How does Hydralyte work?

Hydralyte has been specially designed to fight dehydration and rehydrate your body faster than water alone^1-5 – but how exactly does it do that? And what makes it different from other hydration options out there? Here we unpack exactly what we mean when we say LYTESPEED Rehydration.

What is Hydralyte?

Hydralyte is an oral rehydration solution (ORS), a mixture that is specially formulated to rehydrate the body fast, and a recommended treatment for mild-to-moderate dehydration.^5-8 It contains two key ingredients that help your body quickly absorb and replace the water lost during dehydration: salt and sugar.^5-8

Watch how the optimum ratio of salt to sugar in Hydralyte works to rehydrate you faster than water alone:^1-5

How do salt and sugar help with hydration?

First, we need to understand how water is absorbed into your bloodstream via a process called osmosis.⁹

​During osmosis, water moves across a membrane, like the cell walls lining your gut.⁹ The direction in which the water moves depends on the amount of certain particles, like salt, that are in the water.⁹ More specifically, water will generally move towards the area where there is a higher concentration of particles in an attempt to even out the concentration.⁹ ​This is because the body likes to be in a state of equilibrium, or balance.⁹

In the 1960s, scientists deciphered what would become an important way to speed up the movement of water into the body through a biological mechanism called the sodium-glucose cotransporter, or SGLT1.⁶ As the video shows, SGLT1 is activated when there are salt (sodium) and sugar (glucose) particles in the water you drink, which then enables it to pump the salt, sugar and water into your bloodstream.^2,6 This causes the concentration of salt in your bloodstream to increase, so water is also pulled naturally into the bloodstream via osmosis.^2,6

The right salt and sugar formulation matters

It’s not as simple as putting any amount of salt and sugar in a drink – the amount of of salt and sugar makes a difference to your body’s ability to absorb water.^1,10 Drinks that contain more sugar than salt, like many sports drinks, move water into your body slower than an ORS that contains balanced levels of salt and sugar.^1,10

Unlike other electrolyte drinks, Hydralyte is a true ORS – meaning it is scientifically formulated with the optimal levels of salt and sugar based on the World Health Organization’s criteria for fast and effective rehydration.^2,5 You can learn more about how different formulations of sports drinks can impact rehydration here.

 

 

References:

1. Jeukendrup AE, et al. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2009;6:9.
2. Wright EM, et al. J Intern Med. 2007;261(1):32–43.
3. Kellett GL, Helliwell PA. Biochem J. 2000;350(1):155–162.
4. Zeuthen T, et al. J Physiol. 2001;531(Pt 3):631–644.
5. World Health Organization (WHO). Oral rehydration salts. Production of the new ORS. 2006. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-FCH-CAH-06.1 (accessed October 2025).
6. Wright EM, et al. Physiol Rev. 2011;91(2):733–794.
7. Oral rehydration in adults [published 2022 Aug]. In: Therapeutic Guidelines. Melbourne: Therapeutic Guidelines Limited; accessed October 2025. https://www.tg.org.au.
8. Oral rehydration in children [published 2022 Aug]. In: Therapeutic Guidelines. Melbourne: Therapeutic Guidelines Limited; accessed October 2025. https://www.tg.org.au.
9. Lopez MJ, Hall CA. Physiology, Osmosis. [Updated 2023 Mar 13]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan–. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557609/ .
10. Freedman S. Oral Rehydration therapy. In: Mattoo TK, Stack AM, Hoppin AG (Eds). UpToDate, Wolters Kluwer (updated 6 August 2025, accessed October 2025).