OWNER REVIEW

NUUN HYDRATION TABLETS
Richard Lyon
February 26, 2007

Personal Details and Backpacking Background

Male, 60 years old
Height: 6' 4" (1.93 m)
Weight: 200 lb (91 kg)
Email address: rlyon AT gibsondunn DOT com
Home: Dallas, Texas USA

I've been backpacking for 45 years on and off, and regularly in the Rockies since 1986.  I do a week long trip every summer, and often take three-day trips.  I'm usually camping in alpine terrain, at altitudes of 5000 to 13000 ft (1500 - 4000 m).  I prefer base camp backpacking, a long hike in with day trips from camp, but I do my share of forced marches too.  Though always looking for ways to reduce weight, I'm not yet a lightweight hiker and I usually choose a bit more weight over foregoing my favorite camp conveniences.

Product Description

Nuun (pronounced "noon") are hydration tablets that contain no sugar or carbohydrates; their principal ingredients, as listed on the manufacturer's website and on a tube of tablets, are the four minerals listed below as "active ingredients."  These are said to speed replenishment of electrolytes in the blood stream.  Its manufacturer describes nuun as making an "electrolyte drink that recharges your salts, but is refreshing and more efficiently absorbed than water alone or most sports drinks on the market."  (Nuun eschews capital letters throughout its website, product literature, customer service email correspondence, and even corporate name, perhaps to emphasize the product's palindromatic name and logo.  The company also uses "nuun" for both singular and plural.) 

Product Details

Maufacturer: nuun & Company. 
Website: www.nuun.com. 
Weight, listed: A tube of twelve tablets weighs "less than 2 oz [57 g]"
Weight, measured: Tube with twelve tablets, 2.4 oz/68 g; individual tablet, 1/8 oz/3.5 g
Dimensions, measured: Tube with twelve tablets, 4 in/102 mm long, 1.1 in/28 mm diameter;
individual tablet, 0.25 in/6.3 mm thick, 1 in/25 mm diameter
Recommended usage: One tablet per 16 fl oz/0.5 l of water
Flavors: Tri-berry, Citrus, Lemon+Lime
Active ingredients: Sodium (carbonates), potassium (bicarbonate), calcium (carbonate), magnesium (sulfate), vitamin C, vitamin B2
Other ingredients: Citric acid, sorbitol, sodium carbonate, natural colors flavors, sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, polyethylene glycol, magnesium sulfate, sodium benzoate, calcium carbonate, acesulfame potassium, riboflavin-5-phosphate.
MSRP: These are sold in plastic tubes of twelve tablets each.  Three-pack: $19.50 US, nine-pack, $49.00 US.  Either quantity is available in assorted flavors (one or three tubes of each) or a single flavor.  Online sales available for shipment to USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, or Hong Kong. 
Availability: May be purchased online or at retail from nuun distributors.  The website has a helpful search tool for finding a retailer either locally or over the Internet.

Observations and Commentary

I received a three-pack of nuun as a Christmas present from a backpacking friend who is also an occasional triathlete.  In addition to one backpacking trip, I've used nuun on day hikes, in-bounds and backcountry skiing, and during aerobic workouts at my health club.  At the health club I use one tablet in a half-liter (one pint) aluminum water bottle.  Outside it's been either one or two tablets in a one-liter aluminum or plastic water bottle or two tablets in a two-liter (~34 fl oz) Platypus water bladder. 

Nuun are easy to use.  I simply drop the tablets into the water container, allow a few minutes for the tablet to dissolve, and shake the container once or twice.  Each tablet contains a small amount of effervescent to facilitate dissolving, and a tablet does dissolve very quickly – one minute and twenty seconds the only time I measured it.  Nuun counsels against using its product with anything other than plain water.  I've found that the effervescent gives a slightly fizzy taste for about five minutes after adding the tablet.  This isn't overly strong or unpleasant, just noticeable.  Nuun states that the effervescent doesn't affect performance.

Two characteristics of nuun distinguish it from many commonly available "sports drinks" or other hypotonic products: nuun has no sugar or carbohydrates, and the taste is considerably milder than any other product intended for rehydrating that I have used.  No sugar means no calories (actually, very few calories – five per tablet according to nuun's website) and no energy boost.  To my taste at least it also means a liquid much tastier and easier to drink; I find widelyavailable store-bought hydration drinks with sugar and sugar-laden powders unpleasantly cloying and nuun quite refreshing.  Another advantage of no sugar is that splashes from a water bottle don't stain or get sticky.  I also very much like the faint flavor, which leaves no aftertaste; in fact, I like the taste better at half strength (one tablet per liter) than full strength. 

So far as I can tell the tablets dissolve completely, as I've found no residue in any container and no taste at all if I refill a bottle with water immediately after draining the last of the nuun-laced water and rinsing.  Similarly I've noticed no carryover of flavors when I've added a different flavor to an immediately refilled bottle.  Each flavor suits my taste.  Citrus tastes of grapefruit, tri-berry (my favorite) of raspberry.  Lemon+lime has a noticeably stronger taste than the other two.

Nuun explains how its product works as follows:

"the most important characteristic of what you drink while you are active is the speed at which your body can absorb it. the concentration of dissolved salts and sugars (osmolarity, for those more technically inclined) determines how fast the drink can cross from your gut into your bloodstream where it can re-hydrate and replenish. nuun produces a hypotonic solution so that your body will absorb nuun faster than the leading “sports drinks” or even water alone. your body is therefore, able to restore optimal water and electrolyte balance more quickly."

I haven't done any sort of scientific testing on nuun or my bloodstream and can't comment on the accuracy of these claims.  I didn't experience any leg cramps after a ninety-minute spin session in the gym, on either backcountry ski day, or at any other time.  Cramping doesn't happen to me too often even when I don't take a hypotonic, though, so I can't say that nuun caused a big improvement.  I consider nuun a reasonable precaution, however, and it does add a pleasant taste to water that I must carry and drink.  I look forward to regular use of nuun when summer comes; it gets hot in Texas and I am careful to rehydrate when doing any outdoor activity.  I like the taste; I can carry the little tubes in a pocket or pack without worrying about spillage; and adding a tablet is a truly idiot-proof means of getting the proper dosage.  Because of the taste and lack of residue this is the first hyponic that I've used on a regular basis. 

Nuun encourages questions and my experience indicates that this is more than a boilerplate promise on the website.  I take a common prescription medicine that requires abstaining from grapefruit.  I emailed nuun, through a link on its website, to inquire if the small amount of grapefruit in the Citrus nuun would cause an adverse reaction.  The next day I received a courteous and thorough reply to the effect that nuun didn't know for sure but would contact the drug's manufacturer and advise me of the results.  The customer service representative suggested that I ask my doctor and provided me with a technical description of how the grapefruit is added to aid this inquiry.  He also asked me to forward any response from my doctor to nuun.  I'll update this report with any further information I receive.

All in all, a welcome present and a useful addition to my backpacking kit.

What I Like

Pleasant, understated flavor with no aftertaste
Easy to use
Easy to store
No mess, unlike powdered products
No sticky sugar blotches on my clothes, arms, or legs

What I Don't Like

At about ninety cents (US) per liter/quart using the recommended dosage, it's expensive. But the best such product I have found, so I plan to continue buying and using nuun.