Talk:Dehydration

message: The BBC report talks about the 2.5 Litres of water lost - perhaps it should be noted that it is not necessary to drink this much per day as we get water from other sources? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7326437.stm  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.147.69.133 (talk) 02:29, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: 2.5 Litres

message: ok, i'm probably going about bringing this up the wrong way, but in the Avoiding dehydration section it says "Drinking water beyond the needs of the body entails little risk" but (even though I don't have an online source, I'm sure you could find one) you can die from drinking too much water, and I wouldn't call that little risk...
:In Seattle, a radio station held a water drinking contest for a Nintendo Wii console. Jennifer Lea Strange, a 28 year old mother of 3, entered, won, & died from "water intoxication" or Hyponatremia & the staff was fired. Marry Christmas kids, I hope your mom wasn't single.  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003529990_water18.html
This is true, but this wikipedia article addresses this appropriately by saying that the kidneys have a large capacity to excrete free water. In the euvolemic state, the kidneys can clear something like 18 L of free water in a 24 hour period. That means that the kidneys can clear 3/4 of a liter per hour. Drinking water at a higher rate than that would start to lower serum sodium, although it would take a much much higher rate to cause clinically significant hyponatremia. It does happen, but it's not common unless you're actually trying to consume massive amounts of water. It is the hypovolemic state where excessive water consumption is particularly hazardous. Hypovolemia impairs renal free water clearance (combination of decreased distal water delivery and ADH secretion in response to hypovolemia), so much lower rates of water consumption can cause hyponatremia. This is why marathons have started to have water stations every 2 miles instead of every mile, to decrease risk of hypovolemic hyponatremia.--Nibblesnbits (talk) 04:21, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Loss of water

message: I'm not disputing it as a fact, I'm just a little confused. How can it be a bad idea to drink seawater, yet having some salty foods with your "regular" drinking water is fine. When you see in films, people in a rescue boat in the middle of the ocean dying of thirst, I can't help thinking drinking the seawater has to be better than drinking nothing.
:When you drink a high concentration salt solution, as you would from the ocean, your body would become more dehydrated.  This occurs because the ocean has a higher salt concentration than your body, and it will cause the water to leave your cells in attempt to equalize the concentrations. (D.c.camero (talk) 04:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Salted foods are OK, but Salted water (i.e. Seawater) not OK? How can that be?

message: :Ideally, at least two litres (approximately eight glasses) of pure water should be consumed per day. This is in addition to other fluids,such as alcohol, tea, coffee and many soft drinks, that may increase loss of or need for water.
This sounds like some kind of bottled water advertisement. In most places no sane person ever drinks that much water. The first approximation of daily water requirements, as found in most medicine textbooks, is about 550 ml (gain with metabolism - loss with respiration - loss with perspiration) + loss with urine (without excessive heat, physical effort etc.), with the latter variable in a very wide range.
Most of the food contains a lot of water. About any common drink, except for those with extremely high alcohol content, provides much morewater than it causes to loss with increased urination. So usually you don't need to drink any "pure water" at all, and only a limited amount of other drinks – much less than the 2 litres a day. Taw 10:42, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. First off, it doesn't mention bottled water, you can get it from your tap (though I prefer to filter it first). The main confusion is that with increased water consumption, there is increased urination, so you can't use the amount of urine as a determinant of your water needs. I definately agree with you though: all water content, including that in foods and other beverages should be taken into account. We should definately modify this if it is not reflected. Assuming it is 8 glasses, you may only need to drink 4 if you get 4 from the rest of your diet. The reason I think they say in addition to alchohol/tea/coffee/pop is that there is this paranoia about them being diuretics, which from what I've seen so far is blown out of proportion, considering pure water itself is a diuretic (being something that makes you urinate).Tyciol 06:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Most people don't drink that much, and most people experience frequent headaches which they attribute to 'stress' and not drinking gallons of coffee and no water. Caffiene doesn't 'cause dehydration', but it does dehydrate you to a small degree; it is a diuretic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine for more info. That means that it blocks the mechanism in the body that draws water out of the urine, causing urine to be dilute, which therefore causes the body to lose an excess amount of fluids in the urine. Alcohol is also a diuretic. It is not a myth that it makes you pee more either! Though structurally not at all related, they affect water retention by the same mechanism.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.108.93.159 (talk) 05:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: DRINK WATERIO WATER, THE MOST WATERY OF THEM ALL

message: Drinking seawater, yes bad idea. Drinking urine...There seems to be less concenus (maybe 95% say its a bad idea with 5% saying its a good idea) - anyone know of any studies? And as for avoiding alcohol - all alcoholic drinks? Or just vodka? I can understand high alcohol content beverages but what about <=5% drinks? And what about blood? Tyciol 06:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is your concern exactly? The best treatment is to drink normal water. If you are not able to access it, yes, drink your urine, unless you consumed something toxic recently, in which case it's less of a good idea. Never drink your own blood. If you have access to flesh and no water, then drinking an animal's blood would be a way of increasing the water content of your diet, even if it does carry increased risk of disease. If you mean human blood, that would be up to the dilemma of cannibalizing others for survival (there's a Tom Connors song about it...). I am unsure about alchohol, generally I think it would be good to drink it if you were dying of dehydration, supposed diuretic or not. Tyciol 06:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Treatments for dehydration

message: I combined the sentence and fragment into something like:
:"Hypovolemia, a depletion of blood volume is similar to dehydration, but it refers to the loss of salts as well as water."
The article on hypovolemia states that it can be caused by dehydration, so "similar" seems to be an odd word to use. I moved it to the "See Also" section just to be safe. Can someone better informed take a look? Hpdw 00:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've redirected volume depletion to hypovolemia.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: On Hypovolemia

message: Arn't muscle cramps also a sympton of dehydration? I just completed a 100 mile bicycle ride without enough water and I experienced severe cramps in my lower legs and feet, as well as headaches. --Allyn 04:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the muscle cramps are due to lactic acid buildup in the tissue.  At low levels of activity, your body is able to send nutrients to the muscle, and remove toxins from the muscle adequitely, but under higher levels of activity the body is unable to keep up, so the muscles start to burn their internal stores of energy, and this process causes a buildup of lactic acid in the muscle cells.(D.c.camero (talk) 05:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Muscle Cramps? 

message: I just removed a blurb about a disease called "vilomensitis" that was added by an anon a few months ago.  Right now, I suspect that this is medical-sounding gibberish.  Please re-add the content if this is valid information.  Thanks, Lisatwo 21:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  removed blurb about vilomensitis 

message: I removed this from the article, as a cause of dehydration:
:Consumption of alcohol, caffeine or other diuretic substances.
As noted in a comment above (with links provided), caffeinated drinks do not cause dehydration. (similar source: Nutrition Action Health Newsletter, Jan/Feb 2008, page 6.) Nor - I believe - does drinking alcoholic beverages, which are mostly water.
If someone wants to put this back in, please provide a reliable source. -- John Broughton   (♫♫) 20:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an important point about alcoholic beverages and dehydration, that many people misunderstand.  Ethanol does contribute to dehydration, despite most alcoholic beverages being mostly water.  A heavy drinker may have apparently normal urine output, yet become severely dehydrated.  Chronic insufficient hydration is associated with consumption of caffeinated drinks and alcoholic drinks.  See  and . --Una Smith (talk) 19:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of "causative" item 

message: To the author. I admit some typos - sorry for that. But otherwise perspiratio insensibilis is a fact and important way for loss of water  - about 300 ml  through the skin and about 500ml through breathing per day.  So what´s the problem ?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmak (talk • contribs) 06:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Perspiratio insensibilis

message: You may want to discuss how excessive consumption of diuretic foods (e.g. parsley) can cause  or contribute to dehydration.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.238.228.149 (talk) 11:39, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excess Diuretic Foods Cause Dehydration  

message: You may want to mention how dehydration can result from a lack of the antidiuretic hormone (vasopressin). The medical condition is known as diabetes insipidus.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.238.228.149 (talk) 11:46, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antidiuretic Hormone 

message: This article is mainly about hypovolemia, which is very different from dehydration. While this is often a muddied topic, even among physicians, dehydration is distinct from hypovolemia. Dehydration is a loss of free water, and manifests as hypernatremia. There is no such thing as hyponatremic dehydration. Hyponatremic hypovolemia definitely exists, but not hyponatremic dehydration. Most of the signs and symptoms described are the signs and symptoms of hypovolemia, not dehydration. The described causes are also pretty much a description of causes of hypovolemia. Part of the prevention section is accurate, but the treatment section describes the treatment for hypovolemia, not dehydration/hypernatremia, which is in many respects different. So I think this article needs to be rewritten in its entirety. I can try to help with it, but I don't have much time right now. I just wanted to make sure it was flagged so that maybe people will stop learning this incorrectly.--Nibblesnbits (talk) 04:50, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure people should be allow to mark an article as "needs rewriting" wikipedia is full of people who say articles need rewriting but can't be bothered to do it. If you know the subject you should be able to set aside an hour or two to do it - and if not, well perhaps one shouldn't criticize what others have been doing.--IceHunter (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Requires Rewrite 

message: I think there may be an error in the Treatment section, which says intravenous treatment should be with a hypotonic (or isotonic) solution.  I think this may be backwards, as the following sentence says pure water (very hypotonic, yes?) in the veins causes red cells to lyse.  I believe that cells in a hypotonic solution gain water by osmosis, until they burst in extreme cases, but I am not perfectly enough familiar with this to be certain. It seems conceivable (unlikely, I hope) that this could cause a treatment error somewhere, so if it is wrong, it really needs to be fixed.  The statement was introduced in early September 2010, so it has been there for a while. Unfortunately I have seen spectacular errors lie fallow in Wikipedia for much longer, so that is no guarantee of correctness.  Thanks, Wwheaton (talk) 00:15, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, a friend has straightened me out, I think.  False alarm.  Wwheaton (talk) 04:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Treatment section: hypertonic or hypotonic ? 

message: Initially, one experiences thirst and discomfort, possibly along with loss of appetite and dry skin.
How is possible that the water content inside my body affects how dry the outside of my skin is? Seems like that's more weather dependent.
I'm pretty sure dry skin is genetic. 
Is there a reference to a study or something that shows the connection between dry skin and dehydration.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.145.112.8 (talk) 23:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Dry skin as in not sweating. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:03, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  A symptom of dehydration is dry skin??? as in Xeroderma? 

message: This page is totally wrong in it entire scientific conceptualization. There is no such thing as hypotonic or hyponatremic dehydration because dehydration is synonymous with hypernatremia. Also, the symptoms presented are those of hypovolemia and not dehydration. What this page has done is mix up hypovolema and dehydration in a way that cannot be salvaged. I would strongly recommend that all the members who undid my post read the papers I posted - the real problem is this page as it exists, not my post
Thanks
Sardmeta1  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sardmeta1 (talk • contribs) 23:24, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously you are not reading what I wrote. You say: "even specialists can get it very wrong". All the more the article must be very careful in explaining what is wrong and what was meant. You are a specialist and you may as well be very wrong by yourself. "Dehydration" is a generic term meaning depletion of water content. Period. As a layman, I believe diarrhea leads to depletion of water content. Therefore they say "drink-drink-drink". Therefore I fail to see truth in your statement that diarrhea need not be mixed with hehydration. I am not suggesting to mixing it with dehydration, I am suggesting to explain their relation. Also one of causes of hypervolemia is dehydration (according to wikipedia page). Again, I am not suggesting to mixing it with dehydration, I am suggesting to explain their relation.  Yes I agree it must be rewritten from scratch, and I was proposing a plan. I disagree that it cannot be done. Existence of one article does not prevent writing another one on a related subject. YOur version of the text says "None of these are seen with dehydration" (including "dry tongue") . Man, when I play volleyball 6 hours, my tongue is dry. Are you telling me that this is not because of water loss due to sweating? Instead of whining about "experts trying to help", please take suggestions from laymen seriously, because wikipedia is written for laymen, not to teach other experts  that they are mistaken. I looked up one book which seems to follow your point of view. Still it is very careful  and does not say that all are idiots. It just says that the term "denatration" may provide a more accurate depiction. But is does not say forget "dehydration", wrong word, you all are using wrong terminology. And most certainly wikipedia cannot do this either.  Wikipedia's goal is to describe the current word usage, possbly criticize, but not to enforce a "better language" before it is enforced in all medical community.  Staszek Lem (talk) 01:05, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

text: P.S. Earlier I mentioned the term "hysteria" in a mildly humorous context. Now I am seriously suggesting you to read this article carefully and learn how to deal with obsolete and inexact medical terms in an educational way. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:09, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dehydration 

message: I have attempted to rewrite with the above concerns and relevant sources in mind. Please find and fix any remaining errors. FiveColourMap (talk) 23:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewritten 

message: By my count, at least 17 of the 28 references for this page are non-peer reviewed sources, such as online sources and  lay newpapers/magazines, including the incorrect definition of dehydration. I plan to delete all but peer reviewed references; and rewrite this article to conform with universally accepted scientific knowledge about this important subject in biology and medicine. I invite critique and debate on this Talk page; not deletions and reversions without comment and justification.
IiKkEe (talk) 11:29, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  REFERENCES INADEQUATE; INFORMATION INCORRECT 

message: The section headed "Cause" just says that dehydration can be a symptom of certain illnesses. Could it not name certain illnesses, such as diabetes mellitus, which may cause dehydration? The N.H.S. website does mention diabetes mellitus in its section on dehydration.Vorbee (talk) 18:21, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Section on cause of dehydration

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Dehydrated.. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  Steel1943 (talk) 06:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dehydrated. listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Skin turgor. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  Steel1943 (talk) 06:41, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skin turgor listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Hyponatraemic dehydration. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  Steel1943 (talk) 06:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hyponatraemic dehydration listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: I’m not the most well versed on physiology, but having cross-referenced the large intestine page I noticed that the large intestine creates an artificial osmotic pressure gradient to absorb extra water. This has me uncertain as to the simplicity of the statement that sugary/salty drinks can cause dehydration. A quick perusal of the research available doesn’t seem to indicate that normally palatable drinks (i.e. drinks that an individual wouldn’t find sickeningly salty or sweet) have a high enough molarity of solutes to cause the gradient to be reversed. I understand that certain GI conditions can cause the gradient to be severely diminished or reversed, but the wording implies that it can occur in someone with a healthy gut.
Snaperkids (talk) 06:37, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dehydration from salty/sugary beverages 

message: Are there fruits that are NOT helpful, containing too little water and too much carbohydrates, too much fat, too much protein or too much fibers?
--130.232.39.43 (talk) 14:22, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  If one has no access to drinking water, and has dehydration, does eating bananas and other fruits help?