Patriot Health Digest
Drinking not enough water on a daily basis leads to changes within your body that increase your risk of heart failure, as found by a big long-term study from the EU Society of Cardiology – but the way to solve it is as simple as drinking one extra glass of water every day.
Frequently come up short of the doctor recommended two to three litres of water each day? While most men are guilty of them, avoiding water too much puts your ticker in harms way. When you don’t drink enough water over the longer term, the amount of sodium within your body gets too be too much, creating the physiological processes that cause heart failure.
“Our study finds that keeping good hydration can stop or at least slow down the heart changes that trigger heart failure,” said study leader Dr Natalia Dmitrieva from the National Lung, Heart and Blood Institute. “Our findings show that we must pay attention to the fluid we take in every day and work harder to drink more if we do consume too little.”
Scientists looked at 15,792 people aged between 44 and 66 and studied the participants over a 25-year time frame. They specifically researched their hydration levels, measured by serum sodium – as participants consumed less fluid, their concentration of this serum sodium increased – and the researchers studied if a high concentration predicted the onset of heart failure.
The researchers also looked at the link between hydration levels and the thickening of your heart’s main chamber, which is called left ventricular hypertrophy, a lead up to heart failure. Study participants were divided into different groups depending on their serum sodium concentration in the initial two visits, and by the last visit, the researchers looked at the people who had left ventricular hypertrophy and heart failure.
“It is natural to believe that serum sodium and hydration should change daily depending on how much we consume each day,” said Dr Dmitrieva. “However, serum sodium concentration stays within a narrow amount over long periods, which is possibly related to habitual water consumption.”
While you certainly will not need to drink as much water as The Rock – who drinks 18 litres each day – if you are yet to buy a reusable water bottle to use while you’re out, now is the time to do so.
Author: Scott Dowdy
