Post by romfantaz on Jul 2, 2016 20:34:59 GMT
Ah, Jester ! You just provided a perfect example of the biased media reporting on Europe.
Because, very sorry to confirm it, water is not the cure of dehydration and does not prevent it by itself.
If you got acute diarrhea from, let's say, Cholera, you can try to drink as much water as you can. But if you don't have the necessary electrolytes like sodium (which ARE the main cure and prevention for dehydration), you will certainly die.
Same goes for preventing the dehydration. You can have your stomach full of water, but if you miss on electrolytes in your body, you will just piss it all away and fix none. I have seen lot of trekkers doing this mistake : still getting the headaches because drinking tons of water while forgetting to get a correct nutrition with salts and sugar. One other sad fact is that if you drink a large amount of de-mineralized water (as used for batteries or car radiators), you will actually die from de-hydratation. It will flush the electrolytes out of your body and start a quite gruesome process...
So the EU experts were fully technically correct, but certainly too much for the benefit of a good communication.
This article from the Guardian gave a good factual analysis on this "ban" from Europe :
www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2011/nov/18/1?newsfeed=true
I did hear you can die from drinking too much water.
It is also true you can die from drinking too much normal water, if your electrolytes are already too low. The very very small input of salts from the normal water won't suffice in regard of what you flush away. Before the lethal dose, you supposedly get a drunkness effect. But is it really worth it ?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
EDIT : for those of you who risk being stranded in the outback or in the middle of the sea, a very good thing to get in your emergency pack is some kitchen salt and sugar (beside a sufficent amount of drinking water, of course). You can mix it in water (like 5-6 teaspoons of sugar and 1/2 of salt for one liter). Awesome to treat diarrhea, sunstroke or, the worst disease of them all, hangover.
You can also buy processed packets in the drugstore. They are called Oral Rehydration Salts. They are supposed to be a better mix, but they may be quite expensive for what they are in some places.
rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade-ors.pdf