What to Know About Dehydration
Water is essential to the health of the human body. A lack of water can have many negative side effects which can lower the standard of living for many people. A deficiency of clean drinking water is something which is affecting many of the non-developed nations of the world. Drinking unclean water is far worse than the affects of subclinical deficiency of thirst (levels that wouldn’t lead to death, but still have negative side effects on the human body). Dirty water can contain many bacteria which can lead to many diseases and disorders which can have devastating long term health implications.
One of the most debated questions is just how much water a person needs to drink in order to be healthy. The lack of an answer to this question has a large amount to do with the many variables which can affect the water levels in the body. Where a person lives, the lifestyle they lead, and the temperature outside all will influence the amounts of water a person needs. Since there are so many variables there have been no set amounts of water for any person.
How Much Water Should I Drink?
There are three schools of thoughts which are commonly used to help a person determine how much water their bodies need.
The replacement approach tries to replenish the water which the body will traditionally lose throughout a normal day. The body will lose about 1.5 liters of water a day through the urinary tract. An additional liter of water is consumed by bowel movements, sweating, and breathing on an average day. This means in addition to a healthy diet, which normally contains about 20% of the fluids a human body needs, a person needs to drink a little more than 2 liters a day in order to maintain a healthy fluid level.
A popular approach to hydration is the eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day approach. There is little to no scientific reasoning behind the eight glasses of water approach to hydration. If a person does follow this method they will get just less than 2 liters of water a day, which as explained in the replacement method is just about how much water the water will lose each day. The real advantage to this approach of hydration is the ease of remembrance provided by the 8 x 8 rule.
The Institute of Medicine doesn’t have guidelines for water consumption, but it does have some general advice for the amount of water which a person needs to drink. It is advised by the Institute of Medicine that a man consumes roughly 3 liters of water a day, and that a woman needs to consume about 2.2 liters of water a day. They say these amounts should provide for the overall health of an individual.
Those at a Higher Risk of Dehydration
There are some groups of people who are at a higher risk of dehydration in comparison to the general population. These groups of people should really try to monitor just how much water they have each day, because a prolonged lack of water could lead to serious long term health problems.
Those who exercise on a frequent schedule should be sure to augment the total amount of fluids which they drink each day. The amount of fluid needed to compensate for the amount lost during exercise really depends on the total amount of sweat lost during the physical activity. Generally for a short amount of physical activity, like workouts which generally last less than an hour, an extra 400 to 600 milliliters of water is needed. For longer exercise which can take longer than an hour it is recommended that a person consume fluids periodically throughout the workout to ensure the body has sufficient amounts of water throughout. With longer workouts, like a marathon, it is also recommended that a person drink sports drinks. This is because of the sodium lost through sweat which needs to be replenished as well, although some studies show a person can recover from water alone.
Those people who live in a very hot or humid environment will have to drink more water compared to those living in a temperate or dry climate. The hotter and more humid the weather the more a person will sweat. The loss of sweat means a loss of the overall fluid levels in the body. Those who live at a higher altitude should also be drinking more water than those living closer to see level. Higher elevations will cause people to urinate more frequently and also cause people to breathe more rapidly—both activities will cause people to lose water from their bodies at a faster rate than those living nearer to sea level.
There are many illnesses which can cause a fever, vomiting, or diarrhea. When these conditions occur in the body, the body will be losing moisture at a much faster rate. It is recommended that those suffering from these symptoms increase the amount of water they drink. In some cases doctors will recommend a person drink sports drinks which contain electrolytes which the body will lose at a higher rate during an illness. Yet, in most cases increasing the amount of water a person has will be enough to allow a person to have enough liquids in their bodies to fight off the illness. There are also some cases in which the amounts of liquids in the body need to be decreased. This is usually the case when a person is suffering from a disorder which limits the body’s ability to excrete the excess water from the body.
Women who are pregnant or nursing will need to drink additional fluid in order to stay hydrated. The act of nursing will increase the total amount of fluid which the body needs in order to function, because a large amount of fluids in the body are being used in order for the female to lactate. The Institute of Medicine recommends that pregnant women drink 2.3 liters of fluids daily. It is also recommended by the same institution that women who are breastfeeding consume 3.1 liters of fluids a day.
Things to Consider About Hydration
Staying hydrated is one of the best things a person can do for the overall health of the human body. With so much clean water available for consumption it really shouldn’t be a terribly difficult thing for a person to maintain adequate levels of water hydration. There is some new information a person should consider about the vitamin levels in their body.
Many of the essential vitamins in the body are water soluble. This means the body has a great amount of difficulty in storing these vitamins in the body, and the body needs to replenish its supplies of water soluble vitamins nearly daily. Increasing the amount of water a person drinks can influence the amount of water soluble vitamins in the body. Water is used to flush out excess from the body. This means that as a person increases the amount of water they drink, it also decrease the amount of water soluble vitamins the body is able to retain. Some studies have shown that an increase in the amount of water a person drinks can actually have a detrimental effect on the total amounts of vitamins in the body. The solution to this problem according to many studies is to increase the total amounts of vitamins in the body.
The best way to augment the body’s vitamin levels is to take a good healthy daily multivitamin. A daily multivitamin will increase the levels of water soluble vitamins in the body. In this way the body will be able to gain the benefits of drinking an adequate amount of water, and also maintain a healthy level of vitamins and minerals which the body also needs for health.
