A new study published in Science It does not contribute anything new, but it settles a debate once and for all; that it is necessary to drink two liters of water a day. The amount set in the past seems totally random and the report authors determine that it depends on many factors.
To begin with, the body volume of the person, since it will determine the amount of fluid to renew in their tissues, their cardiovascular system, etc. This is how we distinguish between babies, children and adults. In this sense, babies need proportionally more water, almost 28% of the total water in their body.
On the other, physiological activity influences, so that men do not have the same requirements as women, contrary to what one might think, men require more water exchange, that is, to drink more.
But then there is the physical activity of each one and the weather conditions, etc. This means that the daily volume of water needed is highly variable if we have done a rout, but also if we practice it daily (we will require more water), if it is summer, autumn, winter, etc.
In this way, the authors of the document ensure that each person should drink the water they feel they need and that their own body is the best regulator of thirst and the need for water, there being a neurological and hormonal healing mechanism when we no longer need it. more water.
In this sense, a study Carried out by scientists from Monash University, in Australia, and published in 2016, it compared the brain responses of two groups of individuals: on the one hand, people who had just played sports; on the other, subjects who had recently consumed a lot of water.
With magnetic resonance devices, they discovered in the second group a great activity in the prefrontal area of the brain that made swallowing the liquid much more difficult than the group that had done physical exercise.
The authors of this work determined that there was a mechanism of inhibition of swallowing when satiety had been reached, and that this inhibited mechanism was the one that regulated fluid intake.
Why do some people drink more than is needed?
The reasons for drinking too much water range from the obsession with body cleansing associated with orthorexia to the intake of some drugs such as MDMA or ecstasy, which make the person excessively thirsty, to some maladjustments such as problems kidneys to urinate, according to the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy.
In some cases, the problem is hormonal, as occurs in the so-called syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion. In this case, this hormone is secreted in such large quantities that the person cannot urinate and, as a result, their body suffers from fluid retention.
But the cases that proliferate the most are those of athletes who exceed their obsession to prevent dehydration before a physical resistance test such as a triathlon, a marathon, an Ironman or Ironwoman, etc.
Excessive zeal drives them to hyperhydration and hyponatremia, two states derived from the second of the first and which are extremely dangerous when facing hard physical tests, leading to sometimes to death.
The solved mystery of Cynthia Lucero
In April 2002 the Ecuadorian marathon runner Cynthia Lucero he collapsed in the middle of the Boston marathon and died. At first, doctors were confused about the cause of death, but with time and extensive forensic tests, the mystery was unraveled. being the final cause hyponatremia due to hyperhydration.
In other words, Lucero had run the test with an excess of water (hyperhydration) in the body and this had caused too low levels of body sodium, which led to an episode of convulsions, fainting and death due to hyponatremia.
Having too little sodium (salt) in your body is just as harmful as having too much. Thus, if the concentration of sodium in the blood falls below 135 mi.iequivalentes per liter, the disorder called hyponatremia.
Your symptoms are, according to the Mayo Clinic confusion, drowsiness, vomiting, convulsions and loss of consciousness, with risk to life. A specific type of hyponatremia, the one that affected Cynthia Lucero, was already described in the 1980s and is associated with physical exercise.
In recent years it has deserved numerous studies because Lucero’s has been the last case and experts highlight the growing trend of excessive hydration by amateur athletes.
Above all, because – as one meta-analysis of 2017- the cases registered in recent years are no longer limited to elite athletes, but involve simple sports fans who do not measure the risks in their fair measure.
To this point, the aforementioned Merck Manual states that the hydration of athletes must be coordinated by doctors or health experts, and highlights that the risk is targeted in people who additionally have kidney problems that make it difficult to manage fluids through urine.
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