hydration – [UNDERHYDRATED]

Reading Time: 3 Minutes – H2O is Not Enough for Sufficient Hydration

Got Plasma?

Our body also needs to be producing sufficient amounts of healthy blood plasma as it is a MAJOR component of the fluid that fills our skin stores for whole being homeostasis.

The body fluid outside the cell is composed of blood plasma, interstitial fluid, lymph, and transcellular fluid.

The extracellular fluid pertains to all body fluid outside the cell(s). In humans, the total body water composition is made up mainly of intracellular fluid (67%) and extracellular fluid (26%). The extracellular fluid, in turn, is composed of blood plasma, interstitial fluid, lymph, and transcellular fluid (e.g. cerebrospinal fluid, synovial fluid, aqueous humour, serous fluid, gut fluid, etc.).

The interstitial fluid and the blood plasma are THE MAJOR COMPONENTS of the extracellular fluid.

Because of its composition, it, therefore, serves as a delivery medium for nutrients and waste products. It is also a crucial site for various homeostatic mechanisms.

In most mammals, including humans, the formation of urine begins in the nephrons of the kidneys by filtration of BLOOD PLASMA into the nephron; the fluid found within the nephron is essentially THE SAME AS BLOOD PLASMA without the macromolecules (e.g., proteins).
The blood is a very active organ with many cells that turn over rapidly. If you do not provide your body with the right nutrients, your blood production can deteriorate, and you increase the risk of anemia, bleeding, or bruising.

While your blood needs several vitamins and minerals to function effectively, the following are key nutrients that promote the production of healthy blood plasma:

Iron
Riboflavin-Vitamin B-2
Folic Acid-Vitamin B-9
Cobalamin-Vitamin B12
Vitamins A, D, and C

The attached photo is a bag of our Blood Plasma. I imagine this is why the color of our healthy urine is yellow.

Image provided by DiverDave – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11866692

Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest | Scribe at Terrain Wiki

Stavros Kavouras, is an assistant dean of graduate education and professor of nutrition at Arizona State University.

Here are a few words from him on the topic of underhydration.

The topic of hydration and health is new and under researched. At this point, we probably have more questions than answers and theories on potential mechanisms associating low water intake with various unexplored pathologies, including cancer and longevity. However, it is time to concentrate our efforts on the health implications of being a low-drinker rather than examining the acute effects of dehydration (water deficit). We need large scale studies and randomized control trials to investigate how increased water intake impacts health and well-being.

According to the Medical Subject Headings of the US National library of medicine “dehydration is the condition that results from excessive loss of water from a living organism.” Even though dehydration describes the state of body water deficit, some scientists have suggested that dehydration refers to the process of losing water, while hypohydration is the state of water deficit, and rehydration is the process of gaining water from a hypohydrated state towards euhydration.

The majority of research on water homeostasis and its effects on the human body has focused on how water deficit impacts exercise performance, mainly in hot environments.

Edward Adolf in his classic work “Physiology of Man in the Desert” was one of the first to study the effect of water intake on thermoregulation and performance. He also introduced the term voluntary dehydration when he observed that during “rapid sweating”, humans do not drink enough to maintain body water. He concluded that: “…when he is active and needs much water his thirst sensations are inadequate.”

During the last 30 years we have learned that even a mild degree of dehydration (< 2% of body weight) can impair exercise performance and increase heat strain, especially in the heat. The degree of exercise-induced dehydration often ranges between 2 and 5% of body weight and it is accompanied by elevated plasma osmolality, decreased plasma volume, and increased urinary biomarkers (i.e. urine osmolality).

Influenced by this observation and based on the mathematical symmetric property stating that if A = B, then B = A, we have mistakenly assumed that the backward association is also true. Thus, if exercise-induced dehydration leads to increased urine biomarkers, then elevated urinary biomarkers should correspond with water deficit and dehydration. So, when we read data indicating that a majority of children, adults, and athletes have elevated levels of urinary osmolality or specific gravity we mistakenly conclude that a large portion of the population is dehydrated. Furthermore, when we read data indicating that a majority of people across the world do not meet the dietary guidelines for water intake we also conclude that most people are dehydrated.

Is it possible that people with free access to water when they do not meet the water intake guidelines or when they have elevated urinary biomarkers are dehydrated? Probably not.

Kavouras, S.A. Hydration, dehydration, underhydration, optimal hydration: are we barking up the wrong tree?. Eur J Nutr 58, 471–473 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-018-01889-z