Y’all have been queuing to get this stuff in the UK. I hear in the states, there is more abundance of the whacky drink, but either way, people (myself included!) have been asking what all the hype is about! And more importantly, is Prime good for you? It seems there’s a lot of excitement around it and I want to get to the bottom of whether this is a help or a hinderance. Is it fad or fact?
So here goes…
Okay. So I finally found a list of ingredients for this tipple (interestingly, it’s not clear and easy to find on the actual brand website unless you’re happy to sit and pick out the incredibly small writing from the photo of the back of a bottle…telling…).
I’m guessing the reason the yoof of today are so bewitched is because of the faces of the brand (I’m so old and out of touch I’ve no real idea who they are but prior to this article decided to go and hunt them out. Can’t say I’m impressed but anyway…) but also, their ludicrous obsession with anything branding itself as a sport or health drink, despite the fact they don’t actually consider what’s actually in it and whether those claims are true.
According to the founding YouTubers Ksi and Logan Paul:
“PRIME was developed to fill the void where great taste meets function. With bold, thirst-quenching flavors to help you refresh, replenish, and refuel, PRIME is the perfect boost for any endeavor.”
The first thing that hits you about the website, is that
they’re trying to push hydration.
And to be fair, I’d imagine the hydration index score of this particular product would likely be slightly higher than pure water due to its additions of coconut water and low level electrolytes. But it’s probably nowhere near as good as milk and proper rehydration solutions, which are water’s main competitors when comes to looking at significantly impactful ways to rehydrate. In fact in a 2015 trial, Powerade, marketed as a “sports drink” to help keep you hydrated during workouts, actually was LESS hydrating than water! So this goes to show you can’t believe everything you read…
Prime also like to brag about the addition of branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) on some websites.
If you’re not into the hype around BCAAs, here’s an EXTREMELY abridged version of the hype: BCAAs are types of amino acid involved in muscle growth and repair. They can help reduce muscle breakdown during exercise and it’s hypothesised that they could help reduce fatigue and improve performance over a workout, but the jury’s still out on that one. The dose of these in this drink must be so low that even a mouse would struggle to get benefits on this product, since they only contain about 10kcals a bottle and aforementioned BCAAs are listed as some of the last ingredients (where ingredients are listed in order of highest proportion first). So there’s not really enough of these in a serving to help you out when it comes to proposed benefits from this supplement.
The final thing Prime has on offer for you, is some added vitamins, primarily in the form of Vitamin B12, B6 and A. All these play some kind of role, small or large, in the translation of nutrients to useable energy in the body. HOWEVER. Kids are going crazy for these drinks. And if you look at the doses of these vitamins in these drinks, one bottle contains 200% of the daily value (DV) of each of those two B vitamins and 100% of the DV of Vitamin A. This is a problem. DV represents the amount of a vitamin you should consume to be in tip top health from a 2,000kcal daily diet. Now, 200% of the recommended DV for a B vitamin probably isn’t a problem – actually over consuming this likely isn’t helping you stay healthy, you probably just stood in a Lidl queue for several hours to produce expensive urine with this one – but getting a maximum dose of vitamin A in one drink could be a problem. Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin. That means it’s not simply chucked out when you go to the loo. It can be stored and this build up is what can cause problems with toxicity. Kids are clearly already addicted to the trendy fad and disgustingly sweet taste associated with these drinks, so what happens when they’re consistently consuming multiple drinks per day…?
After all that, I can’t really see any good stuff in the drink.
In order to keep it tasting sickly sweet while still keeping the calories down (another marketing fad), they’ve stuffed it full of chemical sweeteners. Now there’s nothing to say these chemicals aren’t safe, but I always act with caution when it comes to sweeteners. Why? We’re starting to see whispers of evidence that these aren’t great for our gut and we are seeing loud and clear that what’s good for our gut is generally good for us! We also have some low level evidence suggesting that these types of sweeteners can interfere with insulin responses to food, so they could potentially be leading us to over eat or become addicted to sweet tastes where we get this tingly on our taste buds without the sudden glucose and calorie hit our body is expecting when it usually tastes sugar. Added to that, chemicals we add to food don’t have to be anywhere near as rigorously tested as chemical drugs that come to market. We don’t know anything about what happens when we pair them with different combinations of other chemicals and we have no literature on long term consumption. But that said, my opinion on sweeteners is opinion based on my own research and so I’ll leave it up to you to do your own and draw your own conclusions about them.
So Prime, is it worth the hype? Absolutely not.
Is Prime good for you? Nah not really. But your kids are kids. They want to be fashionable. If they’re having one every now and again as a treat, let them enjoy it. But if they’re using this as a staple “workout aid”, tell them to pull themselves together and wake up and smell the coffee…in fact coffee might be better in terms of generating a more energetic workout…and then maybe follow it up with a nice cold glass of milk, full of naturally occurring BCAAs and with excellent rehydration properties. Wouldn’t it be lovely if coffee and glasses of milk could be trendy instead…KSI and Logan? Maybe the next project for you?
Now if this has got you thinking and you fancy a bit more honest enlightenment about the health industry to see past the hype, crack on and join the Paladins community, for more up front honesty. And instead of marketing rubbish, I give you actual advice that actually works.