Question

• How might this information affect your water drinking habits?
• Why should we drink water?
• Let’s say that you and a friend drink the same amount of water every day, but only one of you becomes thirsty and dehydrated. How is that possible?
• How is dehydration different from water intoxication?
• How do electrolytes and water intake relate to hypertension?
• Consider citing or including references to relevant, current news sources that interest you and support your post and responses.

Answer 1

We should drink water to maintain our body fluid balance. Body fluids are the ones which plays important roles in all physiological processes like digestion, absorption, circulation, maitenance of body temperature. Also, drinking water can help in weight loss. And it help in energizing of muscles when we do workouts. It helps in keeping good looking skin. It helps the normal functioning of kidneys.

You and your friend may have different body proportions/size. For a larger person, more water is required. So, if a small person and a large person drinks the same amount of water all the time, it may be enough for the smaller person, but the large person may suffer from thirst and dehydration.

Water intoxication is a condition of water poisoning where a person drinks too much water. Drinking too much water causes the disruption of brain function. It increases the amount of water in blood thus diluting blood sodium levels and this causes fluids to move inside cells and the swelling of cell happens.But in Dehydration, which is caused by not drinking enough water, the blood water level is decreased. This causes imbalance and disrupts many processes such as digestion, elimination of wastes and toxins etc. Eventually the cells may shrink due to loss of water.

Drinking too much water causes electrolyte imbalance which affects the blood pressure. Decreased intake amount of potassium , calcium and magnesium may cause hypertension. If the sodium concentraion in blood is high, the blood pressure increases and may cause hypertension. So, dehydration also affects hypertension.