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Dehydration

Let's talk about dehydration. Technically dehydration implies to loss of water from our body. You may loose water due to diarrhea, vomiting, excessive sweating or excessive urination in general.
Severe dehydration may lead to hospitalization as the person suffers various complications due to loss of fluids and plasma salts.

Our blood is composed of 45% blood cells and 55% plasma. This 55% of the blood plasma is made up of 95%water and other major salts along with proteins and various other constituents.This is why water becomes a very important constituent of blood.

Some symptoms of dehydration are thirst, dry or sticky mouth, dark yellow urine, headache and muscle cramps.

It is advised to drink 4-5 liters of water in a day. This is the volume needed to maintain the proper water balance. But many times we fail to do so and end up dehydrating our body.

One thing that helps in re-hydration is ORS. Yes..! Oral Re-hydration Salts. Salts play a major role in water re-absorption & retention. The WHO recommended ORS formula consists of sodium, potassium, chloride, citrate, dextrose.

ORS works on the principle of re-absorption of water as a result of increase in osmolarity of the cells. This increase in osmolarity is brought by increasing sodium absorption along with glucose into the cells. This sodium is provided by the ORS.

Previously and even today Oral Re-hydration Salts were available only in powdered form in sachets. These sachets are meant to be dissolved in a litre of water and then consumed regularly within few hours of preparation. But today ORS is also available as ready to drink liquids in Tetra Paks and bottles in flavours like apple, orange, green apple, lemon, etc.

So whenever you feel dehydrated drink lots of water or you may also grab the ready to drink ORS which makes you feel energetic within minutes..

Comments

  1. What abt lemon water...Does it work in same manner as it's does....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It may work if you add both common salt and sugar

      Delete
    2. Lemon water just works by refreshing you. It doesn't help in absorption of water from gut which needed when you are dehydrated.

      Delete

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