Search for hydration advice and most of what comes back is written for one of two people: someone training, or someone unwell. A desk-based working day is neither.
What the Evidence Says Electrolyte Supplementation Is Actually For
The Institute of Medicine's reference work on water and electrolytes is direct about this: sodium deficiency from diet alone doesn't normally happen, and even fairly heavy sweating doesn't usually create a need for salt supplements beyond an ordinary diet. UCLH's hydration guidance, and sports-medicine position stands on exercise and fluid replacement, converge on a narrower list of situations where electrolyte supplementation genuinely earns its place: prolonged or intense exercise, especially in heat, typically beyond about an hour; illness involving vomiting or diarrhoea, which is what NHS oral rehydration salts are actually formulated for; and certain medical conditions or medications, where a clinician's guidance applies rather than a product's marketing.
There's a real risk on the exercise side specifically, worth naming precisely rather than gesturing at: drinking large volumes of plain water during prolonged endurance exercise without replacing sodium can cause exercise-associated hyponatraemia. That's a genuine finding. It's also a narrow one, specific to sustained endurance effort, not a reason to treat an ordinary desk-based day as carrying the same risk.
Why That Doesn't Describe a Working Day
None of the situations above describes sitting at a desk, even a stressful one. A working day can be tiring, screen-heavy, and full of the kind of low-grade friction that makes someone reach for something other than water. None of that's the same as the sustained sweat loss, illness, or medical circumstance the evidence above is actually about. Plain water and an ordinary diet remain enough for most people on most working days, which isn't a claim against electrolyte products generally, only a statement of what they were evidenced to solve.
Why Our Own Formula Reflects This
0800Labs' V2 formula doesn't include electrolytes. That's a decision, not an oversight: the evidence for when electrolyte supplementation is genuinely useful describes exercise, illness, and specific medical situations, not the workday occasion 0800Labs is built for. Leaving electrolytes out isn't a claim that our formula works better than one that includes them. It's a decision consistent with what the evidence actually says the workday needs.
Built for the Desk, Not the Gym
This is the same distinction behind the line already on our own site: most hydration and electrolyte products try to work everywhere, the gym, the commute, the desk, the run. We didn't build 0800Labs that way. A post-exercise recovery drink and a mid-afternoon desk reset aren't solving the same problem, and the evidence above is a large part of why.
Why 0800Labs Is Interested
We're not trying to be a hydration brand for every occasion. We're trying to be right for one: the pauses inside a screen-heavy working day, not the hour after a run. Naming that difference clearly, rather than blurring it the way a lot of hydration marketing does, is part of what "own a moment, not an ingredient" means in practice.
There's no product to buy yet. The Labs is how we'll tell you when there is.