Imagine that the water from the tap suddenly stopped flowing, rivers and lakes dried up, and the oceans turned into deserts. What are you going to do? And more importantly, how long can you survive in such an environment? Fortunately, we did not have to check this, so the network only has assumptions, albeit well-founded, on a given topic.
It is believed that the average person can go without water for 2 to 14 days, depending on their health, weather conditions and level of physical activity. According to the Mayo Clinic, the elderly, children, people with chronic illnesses and people who work or exercise outside are at particular risk of dehydration. That is why all these factors are also important to take into account, if we imagine that humanity is suddenly left without water.
"In a very hot environment, an adult can lose 1 to 1.5 liters of sweat per hour," says Scientific American Randall Packer, a biologist at George Washington University. "A child left in a closed car in hot weather, or an athlete exercising in hot weather, may be dehydrated, overheated and even dead for hours without water."
But how much water must a person lose before they experience dehydration? According to the UK's National Health Service, severe dehydration occurs when a person loses about 10% of their weight. However, such measurements, you see, are rather difficult to use in practice.
Scientists remind that dehydration occurs much faster in the heat, so that even 1.5 liters of water can seriously affect overall well-being. As Live Science was told at the University of Rochester Medical Center, if the water level in the human body is below normal, then the characteristic symptoms of dehydration will tell about it: thirst, dry skin, fatigue, dizziness, dry mouth, confusion, rapid pulse and fast breathing.
“Patients are admitted to the emergency room with complaints of extreme fatigue, dizziness on rising, and nausea,” says LS Kurt Dickson of Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Arizona. However, he notes that other conditions can also be accompanied by these symptoms, so it is not always clear that dehydration is the cause.
As the water level inside the body drops, the remaining fluid changes direction to fill the vital organs with blood, which in turn dries up the cells. The Washington Post, citing experts, warns that when water is flushed out of the brain cells, the brain contracts, so that the blood vessels inside the skull can burst. At the same time, the kidneys are the first to fail in case of dehydration - they stop naturally purifying the blood from toxins and generally work not like an example badly.
Despite the fact that this is a chain and rather painful process for the body, if we are not talking about an extreme situation, then it is quite easy to cope with dehydration. As you probably already guessed - with the help of a glass (or better, a couple) of pure non-carbonated water.
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