Talk:Dehydration

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[edit] How can there be no data anyhwere in wikipedia on this?

How much days can one survive without drinking?, how many without eating? without breathing? The answer is borderer but not treated.Undead Herle King (talk) 03:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bottle water advertisement?

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)

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)

I've always thought that caffeine causing dehydration was a myth, based on my own experience. Checking it out I found this: *[1] and this *[2]. It would seem that normal amounts of caffeine intake do not cause dehydration. Peter Harriman 16:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-medical?

...there isn't much about banananannas :p ¦ Reisio 21:18, 2005 August 2 (UTC)

I'm sorry... what? Tyciol 06:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Treatments for dehydration

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)

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)

Hey, I was wondering, where it says the average person can go months or whatever drinking like .2 ml of salt water or something like that, going a year doing that without kidney failure. Is that actually true, or is that if you drink a glass of normal water or something. How long can somebody go by drinking salt water, and drinking no water is better than drinking salt water, correct? Predator106 (talk) 03:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On Hypovolemia

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)

I am an internal medicine physician and a nephrology fellow. Dehydration is the clinical entity characterized by loss of free water (pure water with no salt or solutes on it). Dehydration therefore always is accompanied by high sodium concentration in the blood or hypernatremia. Conversely, volume depletion or hypovolemia is produced by loss of a salt and water solution that has the same osmolarity as the plasma, i.e. a isotonic solution. The sodium concentration does not change. The treatment for dehydration is water or D5W and the treatment for hypovolemia is 0.9%NaCl.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.142.242.53 (talk • contribs) 21:14, 30 November 2006

Note the above comment! This page is improperly named, or it should not be redirected to from "Volume depletion". Volume depletion and dehydration are two different things! The relationship to sodium concentration is key, and is not clearly explained in this page. Volume depletion should get its own separate page. Wwallacee 16:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I've redirected volume depletion to hypovolemia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Muscle Cramps?

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)

No, I don't believe cramps are, it was probably just because you rode so far :P —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.40.172.104 (talk) 04:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] removed blurb about vilomensitis

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)

[edit] Removal of "causative" item

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)

[edit] Perspiratio insensibilis

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)