecessary amounts of potassium, and the added BCAAs. Here’s a breakdown of the sodium and potassium content for some of the more popular sports drinks below:

Sodium

Gatorade - 270mg

Powerade - 153mg

Liquid IV - 500mg

Body Armour - 20mg

Prime - 10mg

Potassium

Gatorade - 37mg

Powerade - 44.6mg

Liquid IV - 380mg

Body Armour - 700mg

Prime - 700mg

As you can see, both Body Armour and Prime contain a ton of potassium and very little sodium. Gatorade really is the gold standard when it comes to hydration formulas, and as you can see, there is significantly more sodium and significantly less potassium in their formula. So, why do Body Armour and Prime put so much potassium in their drinks if it seems unnecessary?

They stuff a bunch of potassium into the drink so they can claim high levels of electrolytes, without giving the drink too salty of a taste. Half of the battle when it comes to these drinks is to get the person to want to drink it, and a salty taste is a turn-off for most people. They want to sell more product which I can completely understand, but the product just doesn’t come through on its promises when it comes to hydration because of the low amounts of sodium in the product.

Is Prime Good?

There are really two different answers here. First off, the vast majority of people drinking hydration drinks don’t actually need hydration drinks. They drink for flavor and because the product is cool. In this department, Prime comes through in a huge way. Prime has almost no sugar, it’s incredibly sweet, and it has the influencer branding that makes it cool for kids to drink. Hell, even the bottles are nice to look at. Their marketing is top-notch, and they kill it in the 8-16 year old demographic because of this.

The second part of this review doesn’t look so hot for Prime. The amount of sodium isn’t even sniffing beneficial levels. Hell, Diet Coke has 4x the amount of sodium as Prime. While I can understand their rationale for this move, it makes the product mostly useless when it comes to athletes. Including higher levels of potassium does not and cannot make up the difference here, and the inclusion of BCAAs is just another selling point that adds a ton of perceived value, zero actual value.

The Verdict

If your goal is to enjoy what you drink without adding a bunch of calories then Prime is a solid choice. However, if you’re an athlete looking to maximize performance and stave off dehydration you should reach for a Liquid IV, Gatorade, or Powerade.