The reluctance to accept the evidence may be because it conflicted with the prevalent message of the sports drink industry. Late on the afternoon of 1 June 1981, a 46 year old lady of 49 kg was admitted in a coma to a hospital in Durban, South Africa. Before dawn that day, she had begun the 90 km Comrades marathon foot race in the same city. But 20 km from the finish in Pietermaritzburg, she failed to recognise her husband who had come to assist her. He convinced her to stop running and drove her to the medical facility at the race finish. There she received 2 litres of fluid administered intravenously. This is the logical treatment for the "dehydration" that was then, and continues to be, the expected cause of all complications that occur during prolonged exercise.1 But the treatment did not help.
© Copyright 2006 British Journal of Sports Medicine. BMJ Publishing Group Ltd of the BMA. All rights reserved.