How to drink water correctly throughout the day to stay properly hydrated. "As your thirst dictates"
Even on scorching days, water should be drunk when thirsty, not based on complicated calculations, and it must contain minerals. It takes five minutes for all the blood to pass through the kidneys.
The blood arrives at the kidneys loaded with waste and leaves clean after passing through thousands of microscopic filters. In this vital process, the kidneys only require water, but it should be consumed wisely.
Related
- The importance of water and hydration. How much and how we should consume fluids
- How to protect ourselves from water intoxication. Doctors warn that excessive hydration can be fatal
- How to protect ourselves from water intoxication. Doctors warn that excessive hydration can be fatal
- How to take care of yourself during heatwaves. What to avoid and which foods are beneficial
- Hydrating during summer. How much liquids to drink, how often, and signs of dehydration
The hypothalamus is the command center in the brain. When you don’t drink water for a while, receptors in the blood vessels signal that blood pressure drops and salt levels are high.
As a result, the hypothalamus increases the secretion of anti-diuretic hormone. Blood vessels constrict, and blood pressure returns to normal. The anti-diuretic hormone instructs the kidneys to absorb water and retain salts.
We are at the Doctor Carol Davila Nephrology Hospital, where the specialist explains how the kidneys prefer us to drink water.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cristina Căpușă, primary nephrologist: "Returning to the comparison between a gymnast and a bodybuilder, the surface area through which water is lost via sweating differs, so the bodybuilder will need more water than the gymnast. That’s why you can’t say there is a fixed amount of water you need to drink in a day. If you don’t have a brain condition, your body is smart and responds to thirst, so when you’re thirsty, you drink water.
Water is better than any other tasty liquid and even better than homemade juices; true hydration is achieved with water. Drink as your thirst dictates, considering the environmental factors you are in".
PhD, Prof. Ștefan Voicu, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology: "It's not water per se that hydrates us, but water that has a salt content. What kind of salts: the essential ones—potassium, sodium, calcium. Do we have these in water? We do! It would be problematic to drink water that doesn’t contain them. The types of water without salts are distilled water, pure water or ultra-pure water. This is very harmful to health because, once introduced into the body, it only dilutes the salt levels, and this highly diluted level can even lead to death".
Salts such as sodium, potassium and calcium make the heart beat, i.e., have electrical activity. They also cause the brain to have electrical activity, in other words, to function.
