I almost never feel thirsty when I don't drink and so have to put in conscious effort to do it but when I do many aspects of my psychic experience change. I am more awake, think more clearly, have more energy, on and on. Many more purely physical aspects improve as well- my digestion is better, I have better appetite management, my skin is clearer, etc.
Last year we had a temporary issue with our fridge ice maker so I used that as an excuse to get the family a super bougie standalone ice maker- the GE Opal. It has unexpectedly made the water habit much easier for everyone. Now I can't think of a better spent $600.
Really would like Huberman to do a hydration/water/salt episode.
This year I aim to get more active, and bought a fancy water bottle a while ago which will hopefully help with staying hydrated.
Regarding your 'lightly salted' water, if you can source it easily enough I'd suggest you try some Pocari Sweat [1] for a workout type drink - it's an electrolyte replenisher. I got into it when we lived in the middle east (found it in cans for cheap) and since then I sometimes buy it in powdered form [2]. I really like the taste - lightly sweet/salt.
I'll try adding a bit of salt to my drinking water and see how it goes, thanks!
[1] https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/nutraceutical/products/pocariswe...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Otsuka-Pharmaceutical-Pocari-Sweat-Po...
The WHO intends it for use for people suffering dysentery, but dehydration is dehydration.
For example, we know that destroying the ion gradient in the kidneys through massive overconsumption of fluid and underconsumption of solute can lead to hyponatremia (“potomania”).
But this mechanism is not relevant in normal physiology. So I’m again wondering whether it is appropriate to be attributing sodium shifts to hydration. In the Intro, the authors really dance around this and do not address it. So I assume that there is not actually good evidence for their assertion.
You could, in contrast, easily sell me on the notion that sodium set points change with age, but that could have nothing to do with volume intake.
The result is an association between high plasma sodium and aging.
I might have missed your point though.
But to your point in hydration and sodium.
Sodium ion concentration dominates plasma osmolality which makes it not a bad way to think of hydration.[0]
The entire premise of the article's interpretation—that hydration status is reflected in sodium concentration—rests on this being true.
Don't get me wrong, the finding that you pointed out (that there is an association between high plasma sodium and aging) is interesting even if the authors' premise is not true! But if small variations in daily water consumption (for example) don't actually change sodium concentration, then the observation could be 100% true and yet their interpretation and proposed follow-up studies could make no sense.
So when I said they dance around whether it is appropriate to be attributing sodium shifts to hydration, that's what I meant.
Slowing down aging, improvements of digestive system, etc. I can't really feel. But the freedom to breath through my nose, which used to occur only after a hot shower, to be liberated from having to gape my mouth like a dazed cat all the time, is a huge reward in itself.
Anecdotal, of course. But I've rule out tons of other variables already (location, allergen, air humidity, temperature, diet, etc.) for this chronic---and inherited---condition, and I'm reasonably confident in my uneducated guess that hydration has something to do with it.
Drinking a lot of water, on the other hand, has a huge effect on my breathing. I can breath through my nose all day now. It probably doesn’t treat the underlying cause, but symptom-wise, it works better than any prescription I’ve taken.
I’m in no position to give real medical advice, but since drinking a bit more water is usually regarded as harmless (2.5 liters is well within the safe range of water intake as far as I know), I’d say give it a try. Just prepare to pee more frequently.
From the article:
> People whose middle-age serum sodium exceeds 142 mmol/l have increased risk to be biologically older, develop chronic diseases and die at younger age. Intervention studies are needed to confirm the link between hydration and aging.
I'm not really sure about how high that level is (relatively, are we talking dehydration levels or are we talking that you have to be a top 1% "hydro homie" to "not age too much").
The reason we don’t drink distilled water is that it ends up robbing your body of minerals. But you can get the same effect by overhydrating. One of the signs being having clear urine all day long. Your kidneys should be concentrating urea, otherwise the water just carries nutrients away without an upside.
That doesn't mean that you're wrong about a bathtub curve effect at very high hydration levels, but it means you have more work to do here.
Mostly: I don't buy it. My gut says that you're wrong and that at all but the most unreasonable levels of water intake we're healthier being hydrated.
The Internet has multiple opinions on the veracity of this statement. They range the full gamut: from "causes harmful leaching", to "has no/neutral effect", to "generates helpful absorption".
As a non-expert, I find the "neutral" explanations more persuasive.
Am I wrong? Or do we just weigh plausible sources differently?
Here is a histogram. 142 seems about average.
We used serum sodium, as a proxy for hydration habits.
However they do not explain whether higher or lower levels mean more or less hydration, or vice versa.
I found the answer at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK306/
Only when such a patient is denied access to water or is unable to obtain water because of unconsciousness or disability does the serum sodium concentration rise, resulting in hypernatremia.
You wouldn’t expect this to be laid out in a medical journal article. Much like you wouldn’t expect the definition of taking a derivative to be explained in a machine learning paper.
For me it's a constant balance that's hard to find, am I thirsty and lips cracked or did I visit the bathroom six times this morning?
One of the ways I’ve controlled weight, tooth decay and crossing the A1C threshold into prediabetes is to swap sweets for savory snacks, which almost universally come with a higher sodium burden (not just salt but also umami).
Telling people that sodium is bad is part of how we got to overindulgence in sweets. We do not want to go back down that road.
All the living cells in the body pump inside them all the potassium that exists in their environment.
When more potassium is ingested, there is more potassium inside the cells. That draws more water inside the cells, to restore the intracellular concentrations, i.e. the equilibrium between the intracellular and extracellular osmotic pressures.
This leaves less extracellular water, but the same amount of sodium, so the sodium concentration in the blood increases, which causes thirst. After drinking water, both the extracellular sodium concentration and the intracellular potassium concentration are back to normal.
It does not matter whether one eats more sodium or more potassium. The final effect is the same, more water retained in the body, after initially having both a higher extracellular sodium concentration and a higher intracellular potassium concentration.
The difference between sodium and potassium is that when eating more potassium there is more water inside the cells and less outside, while when eating more sodium the reverse relation is true (but the deviations from normal will be corrected when sodium and potassium will be excreted).
I’ve also found a strong correlation for my own breakouts with drinking caffeine. If I have a caffeinated coffee I can guarantee that a break out will occur within the next few days.
The pubmedding I've done on the issue seems to intake that thirst is a more sensitive instrument than any easily available serum marker.
After all, if people really listened to their bodies, they wouldn't be eating and drinking so much crap, right?
I was sure how much was it, so I drank much more than usual of tea and a water intake was normal.
At some point I reversed it. Stopped drinking tea, but drank 1 liter of water conciously.
And man did that changed things quickly. In two days my uti was gone and I had such a great time working more, thinking more creatively, even having clearer skin.
I wonder if it's possible to lower the value not only by adding water, but by sweating out the sodium?
People who exercise or use saunas have much lower mortality rates.
Of course, maybe they have to hydrate, as they remove sodium through their sweat and their body might accentuate their sense of thirst.
additionally, people's sense of thirst is decreased as they get older.
I’ll keep several around the house, so I’ll always have a large bottle of filtered water right next to me.
For me it helps with staying hydrated, and I like to think that reusing these bottles is better than recycling them right away.
Also as a cheap skate the notion of a $30+ bottle is silly
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-good-hydration-linked...
Citation needed.
exercise
hydrate
pick two, ideally three :)
