Hydration, Revisited

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The following is for informational purposes only. For medical advice, please see a medical professional.

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Welcome to Staying Alive with Margaret and Susie. We're here. Hey, hi, Susie. We are feeling like we want to do another episode on hydration. We have more to say on hydration, guys. Because we've had a very hot summer. We realize we want to talk a little bit more about hydration and heat, and specifically how to get more electrolytes, which water is really important, which Susie's going to reiterate. But there might be other options for drinks too. And so Susie and I both feel water is so important. Well, sometimes we might need a little, a little uh extra. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

unknown 0:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

For sure.

unknown 1:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

So so Susie, um, I know with uh nutritionists and and diet dietitians, etc., and doctors, uh, for aging population, we don't really necessarily want to get into electrolyte drinks. We're not suggesting that because I know for me, like I want to have a heart healthy uh regime and I don't want to be on blood pressure medicine. So I have to watch how much sodium I take in it every day, for instance. Like my restriction is about 2,000 milligrams a day. One sports drink has 300 milligrams. So um, so you have some ideas about this, and and you're gonna tell us about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah. Well, the important thing is to realize that electrolytes are like positively charged ions in your body, right? And so you need them to make things work. You need things to make um fire muscles, uh, do deal with muscle, you know, muscle contraction, fluid balance, pH, you know, all those things that keep your body ticking.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Refer back to our electrolyte episode. Susie goes into that in detail there.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah. So you know, there the key. Right. The key electrolytes are sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. And sodium is something that hand uh sort of manages your fluid balance and supports muscle function. Potassium manages fluid balance inside the cells. And calcium brings strong bones, triggers muscles, and magnesium supports nerve function and some other things. But the important thing is to realize that these things have got to be in balance. So you have something in your body called the sodium potassium pump. And usually most of the potassium is inside your cells, and sodium is kind of outside. But when things go haywire, when you get dehydrated or something else causes your body to store too much sodium, you can get sodium inside the cells and potassium outside, and then you get maybe edema. Oh, you start swelling up. Yeah. And so it's really important to manage that and make sure that your electrolytes are in balance. And when you um, I know you were talking with me earlier about well, what if you sweat, you know, like well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

I'm gonna talk about that when with heat.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, so why don't you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Because I I was just thinking about what what you said, that um when we get seriously dehydrated, we notice all these symptoms related to our electrolytes that Susie just mentioned. Like I will notice my muscles hurt, every muscle hurts. I'm incredibly tired. I feel so lethargic. I mean, those are symptoms that, okay, I'm more than just a little bit dehydrated here. And for me, it happened last summer when I was traveling and I was suddenly in a climate that was 30, 40 degrees hotter than usual. And as an aging person, like I I just you just don't um replenish quickly uh to when we're feeling um when we're sweating profusely. I mean, the sweat is salty. Think about it. Um when we're sweating profusely, we're not just a little bit dehydrating. We uh we need rehydration, which includes more than water.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Right. And so when you go to the hospital, when you go to the hospital and you're dehydrated, which I happened to me once, they give you saline, they don't give you water because they want you they've got a real they realize that they've got to replace your um electrolytes.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

And let me just say one thing. I was in um an interurban hotel where there was no neighborhood store that where there was there was no um, it was more boutique, there was no shop, there was there was no I couldn't like just go and buy some coconut water or something. So um I was just drinking more water than I should. And and I didn't think about till afterwards, I wasn't giving myself any more electrolytes. I was actually actually diluting whatever my body had. I was making myself worse. Right because I already drink enough water every day. I thought, oh, I'll just drink more, which was absolutely not not the right solution.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah, well, you know, there's other there's things that can cause your body to lose too much sodium. And one of them is excessive water intake. The other one is medications. Medications can mess up your sodium, potassium. Yeah, you know, sometimes people have to go on, you know, there's potassium sparing and non-potassium sparing medications. Yeah, sometimes, you know, it's an illness that causes fluid loss, like diarrhea, vomiting. Um, some kind of medical conditions can cause it, hormonal imbalances. Yeah, so you know, there are different ways that you can um lose sodium. And I know my mother, when she was older, uh, ended up in the hospital more than once with low sodium. Yeah. Um, so it is a real issue.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

And with global warming, and we have had the most excessive heat summer. And uh, I don't know about in other countries, if you happen to be listening, but in our country, the United States, we have pe had people our age dropping dead in the Mojave Desert because their car broke down and they had to try and walk a mile. I mean, there it it gets really dangerous for us. Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

And there's a point where you don't sweat too. Yeah, I mean, you get so bad, you know, and that's it's really scary. People die. Our our good friend lives in Tucson, and people die down there every year hiking in the desert. Yeah, it's just too hot. Um, you have to really be mindful about your hydration and making sure that your body stays um.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

And you know, the reason younger people can acclimate a little a little better to hiking in the heat, for instance, is that muscles store water. And so a young person who could who's really muscular is storing more b muscle and water in their body as they hike than than us. We don't have that much muscles anymore. Right. We're trying to keep it up with our guys.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

But everybody everybody loses muscle as they age, regardless of what they do. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Yeah, you really, you know, you have to be thinking about it. And um and there's ways that you can get hydration um without no not with just water, you know, that's the important thing to think about.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Susie told me afterwards, after my incident, well, you could have just put like a little pinch of table salt in your glass of water, just like a tiny pinch. That wouldn't be that wouldn't be a lot of sodium, would it? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

No, it wouldn't. And also you could do a little bit of fruit juice and some water.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Yeah. Um I just didn't have access to it at the time. Sure. But um, but I think there was salt around, I could have probably had gotten yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

I really, you know, I see people buying sports drinks for their children, even, and I really am not recommending any kind of sports drink. If the weather is really hot and kids are out doing sports and they're sweating, yes, they need hydration and they might need a sports drink, but some of them are just given randomly and they're full of sugar and artificial colors and additives.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Um, you can do you can get coconut water, you can just add a little fruit juice to water. My um grandkid loves mineral water with a little fruit juice in it.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

And and mineral water has a sometimes has a tiny bit of sodium in it.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah. You know, and keep in mind that the sports drinks, I I don't know if I don't expect you to know off the top of your head how much sugar are in them, but I think there's a lot of sugar in them.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Well, sometimes it's artificial sweeteners. Or sometimes, yeah, a lot of times it's artificial sweeteners that are put in those too, which you know, don't even get me started about.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Oh boy. See, I don't really know about them.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Yeah, I don't like them. I don't like them at all.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

But what I was gonna say is keep in mind if it is a drink with sugar, that sugar affects the kidneys too and it increases urination. And so if we're taking in a drink that's just making us uh have to go to the bathroom so much, you know, it's kind of an a not a net zero in terms of what we're doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Well, remember, things like alcohol too, do not really hydrate people.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

I mean, think about if you, you know, back in the days of you drink a beer, it goes through you really fast. Yeah, you don't want things to go through you if you're really thirsty and wanting to rehydrate. You don't want things to go through your body too quickly. In fact, I recently read a quote that what do you think is more hydrating if you're dehydrated and um or if you need rehydration.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

And they say, is it milk or water? And the answer was milk. Because you have to your body has to break it down so it stays in your system a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Oh, that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah. Coconut water is a popular one because it has elect naturally um electrolytes in it, like potassium, sodium, and magnesium and calcium. So I I personally I'm not real fond of it, but some people really like it and it and it might work for them.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

I drink soy milk and sometimes I crave it, and I just switch that out because like I need a little more protein right now. And I don't know nutritionally what's what's in that soy milk, but I'm I'm guessing that with my body's pretty intuitive, there's probably something else in that soy milk that my body is craving besides protein and hydration.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Sure. I'm sure there's minerals in it. Yeah, um protein. Yeah, yeah. So your body has to break that down.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

And that adds that adds to our hydration.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, I was reading an article this morning and I was telling Margaret about the best drink before bed, and it was ginger tea. And I make my own ginger tea at night. I what I do is I buy ginger juice, it comes in a bottle and it's just straight ginger juice, and then I just put a teaspoon and a cup of hot water. It's a lot easier than making tea, and um maybe I put a little honey in it sometimes. But the article was about how ginger is anti-inflammatory, but how important it is to stay hydrated. And sometimes people don't want to drink fluids before they go to bed, but it's really important to stay hydrated too as you sleep.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

And if you're not hydrated, waste products become kind of accumulated in your blood, and then your kidneys have to filter those out. And you don't want your kidneys to have to work overtime if they don't need to. So it's really important.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

So I mean the the main takeaway is yes, drink the water that we recommended in episode one hydration. Um, don't over-drink the water if you're sweating profusely. More water is uh less favorable than uh finding something with a little electrolyte. And um there are there are other drinks that you can you can drink, like um things like milk do count.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

And the important thing is to stay hydrated and stay cool, especially as as the weather is hotter and hotter every year.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

That's it. That's that's all we want to tell you today. And so we're gonna leave it there. And until next time, we are staying alive.

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You've been listening to Staying Alive with Margaret and Susie. This show is hosted by Margaret Cooley and Susie Hymas. To subscribe to our show, leave a comment, or ask a question, please visit staying alive with margaretandsuzy.com. Our podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. If you've enjoyed our program, please feel free to leave us a five star review. Thanks for listening.