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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)
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...
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)
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.
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)
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'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)
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)
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)
I combined the sentence and fragment into something like:
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)
Hypovolemia is not similar to dehydration because free water loss is intracellular water loss (osmotic forces will replace free water losses from the extra cellular compartment) while hypovolemia is extracellular water (and salt) loss. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 01:44, 14 November 2012 (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)
The above comments are really really important and need to stop being ignored. Most of this article is not actually about dehydration, it's about hypovolemia, and many of the statements are just incorrect. For example, the statement that the most common type of dehydration in humans is isonatremic is not correct. As the renal fellow mentioned above, dehydration, by definition, is hypernatremia. The article needs to be rewritten.-- Nibblesnbits ( talk) 04:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Goodness!!! my changes today were undone despite this discussion being ongoing for six years - Why are the editors of this page ignoring the reality and not allowing a re-write of the page? I re-wrote the page (because the heading says re-write) and was immediately undone. Also, the re-direct should be to hypernatremia and volume depletion and hypovolemia have nothing to do with dehydration. Sardmeta1( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
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)
Might want to look into this one - muscle cramps are commonly associated with dehydration in the athletic world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.98.138.53 ( talk) 23:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
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)
I removed this from the article, as a cause of dehydration:
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)
I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment, so I can't edit in my source until later, but I've re-added alcohol consumption on the grounds that alcohol is a diuretic. A quick Google provides fairly reliable sources outside my medical text, such as http://www.alcohol.org.nz/BodyEffect.aspx?PostingID=671 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.98.138.53 ( talk) 23:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
I re-wrote it and guess what - not only was it was undone, but I was also accused of vandalism! I agree, not only is this page about hypovolemia, it is also scientifically wrong and confusingly mixed up with various other concepts such as hypo/hypernatremia and dehydration. This comment was a year ago - why is there a resistance to change what is clearly wrong?? This page should be a definition stub and linked out to hypernatremia because esentially dehydration is the non-technical name for hypernatremia and that page is accurate. The pages should not be merged as there is nothing of much use on this page. Thanks Sardmeta1 ( talk) 01:25, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
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)
Dehydration (hypernatremia) is treated with hypotonic solutions. Isotonic solutions have no free water and hypertonic solutions (eg sea water) will simply worsen dehydration. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 01:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
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)
The Article states;
In numerous studies of terminally ill patients who have chosen to die, it has been shown that deaths by terminal dehydration are generally peaceful, and are not associated with suffering when supplemented with adequate pain medication.
I believe that can lead people to suicides, so must not be told on public forums like wikipedia. So I propose deletion, rather I will go ahead delete it and we can discuss it whether we can put it back.
Thanks, -- Mutawassam ( talk) 10:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
as you said; "Your "moral grounds" are not shared by everyone" Dear that can be said about your moral values, too. But having said that the sentence does seems like "giving ideas" to people who want to commit suicide. Nobody, nobody in his/her right minds, would want to be a reason a man died. Anyhow, you have put it back, while I would have preferred if you had had finished your discussion with Mr. SudoGhost regarding this and then you had put it back.
Good Luck and wish no body takes ideas from this article. -- Mutawassam ( talk) 08:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
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)
Surely some authorities disagree with you about what kinds of dehydration may be distinguished. Please work with the article in a gradual way:
The above does not mean that the article is not without problems. Let us solve it one by one. Staszek Lem ( talk) 23:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Agree - I just got heated up when someone called me a vandal somewhere on the site. Anyway, I have deleted that term from my post above. Everything said and done this mixup of hypovolemia and dehydration has been going on for years so cannot expect to rectify it in a day as I was thinking.
I think the starting point for the rectification has to be a very clear discrimination between hypovolemia and dehydration and I propose the to start off by discussing the pathophysiology as indicated in this online paper [1] Sardmeta1 ( talk)
One very important factor to keep in mind is that ALL mention of hyponatremic dehydration in the literature has been by non-experts who are actually referring to hyponatremic hypovolemia. Again, this is a very common mix-up in the medical literature [2] The rule of thumb is very simple: If a subject is not hypernatremic s/he is not dehydrated. Anyone who disagrees, kindly place a reference here to support your statement. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 02:17, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Please also keep in mind that the vast majority of wikipedia, as I suspect, is written by non experts, since, again, I suspect, most experts are busy either with aking money from their expertise or busy bashing wikipedia. Still, contrary to busily propagated misconception, wikipedia is not hostile towards experts. Wikipedians may be hostile to arrogant experts which assume that their words must be taken on faith. For a number of age-affirmed reasons, wikipedia requires all statements in its articles be supplied with solid references ( WP:CITE policy). The opposite side of the coin, wikipedians do not take lightly any deletion of text supplied with references. The latter we see in our case. That said, here is my plan what to do with this article.
I hope now you understand that simply writing an "it is all bullshit" paragraph in this article is not enough to cover the issue properly, even if you are basically right. Staszek Lem ( talk) 03:11, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Cannot be done this way because dehydration is the state associated with hypernatremia and the latter has a reliable page. However, if that is the path the editors prefer, please go ahead. My view is that this page needs to be re-written from scratch and main page indicated as hypernatremia just as I had done. Diarrhea and hypovolemia are conditions in their own right and need not be mixed up with dehydration and are already referred to on the hypernatremia page which can be tweaked. The references on this page may seem authoritative but this is a very misunderstood topic and even specialists can get it very wrong [3]. Kahn is referring to hypervolemia here but interprets it as "without water depletion". These are the sorts of references all over this page, and despite warnings about this dating back to 2006, nothing has been done. The experts have tried to help, (my post had all the key references in place, so was not personal opinion)) but unfortunately most editors on this page have been busy ignoring the experts - does not do much for the image of wikipedia to have them ignored for 6 years. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 10:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
You say "Dehydration" is a generic term meaning depletion of water content. Period.. This is the main issue under debate here. Medics on the other hand need to separate "only water" and "sodium + secondary water losses" otherwise a patient cannot be treated. This is further complicated by the fact that both can occur in the same person at the same time and require different treatment NOT drink-drink-drink. Have you heard of ORS in diarrhea? Why is simple water not used for example? Because it kills the person. Why can stranded at sea persons not drink sea water and why does it kill them? If a patient appears in ED with generic dehydration which means loss of body water of any sort (as you have suggested) is there a simple fix for them ie drink-drink-drink as you put it (either orally or IV)? The answer is a resounding NO.
The page says: There are three types of dehydration: hypotonic or hyponatremic (primarily a loss of electrolytes, sodium in particular), hypertonic or hypernatremic (primarily a loss of water), and isotonic or isonatremic (equal loss of water and electrolytes).[2] This is misuse of terminology with an author who refers to volume depletion as dehydration. This will be understood by residents with their background knowledge of AVP and RAAS, but is not appropriate for a page addressing medical dehydration. I am begining to understand why wikipedia is being shunned by specialists - many pages cannot be corrected because they get written by persons who simply do not know that they don't know and editors lack the expertise to make changes on their behalf. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 11:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Can you work to mutual agreement step by step to improve wikipedia or you are just happy with the fact that you are "begining to understand why wikipedia is being shunned by specialists? Staszek Lem ( talk) 23:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Another issue I mentioned and you seem to forget is that we have to work with the whole range of articles on connetc3d topics, to maintain overall consistency of coverage:
May be the following idea will convince you better: It is insufficient to write a correct wikipedia text in the environment, where, as you say, many sources are confused and propagate misconception. YOu have to write a wikipedia article in such a way that next year when you got bored with editing, a random dude cannot come and expand (or even replace) your perfect, but brief text, with something cited from these numerous incorrect sources. (In perfectly good faith, unaware that it was a text by an expert and not by another equally random dude.) Staszek Lem ( talk) 01:45, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
I was about to vanish from the scene, but OK, I see your point. Let me see if I can convince you and if that works then might be worthwhile to work on the page. Over the next few days, I will take it in steps here. So to start with step 1: Definition. This is paramount as thats where all the confusion lies. Humans can lose water from the body - of any aetiology - but that loss can only manifest itself in two ways:
Not only can it only manifest in two ways, the mechanism of the water loss that leads to a) or b) is distinct. a) can only occur if sodium is lost and the water loss is secondary to this sodium loss. b) can only occur if water loss is independent of sodium loss. Both can co-exist ie sodium and water loss that is not balanced ie more water loss than expected for sodium loss. Now as you have guessed, dehydration refers to tissue water loss and hypovolemia to loss of blood volume. This is the correct and pure definition but unfortunately gets wildly mixed up. Very interestingly the opposite can also occur ie overhydration as well as hypervolemia. Finally they do not need to move in the same direction ie a person can be overhydrated and hypovolemic at the same time and any combination of these six states can coexist. Yes six states, if you count euvolemia and normal hydration. Now you can fire away any objections and I will respond before moving on to step 2. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 05:30, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Step 2 - Relationship of hydration states to hyponatremia and hypernatremia: Dehydration is synonymous with hypernatremia, if we agree with the definition of dehydration above. Thus, any loss of free water from the body raises serum sodium. Symptoms are not present (except thirst) until a complication occurs when dehydration is severe (seizures or respiratory arrest). Decreased skin turgor, low blood pressure and dry tongue are signs of hypovolemia, not dehydration and thus do not occur. there is not much change in blood volume even in severe dehydration because most of the water loss is intracellular based on osmotic gradients. In the same way, overhydration is synonymous with hyponatremia (except when pseudohyponatremia is present and that is why hypotonic hyponatremia is considered true hyponatremia). Now it becomes clear why the concept of isotonic or hypotonic dehydration is impossible to concieve: One can only have hypertonic dehydration since by definition, dehydration = hypernatremia = hypertonicity. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 08:37, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
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)`
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)
I agree. I really do not understand why this page keeps being re-written with completely wrong information. All the work I did on this page has disappeared and we are back to square one. Rather than re-write this page, what we need is an investigation into why it keeps being returned to this state? Who is reverting the content and deleting the scientific references? And why? Sardmeta1 ( talk) 05:16, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
Okay, have addressed summary and definition again - 3 yrs after my first attempt. Will address the next section when next I am free. (All the necessary justification has been referenced with the edits and justified above in 2012 so will not be repeating this on this talk page) Sardmeta1 ( talk) 08:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
Stopping my edits at Cause. Will deal with the next two sections later - lets see what happens to this page in the next couple of weeks! Fingers crossed! Sardmeta1 ( talk) 00:30, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
I went through and corrected the way certain things are phrased so as to not seem like the text has some thesis to prove, where it should have merely been a summary of information. The Causes section really makes no sense to me. Now, I am not educated in biology but I have read a few articles and such, and I have no clue how "endurance athletes, elderly adults, infants and children, and people living with chronic illnesses" can be risk factors. Let me quote from the Multiple sclerosis: "Smoking has been shown to be an independent risk factor for MS. Stress may be a risk factor although the evidence to support this is weak. Association with occupational exposures and toxins—mainly solvents—has been evaluated, but no clear conclusions have been reached. Vaccinations were studied as causal factors; however, most studies show no association. Several other possible risk factors, such as diet and hormone intake, have been looked at; however, evidence on their relation with the disease is "sparse and unpersuasive"." See what I mean? Quite different. Ramthecowy ( talk) 15:34, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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?
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Dehydration article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
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Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL |
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level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
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Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline
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|
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)
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...
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)
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.
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)
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'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)
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)
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)
I combined the sentence and fragment into something like:
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)
Hypovolemia is not similar to dehydration because free water loss is intracellular water loss (osmotic forces will replace free water losses from the extra cellular compartment) while hypovolemia is extracellular water (and salt) loss. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 01:44, 14 November 2012 (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)
The above comments are really really important and need to stop being ignored. Most of this article is not actually about dehydration, it's about hypovolemia, and many of the statements are just incorrect. For example, the statement that the most common type of dehydration in humans is isonatremic is not correct. As the renal fellow mentioned above, dehydration, by definition, is hypernatremia. The article needs to be rewritten.-- Nibblesnbits ( talk) 04:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Goodness!!! my changes today were undone despite this discussion being ongoing for six years - Why are the editors of this page ignoring the reality and not allowing a re-write of the page? I re-wrote the page (because the heading says re-write) and was immediately undone. Also, the re-direct should be to hypernatremia and volume depletion and hypovolemia have nothing to do with dehydration. Sardmeta1( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
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)
Might want to look into this one - muscle cramps are commonly associated with dehydration in the athletic world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.98.138.53 ( talk) 23:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
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)
I removed this from the article, as a cause of dehydration:
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)
I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment, so I can't edit in my source until later, but I've re-added alcohol consumption on the grounds that alcohol is a diuretic. A quick Google provides fairly reliable sources outside my medical text, such as http://www.alcohol.org.nz/BodyEffect.aspx?PostingID=671 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.98.138.53 ( talk) 23:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
I re-wrote it and guess what - not only was it was undone, but I was also accused of vandalism! I agree, not only is this page about hypovolemia, it is also scientifically wrong and confusingly mixed up with various other concepts such as hypo/hypernatremia and dehydration. This comment was a year ago - why is there a resistance to change what is clearly wrong?? This page should be a definition stub and linked out to hypernatremia because esentially dehydration is the non-technical name for hypernatremia and that page is accurate. The pages should not be merged as there is nothing of much use on this page. Thanks Sardmeta1 ( talk) 01:25, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
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)
Dehydration (hypernatremia) is treated with hypotonic solutions. Isotonic solutions have no free water and hypertonic solutions (eg sea water) will simply worsen dehydration. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 01:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
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)
The Article states;
In numerous studies of terminally ill patients who have chosen to die, it has been shown that deaths by terminal dehydration are generally peaceful, and are not associated with suffering when supplemented with adequate pain medication.
I believe that can lead people to suicides, so must not be told on public forums like wikipedia. So I propose deletion, rather I will go ahead delete it and we can discuss it whether we can put it back.
Thanks, -- Mutawassam ( talk) 10:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
as you said; "Your "moral grounds" are not shared by everyone" Dear that can be said about your moral values, too. But having said that the sentence does seems like "giving ideas" to people who want to commit suicide. Nobody, nobody in his/her right minds, would want to be a reason a man died. Anyhow, you have put it back, while I would have preferred if you had had finished your discussion with Mr. SudoGhost regarding this and then you had put it back.
Good Luck and wish no body takes ideas from this article. -- Mutawassam ( talk) 08:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
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)
Surely some authorities disagree with you about what kinds of dehydration may be distinguished. Please work with the article in a gradual way:
The above does not mean that the article is not without problems. Let us solve it one by one. Staszek Lem ( talk) 23:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Agree - I just got heated up when someone called me a vandal somewhere on the site. Anyway, I have deleted that term from my post above. Everything said and done this mixup of hypovolemia and dehydration has been going on for years so cannot expect to rectify it in a day as I was thinking.
I think the starting point for the rectification has to be a very clear discrimination between hypovolemia and dehydration and I propose the to start off by discussing the pathophysiology as indicated in this online paper [1] Sardmeta1 ( talk)
One very important factor to keep in mind is that ALL mention of hyponatremic dehydration in the literature has been by non-experts who are actually referring to hyponatremic hypovolemia. Again, this is a very common mix-up in the medical literature [2] The rule of thumb is very simple: If a subject is not hypernatremic s/he is not dehydrated. Anyone who disagrees, kindly place a reference here to support your statement. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 02:17, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Please also keep in mind that the vast majority of wikipedia, as I suspect, is written by non experts, since, again, I suspect, most experts are busy either with aking money from their expertise or busy bashing wikipedia. Still, contrary to busily propagated misconception, wikipedia is not hostile towards experts. Wikipedians may be hostile to arrogant experts which assume that their words must be taken on faith. For a number of age-affirmed reasons, wikipedia requires all statements in its articles be supplied with solid references ( WP:CITE policy). The opposite side of the coin, wikipedians do not take lightly any deletion of text supplied with references. The latter we see in our case. That said, here is my plan what to do with this article.
I hope now you understand that simply writing an "it is all bullshit" paragraph in this article is not enough to cover the issue properly, even if you are basically right. Staszek Lem ( talk) 03:11, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Cannot be done this way because dehydration is the state associated with hypernatremia and the latter has a reliable page. However, if that is the path the editors prefer, please go ahead. My view is that this page needs to be re-written from scratch and main page indicated as hypernatremia just as I had done. Diarrhea and hypovolemia are conditions in their own right and need not be mixed up with dehydration and are already referred to on the hypernatremia page which can be tweaked. The references on this page may seem authoritative but this is a very misunderstood topic and even specialists can get it very wrong [3]. Kahn is referring to hypervolemia here but interprets it as "without water depletion". These are the sorts of references all over this page, and despite warnings about this dating back to 2006, nothing has been done. The experts have tried to help, (my post had all the key references in place, so was not personal opinion)) but unfortunately most editors on this page have been busy ignoring the experts - does not do much for the image of wikipedia to have them ignored for 6 years. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 10:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
You say "Dehydration" is a generic term meaning depletion of water content. Period.. This is the main issue under debate here. Medics on the other hand need to separate "only water" and "sodium + secondary water losses" otherwise a patient cannot be treated. This is further complicated by the fact that both can occur in the same person at the same time and require different treatment NOT drink-drink-drink. Have you heard of ORS in diarrhea? Why is simple water not used for example? Because it kills the person. Why can stranded at sea persons not drink sea water and why does it kill them? If a patient appears in ED with generic dehydration which means loss of body water of any sort (as you have suggested) is there a simple fix for them ie drink-drink-drink as you put it (either orally or IV)? The answer is a resounding NO.
The page says: There are three types of dehydration: hypotonic or hyponatremic (primarily a loss of electrolytes, sodium in particular), hypertonic or hypernatremic (primarily a loss of water), and isotonic or isonatremic (equal loss of water and electrolytes).[2] This is misuse of terminology with an author who refers to volume depletion as dehydration. This will be understood by residents with their background knowledge of AVP and RAAS, but is not appropriate for a page addressing medical dehydration. I am begining to understand why wikipedia is being shunned by specialists - many pages cannot be corrected because they get written by persons who simply do not know that they don't know and editors lack the expertise to make changes on their behalf. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 11:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Can you work to mutual agreement step by step to improve wikipedia or you are just happy with the fact that you are "begining to understand why wikipedia is being shunned by specialists? Staszek Lem ( talk) 23:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Another issue I mentioned and you seem to forget is that we have to work with the whole range of articles on connetc3d topics, to maintain overall consistency of coverage:
May be the following idea will convince you better: It is insufficient to write a correct wikipedia text in the environment, where, as you say, many sources are confused and propagate misconception. YOu have to write a wikipedia article in such a way that next year when you got bored with editing, a random dude cannot come and expand (or even replace) your perfect, but brief text, with something cited from these numerous incorrect sources. (In perfectly good faith, unaware that it was a text by an expert and not by another equally random dude.) Staszek Lem ( talk) 01:45, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
I was about to vanish from the scene, but OK, I see your point. Let me see if I can convince you and if that works then might be worthwhile to work on the page. Over the next few days, I will take it in steps here. So to start with step 1: Definition. This is paramount as thats where all the confusion lies. Humans can lose water from the body - of any aetiology - but that loss can only manifest itself in two ways:
Not only can it only manifest in two ways, the mechanism of the water loss that leads to a) or b) is distinct. a) can only occur if sodium is lost and the water loss is secondary to this sodium loss. b) can only occur if water loss is independent of sodium loss. Both can co-exist ie sodium and water loss that is not balanced ie more water loss than expected for sodium loss. Now as you have guessed, dehydration refers to tissue water loss and hypovolemia to loss of blood volume. This is the correct and pure definition but unfortunately gets wildly mixed up. Very interestingly the opposite can also occur ie overhydration as well as hypervolemia. Finally they do not need to move in the same direction ie a person can be overhydrated and hypovolemic at the same time and any combination of these six states can coexist. Yes six states, if you count euvolemia and normal hydration. Now you can fire away any objections and I will respond before moving on to step 2. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 05:30, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Step 2 - Relationship of hydration states to hyponatremia and hypernatremia: Dehydration is synonymous with hypernatremia, if we agree with the definition of dehydration above. Thus, any loss of free water from the body raises serum sodium. Symptoms are not present (except thirst) until a complication occurs when dehydration is severe (seizures or respiratory arrest). Decreased skin turgor, low blood pressure and dry tongue are signs of hypovolemia, not dehydration and thus do not occur. there is not much change in blood volume even in severe dehydration because most of the water loss is intracellular based on osmotic gradients. In the same way, overhydration is synonymous with hyponatremia (except when pseudohyponatremia is present and that is why hypotonic hyponatremia is considered true hyponatremia). Now it becomes clear why the concept of isotonic or hypotonic dehydration is impossible to concieve: One can only have hypertonic dehydration since by definition, dehydration = hypernatremia = hypertonicity. Sardmeta1 ( talk) 08:37, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
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)`
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)
I agree. I really do not understand why this page keeps being re-written with completely wrong information. All the work I did on this page has disappeared and we are back to square one. Rather than re-write this page, what we need is an investigation into why it keeps being returned to this state? Who is reverting the content and deleting the scientific references? And why? Sardmeta1 ( talk) 05:16, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
Okay, have addressed summary and definition again - 3 yrs after my first attempt. Will address the next section when next I am free. (All the necessary justification has been referenced with the edits and justified above in 2012 so will not be repeating this on this talk page) Sardmeta1 ( talk) 08:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
Stopping my edits at Cause. Will deal with the next two sections later - lets see what happens to this page in the next couple of weeks! Fingers crossed! Sardmeta1 ( talk) 00:30, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
I went through and corrected the way certain things are phrased so as to not seem like the text has some thesis to prove, where it should have merely been a summary of information. The Causes section really makes no sense to me. Now, I am not educated in biology but I have read a few articles and such, and I have no clue how "endurance athletes, elderly adults, infants and children, and people living with chronic illnesses" can be risk factors. Let me quote from the Multiple sclerosis: "Smoking has been shown to be an independent risk factor for MS. Stress may be a risk factor although the evidence to support this is weak. Association with occupational exposures and toxins—mainly solvents—has been evaluated, but no clear conclusions have been reached. Vaccinations were studied as causal factors; however, most studies show no association. Several other possible risk factors, such as diet and hormone intake, have been looked at; however, evidence on their relation with the disease is "sparse and unpersuasive"." See what I mean? Quite different. Ramthecowy ( talk) 15:34, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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?