Hydration - It's Important!

So often we hear the messages about staying hydrated before, during and after exercise and, if you're like me, consuming all that water can sometimes be a chore.  When I teach an afternoon cycle class I  recommend re-hydrating by drinking a cup of water an hour until bedtime, especially during the warmer weather months.  So what's the downside?  What happens when we habitually stay below the 100% rehydration mark?  Put another way, what is the accumulative effect of staying at 80% all the time?

I'm posing this as a question to those who have experienced this state of incomplete hydration while maintaining an active exercise schedule.  So please weigh in*.  In the meantime, I'm providing some information about the importance of hydration through the following links:

First of all, what do we mean when we talk about hydration?  The European Hydration Institute (Yes, the Europeans have an Institute devoted strictly to the human body and hydration, which I thought was pretty neat.) http://www.europeanhydrationinstitute.org/benefits_of_hydration.html tells us that hydration is the amount of water in our bodies and points out all of the advantages of maintaining a proper balance or homeostasis, and here in North America (based in Washington, D.C.) we have the ILSI N.A., (part of the International Life Sciences Institute, www.islni.org) whose Project Committee on Hydration was established in 2001 to investigate broad issues of hydration (see http://www.europeanhydrationinstitute.org/other_hydration_educational_materials.html.  Each of these organizations provides credible, scientific information relative to our need to remain hydrated.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00370)  tells us that water is the most important factor in sports nutrition. Water makes up approximately 60% of body weight and is involved in almost every body process. Your body cannot make or store water, so you must replace the water you eliminate in your urine and sweat.

BUT, and this is important, it is not enough to simply drink a lot of water prior to exercise.  Exercise enthusiasts have been known to consume too much water, essentially diluting their salt levels creating a condition known as hyponatremia.   Extreme cases of hyponatremia can cause death.

While it is difficult to assess the specific amount of water a person should consume, simply because we're all so different, the Institute has produced some guidelines, based on age range and human characteristics, called the Daily Recommended Intake (DRI).  It's an interesting study and worth reading from the ILSI N.A. Web site, entitled, Hydration, Fluids for Life (www.islni.org).

Finally, to get back to the original question, it is easy to discern dehydration, but living in a state of incomplete hydration, also referred to as chronic mild hypohydration, is more difficult to assess and nonetheless cause for concern.  I became very interested in hydration after my own serious bout with kidney stones.  My doctor told me to drink more water, but how does one keep drinking water when they're not thirsty?  Once I did a little more research I became somewhat more cognizant of my own characteristics and certainly more aware of the far-reaching effects of incomplete hydration on the human body.  Suffice it to say, a number of fairly awful diseases can result from this state of chronic mild hypohydration such as kidney stones; bladder and colon cancer; constipation; urinary tract infection; hypertension; coronary heart disease; gallstones; glaucoma; dental disease and more.  Read more about this condition in an important study published in the Supplement to the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Volume 26, Number 5(S), October 2007, found at http://www.ilsi.org/Publications/HYD%20-%20ILSI%20North%20America%20Conference%20on%20Hydration%20and%20Health%20Promotion%20Supplement.pdf

I hope this information is helpful to you and I welcome your comments.

*Exercise physiologists tell us to weigh ourselves prior to a workout and after a workout; factor the differential and replace each pound lost with approximately 2 cups of water.