Commentary: Overhydrating presents health hazards for young athletes
MICHIGAN: Every coach's favourite cheer is "stay hydrated" and "proceed urine articulate" during the rut.
In 2017, a University of Texas football double-decker created a urine-based "Longhorn Football Hydration Chart," which labelled players with yellow urine as "selfish teammates" and those with chocolate-brown urine equally "bad guys."
This "hydration shaming" practice has permeated high school sports, thereby encouraging a sporting culture which equates superior functioning with superior hydration.
Overzealous obedience to this advice has uncovered a night underbelly to superior hydration practices: Overhydration.
When high schoolhouse football player Walker Wilbanks died in Mississippi in Baronial 2022 from overhydration, the doctor said that the cause of death was an "unpredictable freak occurrence".
2 weeks prior, some other high schoolhouse football role player from Georgia drank "two gallons of water and two gallons of Gatorade" after football practise to foreclose muscle cramps then died.
Thus, over the last iv years, 2 loftier school football players take died during August football practice from overhydrating – a medical condition known as do-associated hyponatremia.
Conversely, no football game histrion has ever been known to die from dehydration, although seven died during this same four-yr catamenia from heatstroke, which may exist related, merely not always.
I watched runners almost dice after drinking 100 cups of h2o during a marathon because they were scared of condign "dehydrated." So, I got interested in thirst.
Turns out, the neuroendocrine thirst circuit dates back 700 meg years and is establish in most animals, including bugs and worms. Thirst activates the same witting area of the brain that tells us we're hungry or take to pee.
To say we need to stay "ahead of thirst" (or die) is like saying we need to pee every hour to stay ahead of imminent float explosion (or die). The molecular and neural circuits that govern fluid intake (and micturition) in real-time are absolutely exquisite.
It'south remarkable to think that animals survive without water bottles and urine charts – they drink when they are thirsty, and we should too.
TOO MUCH WATER, TOO Little Salt
Hyponatremia is acquired past drinking too much water or sports drinks, which dilutes claret salt levels below the normal range. Any sudden drop in blood table salt levels, from drinking more than the body can excrete, can crusade all cells in the trunk to groovy.
Brain swelling from hyponatremia can cause headaches and vomiting, while muscle jail cell swelling can trigger whole-body muscle cramping.
What is most frightening, however, is that these symptoms mimic those of dehydration that they are ofttimes treated past medical staff with more fluids.
So, which hydration imbalance – aridity and overhydration – is the lesser of ii evils?
Dehydration is undeniably harmful to human health and performance. Wrestlers have died from trying to "make weight," through vigorous dehydration practices.
A recent meta-assay of 33 studies verified that more than 2 per cent dehydration impairs cognition.
Aridity can impair performance and increase core body temperature, as per the American College of Sports Medicine's latest position argument. All of these statements underscore the vital importance of staying hydrated.
But I fear that many coaches ignore the effectively points that back up those conclusions.
For example, three wrestlers who died of dehydration rapidly lost about 15 per cent of body weight by withholding fluids while exercising in a hot environment in a rubber suit. Similarly, to achieve 3 per cent aridity, which impairs cognition, individuals need to withhold fluids for 24 hours. And that's without exercise.
These dehydration protocols do not necessarily correspond "free-living" situations. When hikers die from dehydration in the desert, virtually if not all had go lost or had run out of fluids.
Thus, thirst – or the "deep-seated desire for water" – is rarely "broken" when healthy people die from dehydration.
Morbidity and mortality occur when at that place is no fluid available, fluids are withheld, as in lab studies, or when athletes refuse to drink for other reasons, such as "making weight."
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH H2o?
And then how much fluid should sports professionals – and all other humans for that matter – beverage?
If y'all inquire fluid residual experts who perform basic science research on the brain or kidney, or clinicians who specialise in fluid balance disorders, researchers who perform brain scans on dehydrated and overhydrated humans, or even worm investigators, they all agree that water residuum is tightly regulated and that all state mammals need to drink when thirsty.
Drinking when you are thirsty is not "too late," because the thirst mechanism is hardwired into the nervous system to protect against scarcity.
Thirst represents the highly individualised signal which protects the rest between h2o and common salt regardless of size, activity or ambient temperature and is encoded in most invertebrate and all vertebrate Dna. Babies are built-in with this innate behavioural bulldoze.
So, what about the need for eight glasses of h2o per day? There is no evidence to support this.
What virtually peeing until our urine is clear? Dark coloured urine just reflects water conservation by the kidney, rather than water lack by the trunk.
WHAT'S A FOOTBALL PLAYER TO DO?
Nosotros admittedly demand h2o, simply should exist warned not to overdo it.
In the mod era, where fluid is widely available, in order to stay fairly hydrated, the following must occur: Beginning, a variety of fluids needs to be freely bachelor, and secondly, athletes should be given the freedom to drink whenever they experience thirsty.
And when they get hot, they need the opportunity to pour generous amounts of ice water over their heads instead of into their mouths to promote evaporative cooling, rather than dilute sodium levels. Improve yet, they should be allowed to go inside and absurd off.
We should recognise who the "truthful champions" may exist with regards to most modern day hydration advice.
Co-ordinate to the latest figures, bottled water sales have increased to United states$18.5 billion dollars, up 8.8 per cent from the previous year. This revenue does not include the vast array of purified, infused, oxygenised, sparkled, distilled, intravenous and opposite osmosis versions that compete for attention on the market.
While we all need water, drinking until our "urine is clear" is money (and h2o) flushed abroad. And with the threat of overdrinking high in motivated athletes, I inquire coaches and trainers to reconsider before enforcing the urine colour chart in athlete locker rooms: Is it worth the gamble?
Dr Tamara Hew-Butler is a podiatric physician and acquaintance professor of Exercise and Sport Studies at Wayne Land University in Detroit, Michigan. A version of this commentary first appeared on The Chat. Read it here.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-overhydrating-presents-health-hazards-young-athletes-281496
0 Response to "Commentary: Overhydrating presents health hazards for young athletes"
Post a Comment