Does Pickle Juice Really Help Muscle Cramps?

If you were watching the World Cup match between the U.S. and Australia last week, you probably saw the moment when a referee fell on the field. The official, Felix Zwayer, asked for help after suffering from a cramp. The cure he was given? Some pickle juice. After drinking it, he got back up, and the game resumed.

It wasn’t the first time that pickle juice has made an appearance during a professional sporting event. Trainers in the Professional Women’s Hockey League have said that they give players the briny concoction during games. Tennis players have been spotted drinking it during matches.

“I was a college athlete in the ‘90s, and I think that people passed around pickle juice then as well,” says Dr. Jeanne Doperak, a sports medicine physician at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “It’s been a very established urban legend for years”—though one, she says, with some limited scientific backing.

Is pickle juice really an effective remedy for cramps? TIME spoke to sports-medicine and nutrition experts to find out.

Does pickle juice actually help relieve cramps?

Nicole Lund, a sports nutritionist at New York University Langone Health, says pickle juice is one of the more immediate remedies for a cramp. Downing about two ounces can help address the issue even faster than other strategies, such as drinking water, she says.

According to Doperak, pickle juice can be helpful in some situations. Athletes experience cramps for different reasons, such as dehydration, fatigue, or lack of carbohydrates. The treatment for a cramp may vary depending on the root cause; for instance, if an athlete is cramping because they’re dehydrated, then the best remedy would be IV fluid or electrolyte water. But if an athlete was sufficiently hydrated and started cramping because they were fatigued, then a shot of pickle juice could help treat the discomfort, Doperak says.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all,” Doperak says. “It’s a very individualized evaluation and treatment plan based on what is causing the cramps in the individual and what is the best remedy based on the cause. It’s so much more complicated than just, ‘I’m having cramps; I’ll drink pickle juice.’”

How does pickle juice relieve cramps?

The acidic taste of pickle juice is thought to send signals to the nervous system that stop the cramp, Lund says. “It’s telling those really overexcited nerves to kind of quiet down.” Some athletes eat yellow mustard to get a similar effect, she adds.

Pickle juice, Doperak says, isn’t really an effective way to rehydrate—it’s the briny taste that appears to help relieve muscle cramps. Because of that, you don’t even have to swallow pickle juice for it to work; you could just swish it around in your mouth before spitting it out, if you prefer.

The brininess “causes a neurologic response that helps to stop the cramping,” Doperak says. “It’s supposed to block one of the neural receptors that helps stop the cramping,” so just having it in your mouth helps.

Doperak and Lund say that pickle juice is best used to treat muscle cramps, rather than prevent them. And both experts emphasize that prevention is always preferable.

“Prevention is the best cure,” Doperak says. She advises athletes to make sure they’re sufficiently hydrated before, during, and after a sporting event. If the game lasts more than an hour, she recommends that athletes sip an electrolyte drink rather than just regular water to replenish their electrolytes.

Are there any health benefits to drinking pickle juice for non-athletes?

Not really, according to Doperak and Lund. Both point out that pickle juice is high in sodium; infrequently or in small doses, that’s fine, but if consumed excessively, pickle juice can pretty quickly put you beyond the daily amount of sodium health experts recommend that people consume.