The Importance Of Water & Avoiding Hypernatremia Due To Severe Dehydration
Water is essential to life and good health. The amount of water in your body can range from 50-75%, depending on gender, age, and size. You may notice feeling fatigued and lightheaded when you are dehydrated, as well as have headaches, dry skin, and bad breath. However, severe and chronic dehydration can have serious health consequences, one of which can become deadly without proper medical treatment—hypernatremia. Here's what you need to know.
Water's Role In the Human Body
Water has many roles in the human body, including regulation of body temperature, digestion, metabolization, lubrication, and shock absorption. Water also helps flush waste and toxins and dissolves necessary minerals, vitamins, and nutrients. Water carries nutrients and oxygen to cells. When someone is dehydrated, the reduction in water in their body composition causes a wide range of symptoms and affects the body composition.
Imbalance of Water & Sodium Causes Hypernatremia
One thing that is crucial to understand about the change in the body composition when severely dehydrated is that it can cause a significant increase of sodium in the blood. This condition is known as hypernatremia in the medical field. Hypernatremia, when left untreated or treated improperly, can lead to seizures, comas, and death. The reason for this is believed to be the drastic reduction of water in the brain which can cause the cells in the brain to shrink.
Diagnosis of hypernatremia is done through a medical exam, patient history, and a basic metabolic panel blood test to determine the sodium concentration in the blood. Treatment for hypernatremia will need to be done carefully during hospitalization to avoid neurological consequences due to inappropriate fluid resuscitation via oral or intravenous methods of rehydration.
Risks of Improper Treatment
It's important to note that water alone cannot be given intravenously because doing so could rupture red blood cells. Therefore, the fluid solution should be water, sugar, and saline. It's also important for treatment of hypernatremia to be done slowly. If done too quickly, the brain adapts to the sudden increase in salt concentration during a hypernatremia crisis. When water is introduced too quickly, the water flows into the shrunken cells of the brain, which causes swelling as the cells are not prepared for the sudden onslaught of water. Brain swelling can lead to cerebral edema, which can be deadly.
Avoidance of Severe Dehydration Is Key
The key to avoiding severe dehydration and the resultant hypernatremia is to stay properly hydrated. Due to the variables in the human body and lifestyle choices, your primary care provider is the best person to help you determine how much water intake you need on a daily basis for proper hydration.
