Is water always the best choice on a hot day?
bbc.com
bbc.com
On a very hot day after a lot of arduous exercise I've seen someone collapse from hyponatremia from drinking too much water - washed everything out of their system because they thought they had to drink sixteen litres a day or something.
Calm down and just drink a reasonable quantity of water slowly over time, and combine that with eating full meals which people tend to put off if it's hot, making everything worse.
I struggle to drink enough water to urinate at all when working on my desert cabin in the summer months. It's completely redefined my perception of how much water the human body can lose to perspiration alone.
I'm not - I've got professional experience managing healthcare in Helmand in the summer. You still don't need as much water as some people think.
I don't know anything about your work or conditions, but my first recommendation would still be to make sure you're eating as much as you need, and then to drink less but more slowly.
I was drinking as much as was comfortable to me, since I was worried about getting dehydrated, and still never needed to use the toilet until after the hike was over.
I don’t think drinking less would have helped the situation.
It might have if the unexpected happened and you needed the water to survive the next day. Water consumption when hiking/backpacking can be tricky, especially in hot+arid environments lacking known springs or streams.
I’m not building a roof in any desert during the summer, and am also interested in this drink water more slowly approach.
I had thought about it mostly for working out and athletes, but perhaps in warmer temps it has more general applicability. I've learned older people often suffer from dehydration without realizing it.
It has a WUT test to test for dehydration and uses your sweat profile to suggest hydration products. There are a lot of options these days beyond Gatorade and Pedialyte.
Most people don't get enough salt, so that's something to watch out for, especially if you are a salty sweater.
edit: Writing this comment has made me realize mixing powdered dehydrated boullion into the water would probably work quite well too. The ambient temps are so high the water is basically at hot soup temperature as-is.
0. Make sure they have Zinc!
I am pretty sure it contributes in removing salts - which in weather conditions that makes one sweat profusely, worsens the problem.
> sixteen litres a day or something
Best to remind then that drinking 6 liters of water can be sufficient to kill a human.
( https://scienceswitch.com/2014/12/09/takes-6-liters-water-ki... )
How many people does this actually kill? I can't imagine anyone I know doing anything like it.
I have seen very many people in the running cultures that first, have lost contact with the bodily feedback, and/or second, let pieces of information float and influence without getting vetted and grounded.
One of such dictums warns "to drink at least three litres of water per day!" with many exclamation marks: I have seen people suffer the consequence (and one brought one to the hospital, where she was told "lady, break that habit") because, simply, it was not the adequate amount /for them/.
It is not a difficult error to make if some hydrate and do not eat (intake nutrients), and do not know or feel that, as emerged in these posts, the concentration of salts is key.
Anecdotes about people dying for that 6-litres are around and you can find some in the article I linked.
This given, have you considered that some people weigh 120, some 80 and some 40? Already because of this, a "3l (or 1, or 9) [for everyone]" should intuitively make little sense.
Another point: if the concentration of salts have a meaning, as a few are indicating around the thread, drinking Xl while eating 2Y and drinking Xl while eating ½Y makes quite a difference.
These two humble points stress what already written: very generic stubs of rules make little sense. Match that with the missed notion that some things are harmful, match it again with the lazy inclination that makes the body a not-listened-to servant (I know people that do not know they should sleep), and one day or the other some get hurt.
So that's not to say a lot - that's one case and it was newsworthy here in the UK, i.e. international news if I remember correctly that he was German. But does happen.
(Ok I can't find that one specifically, but there are a bunch of other cases just searching 'died too much water' there are a bunch of news article, so, yeah, it happens, but not so much not to make the news.)
Yes, hyponatremia is one possible consequence of overdrinking. I understand that the concentration of salts can be more important of their presence, so over-diluting or under-diluting have consequences.
Drinking too much is rare, but still it happens and it's rooted in misinformation about minimum drinking requirements that's unfortunately not rare, but rather a very common piece of misinformation.
Surprising to see it on the NHS website too (of course, without any source, but still the claim is made).
> I've seen someone collapse from hyponatremia from drinking too much water
I've never heard of this or seen it. Have other people?
Hyponatremia? Yeah it's documented https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyponatremia/.... When you hear about people dying from ecstasy it's usually actually hyponatremia I believe.
The game was stupid, but no collapse or health issue beyond discomfort after drinking a lot. Which makes me thing it is not easy at all to drink to issue.
I googled it for you:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
https://www.freseniuskidneycare.com/thrive-central/hypervole...
https://www.renalandurologynews.com/home/news/too-much-water...
That is, if you overwhelm your kidneys they will fail. This issue here isn't the links, it's an inability to interpret the clinical facts and apply them to real life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocari_Sweat
It's a soft drink specifically designed to avoid you getting hyponatremia, and was apparently inspired by doctors who would drink the contents of saline IV pouches.
Like many asian soft drinks it's not very sweet but it's not unpleasant. If you live on the US west coast you can find it in most Japanese supermarkets.
Sports drinks certainly help if you are sweating moderately, but are inadequate for intense exercise in the heat. When you are sweating intensely (>1L/h of sweat), you can lose sodium at over 1000mg/L. Supplementing sodium and other electrolytes may be necessary.
As a comparison, for oral hydration, WHO/UNICEF has 13.5 g/L of glucose and 2.6 g/L of salt (NaCL) in their formula:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy
That's about 6 teaspoons of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt if all you have is volumetric measures.
For serious, medical dehydration use commercially-available oral rehydration salts: a homemade brew may not be enough (e.g., the packaged stuff also has potassium).
[1] https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(97)70034-9/...
It is best to simply drink enough tap water with a meal. This will naturally balance the salt. If you are really concerned about your salt balance outside of meal hours, the article recommends you drink your tap water with a little snack like a banana, or drink milk or coconut water instead.
I've myself also used bottled spring water naturally high in minerals (mineral water). I find this water the best heat wave drink, but some brands are ruined by adding sugar or other sweeteners.
Does anyone know a recipe or brand that tastes good?
I've tried different brands, and it all tasted too unpleasant to drink for me, though I didn't have a critical need for it.
I also made it at home [1], and tried adding some lemon juice to that recipe. The taste resembled a sports drink, but again wasn't sufficient to drink daily.
[1] 1 liter water, 8 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt https://www.britannica.com/science/oral-rehydration-therapy
Pocari is still very sweet and tends to upset my stomach a bit if I drink more than a cup or so.
anyway i prefer boss coffee. the boss of all bosses. or bickle.
[edit: changed "killed himself with" to "died of"; the man wasn't suicidal]
Never did find out what sort of animal a Pocari is, or how they collected its sweat.
Never seen it in Australia (Victoria), but could imagine it would be in smaller speciality grocers in some regions.
From the article:
> Some people worry caffeinated drinks dehydrate us, but this is only true when we drink large doses of caffeine and not enough water.
> Caffeinated drinks do make the body produce more urine, but they also contain water, which will usually more than compensate for the fluid caffeine makes you lose, says Maughan. In fact, he says, tea and coffee are a good way to hydrate because we're likely to drink more of something we enjoy.
> "Coffee contributes to daily fluid requirements, and in regular coffee-drinkers, the kidneys adapt to retain fluid from coffee," she says. "There's no reason moderate amounts of coffee or tea would dehydrate those who are used to having regular caffeine."
That said, if you're past risk of dehydration, it probably doesn't make that much difference.
The truth is, water is just fine on a hot day, and if you really do have a salt imbalance, it’s more likely that is related to hard physical activity combined with a hot day, in which case you’d know that a sports drink or salt tablets with water would be just fine. In most cases, water really is just fine. This article almost reads like it was sponsored by dairy product manufacturers.
The article says exactly what you say
Alternatively, Sekanjibin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekanjabin)
And if you add 10:1 dilute gatorade and orange slices, you now have enough information to know where i’ve spent many summer vacations.
I’d bring about 1.5l per hour out, riding mountain bikes or enduro off road motorcycles.
I was told you need to sip slowly and that when dehydrated the first thing to go is your concentration.
[0] https://highfive.co.uk/products/zero?variant=39896116756639
Tastes like shit, but damn it cures hangovers. Also, probably hydrates.
- half liter bottle of water
- add half a TABLEspoon of sugar
- add half a TEAspoon of salt
- top off with orange juice
https://cert.ccc.de/old//index.php?title=WHO-Drink
Haven't tried it myself but I've heard that it does not taste like shit.
https://rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade.htm
6 teasponfuls of sugar, 1/2 of salt, 1 liter of water, done.
As in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loeffel_03.JPG not https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MeasuringSpoons.jpg
I just measured mine using a scale and my teaspoon is around 4 ml when filled with water (probably closer to 3 ml when not heaped and no surface tension), my tablespoon around 9 ml, so close enough I guess.
For 1 litre / 1 quart, you'd add about 2 tablespoons (about 30--35g) sugar, and "a pinch" (1--2 g) of salt.
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Fluid-Replacement-Drin...
Salt concentrations are tricky too. Saline solution is ~3500mg/L of sodium, but that's over kill for drinking. Since you reabsorb some sodium when you sweat (less if you sweat more), you wouldn't want to replace lost water with an isotonic mixture.
My rationale is that the recipe should be free-standing and not presume other feeding. If that's a consideration, it's not part of the baseline assumptions and formula.
My principle beef with the suggestion I'd replied to is that it has far too much salt, more than I've seen suggested in any other sources I've run across.
If you've specific information that Wikihow is not reliable in this case, I'd be happy to see it.
> If you've specific information that Wikihow is not reliable in this case, I'd be happy to see it.
I think it's reasonable, and necessary, to say that the burden of proof is on the source (i.e. Wikihow); it's not up to others to establish their credibility. Imagine submitting a paper that makes a claim and says only 'prove it wrong'. The Internet is filled with unsubstantiated claims; not only do they do a lot of harm, practically readers don't have time to do the substantiating for them.
> Numerous other people have posted similar recipes / ratios.
In this day and age, we know that 'numerous people' is not evidence of accuracy.
Given that we're contrasting it to Some Guy on Hacker News, of the two, I'd tend to go with the more-reviewed site.
Your quesition is a fair one. I've answered it. But rather than actually confirm or refute the reference cited ... you're engaging in meta arguments. Given the ease of finding confirming or disproving evidence, that's ... kind of tedious.
If you'd prefer University of Virginia Medical School, their recipe is:
Homemade Oral Rehydration Solution Recipes Base Beverage Recipe Water 1 quart water ¾ teaspoon table salt 2 Tablespoons sugar
https://med.virginia.edu/ginutrition/wp-content/uploads/site...
We're not, afaik. In that and other points, I think you overlooked some parts of my comments or I didn't make them clearly enough, but I'm sure we both have better things to do!
Would 2-3L every day be ok?
Drink if you're thirsty. Drink if your urine is limited or dark for no other apparent cause. (There are both dangerous and benign reasons for coloured urine, including internal bleeding (deep brown, very bad) and excess vitamin B (harmless, bright yellow), again, general guidance is difficult.)
An isotonic solution is most recommended where you're already dehydrated and are trying to re-hydrate rapidly. Under normal circumstances, it's not necessary. Drinking more than a couple of quarts / litres at a time (say, within 10 minutes) is probably excessive, and if you find yourself doing so you may have other problems.
Recommended daily sodium intake is < 2,300 mg, with an "ideal limit" of 1,500 mg/dy, though again this depends very heavily on circumstances.
https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...
If you believe what I read on the Intertubes, a person can sweat out nearly 1,500 mg of salt in an hour (1,300 here).
https://bikehike.org/how-much-salt-is-in-sweat/
Under most reasonable / normal conditions, we're again at a couple of litres of isotonic solution, though again, this can vary considerably.
Under heavy exercise I can easily drink 2--3 litres of water in a couple of hours, but that's with profuse sweat. I typically don't drink an isotonic solution, though I may mix up some in one of my two bike water bottles, or as an after-workout drink following a gym session.
That is contrary to medical advice, which is that you need to replace electrolytes after you sweat a lot.
https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/leading-figures/how-...
> The most critical need, hydration, would be solved by squeezing the fluid from the fish and collecting rainwater, supplemented with small doses of seawater that did not exceed one litre a day—one tablespoon at intervals of 20 minutes, allowing the saliva to dilute the salt in the mouth.
I once stayed at a Caribbean resort where they had a chilled machine labelled "cow juice". I assumed it was milk, but was not brave enough to try it.
Sodium & Potassium and tastes kinda like a margarita. Always keeps me well hydrated. Sometimes I'll also take a multimineral with it to get calcium and magnesium too.
That doesn't sound great for rehydration ?
That said, I think "drink water" is still good blanket advice on average. Most athletes I know still drink far more water than the average person through the day, in addition to all the sport-specific fuelling.
At one point he took out a pouch of salt, ate a pinch of it before taking a swig of water.
Don't know why, but that scene always stuck. Now I know why he did it!