[HN Gopher] Optimal hydration may slow down the aging process in...
___________________________________________________________________
Optimal hydration may slow down the aging process in humans
Author : EL_Loco
Score : 125 points
Date : 2023-01-02 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thelancet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thelancet.com)
| finnh wrote:
| sleep
|
| exercise
|
| hydrate
|
| pick two, ideally three :)
| northstart001 wrote:
| Lol All It shows is that It is way too easy to get published in
| this field
| mdp2021 wrote:
| A divulgative article over the submitted original is on
| MedicalXPress at:
|
| https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-good-hydration-linked...
| Tepix wrote:
| In the abstract the researchers state:
|
| _We used serum sodium, as a proxy for hydration habits._
|
| However they do not explain whether higher or lower levels mean
| more or less hydration, or vice versa.
|
| I found the answer at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK306/
|
| _Only when such a patient is denied access to water or is unable
| to obtain water because of unconsciousness or disability does the
| serum sodium concentration rise, resulting in hypernatremia._
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > However they do not explain whether higher or lower levels
| mean more or less hydration, or vice versa.
|
| You wouldn't expect this to be laid out in a medical journal
| article. Much like you wouldn't expect the definition of taking
| a derivative to be explained in a machine learning paper.
| Choco31415 wrote:
| Could it be explained? I'd like to properly understand the
| article.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| ELI5, but basically, imagine you have a glass of salty
| water, and a thin membrane between this glass of salty
| water and another glass of water.
|
| If the second glass of water has no salt in it, then salt
| will start crossing the membrane and equalising the salt
| levels in both glasses. However, if the second glass of
| water already has some salt in it, then the first glass
| will lose less salt through osmosis to the second glass.
|
| Now, imagine the first glass is your blood, and the second
| glass is your waste water. By measuring the salt levels in
| the first glass, we can estimate the concentration of salt
| in the second glass, and therefore how much water is being
| cycled through.
|
| You can also measure serum sodium in urine, but urine tests
| are more significantly impacted by recent consumption (e.g.
| if I drink a big glass of water a few hours before the
| test, likely the serum sodium levels will be significantly
| lowered), regardless of general trends. This means they're
| normally used as a secondary diagnosis tool in case blood
| sodium is abnormal to validate kidney function.
| randlet wrote:
| > If the second glass of water has no salt in it, then
| salt will start crossing the membrane and equalising the
| salt levels in both glasses.
|
| Is that correct? Normally in osmosis water will cross the
| membrane to equalize concentration of ions right?
| jonsen wrote:
| Generally it depends on if and how fast molecules of
| water and solvents are able to pass through the membrane.
|
| Say sodium and water passes equally well, there will be a
| net flow of water one way, and a net flow of sodium the
| other way. Notice that the flow of water will make the
| water rise on the flow-to side, then pressure there will
| rise and oppose the flow.
| maxerickson wrote:
| They felt there was sufficient evidence of a correlation
| between middle aged sodium levels and aging in a data set
| that was gathered over 25 years to recommend doing studies
| that use treatments to shift the sodium levels to see if
| they reduce aging (the "intervention studies" in the
| interpretation).
| Filligree wrote:
| Higher sodium = your blood is saltier = insufficient
| hydration.
|
| Your body attempts to keep it at a constant level. This is
| much easier if you drink more than you need to; it's easy
| to remove excess water, harder to remove excess sodium
| especially if you're about to drink more water and would
| then be sodium-deficient. But in general, serum sodium
| shouldn't vary much unless you're at least a little
| dehydrated.
|
| I try to always keep some water handy, since if I don't, I
| have a tendency not to go grab it until a bit later than I
| really should have.
| ptero wrote:
| The top comment in this thread seems to be the
| clarification you are looking for. It tells that higher
| serum sodium concentration is tied to lack of hydration.
| fsckboy wrote:
| none of the answers I've seen, and I've been looking, are
| answering the fundamental questions at all.
|
| humans are big membrane enclosed bags of mostly water,
| but also fats, proteins, etc. And some salts including
| sodium-salt. According to what I keep reading, none of
| that other stuff matters, only the sodium-salt and the
| water. Add a little salt to the big-garbage-bag-that-is-
| a-human, we are told, then you must add a ton of water to
| keep the salinity the same. How much? Till you are
| pissing clear, you're not done. Your body magically keeps
| every thing else in balance, but you need to manually
| intervene by overconsuming water. And I just don't
| believe this could be the case, it's just the "drink lots
| of water" meme repackaged.
|
| "what is the harm" or "why" is never addressed.
| [deleted]
| carbocation wrote:
| OK so the extremes of this are accepted but I'm genuinely not
| aware of the evidence that sodium concentration varies with minor
| shifts in "hydration" (an odd term to see in a medical article).
|
| For example, we know that destroying the ion gradient in the
| kidneys through massive overconsumption of fluid and
| underconsumption of solute can lead to hyponatremia
| ("potomania").
|
| But this mechanism is not relevant in normal physiology. So I'm
| again wondering whether it is appropriate to be attributing
| sodium shifts to hydration. In the Intro, the authors really
| dance around this and do not address it. So I assume that there
| is not actually good evidence for their assertion.
|
| You could, in contrast, easily sell me on the notion that sodium
| set points change with age, but that could have nothing to do
| with volume intake.
| psychphysic wrote:
| They don't dance around it at all. It's just a poor HN title.
|
| The result is an association between high plasma sodium and
| aging.
|
| I might have missed your point though.
|
| But to your point in hydration and sodium.
|
| Sodium ion concentration dominates plasma osmolality which
| makes it not a bad way to think of hydration.[0]
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_osmolality
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Don't we know that old people "dry out" already because they
| don't drink enough water?
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625510/
| carbocation wrote:
| That paper doesn't say anything about a relationship
| between routine variation in fluid intake and sodium
| concentration, or did I miss it?
|
| It's undisputed that in pathological states, hyper- or
| hyponatremia can occur. And the formula in the paper you
| linked gives a solution to calculating the free water
| deficit (for example). But it's not the same as knowing
| that modest variation in fluid intake can be seen in sodium
| concentration (because it's homeostatically regulated).
| carbocation wrote:
| I don't think of plasma sodium concentration as being a good
| indicator of hydration because it's aggressively
| homeostatically controlled. As I mentioned, we usually think
| of sodium shifts as a pathological state. It would be
| interesting to me if small variations in fluid consumption
| could also influence sodium concentration to a lesser degree,
| because it's not really aligned with what I was taught. But I
| acknowledge that it could be, I'd just like to see data.
|
| The entire premise of the article's interpretation--that
| hydration status is reflected in sodium concentration--rests
| on this being true.
|
| Don't get me wrong, the finding that you pointed out (that
| there is an association between high plasma sodium and aging)
| is interesting even if the authors' premise is not true! But
| if small variations in daily water consumption (for example)
| don't actually change sodium concentration, then the
| observation could be 100% true and yet their interpretation
| and proposed follow-up studies could make no sense.
|
| So when I said they dance around whether it is appropriate to
| be attributing sodium shifts to hydration, that's what I
| meant.
| [deleted]
| carbocation wrote:
| Looks like others had the same issue with respect to the
| interpretation[1]:
|
| > _However, "it would have been nice to combine their
| definition of hydration, based on serum sodium levels only,
| with actual fluid intake data from the ARIC cohort," Sesso
| [an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical
| School and associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's
| Hospital in Boston] added._
|
| 1 = https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/health/hydration-
| disease-agin...
| aszantu wrote:
| The older you get the higher the propability to get diabetes, not
| sure they tested for something like that. But kidneys ability to
| filter sodium goes down when there's a problem with fructose or
| so. I think I saw this on yt with Peter attia. He also notes that
| sodium should always be consumed with liquid
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| What is "optimal hydraton" here?
|
| From the article:
|
| > People whose middle-age serum sodium exceeds 142 mmol/l have
| increased risk to be biologically older, develop chronic diseases
| and die at younger age. Intervention studies are needed to
| confirm the link between hydration and aging.
|
| I'm not really sure about how high that level is (relatively, are
| we talking dehydration levels or are we talking that you have to
| be a top 1% "hydro homie" to "not age too much").
| hinkley wrote:
| That's the question isn't it.
|
| The reason we don't drink distilled water is that it ends up
| robbing your body of minerals. But you can get the same effect
| by overhydrating. One of the signs being having clear urine all
| day long. Your kidneys should be concentrating urea, otherwise
| the water just carries nutrients away without an upside.
| ajross wrote:
| That sounds like the kind of thing that should be studied and
| not just pronounced in an HN comment. Just to repeat: the
| linked article looked at exactly this measurement and found
| the _opposite_ effect (health benefits from lower electrolyte
| concentrations), albeit at a different end of the
| concentration spectrum.
|
| That doesn't mean that you're wrong about a bathtub curve
| effect at very high hydration levels, but it means you have
| more work to do here.
|
| Mostly: I don't buy it. My gut says that you're wrong and
| that at all but the most unreasonable levels of water intake
| we're healthier being hydrated.
| hinkley wrote:
| All of their results are in a +-10% band. They haven't even
| determined if they're in a bathtub, let alone how big it
| is. I call bullshit on your call of bullshit.
| quesera wrote:
| > The reason we don't drink distilled water is that it ends
| up robbing your body of minerals.
|
| The Internet has multiple opinions on the veracity of this
| statement. They range the full gamut: from "causes harmful
| leaching", to "has no/neutral effect", to "generates helpful
| absorption".
|
| As a non-expert, I find the "neutral" explanations more
| persuasive.
|
| Am I wrong? Or do we just weigh plausible sources
| differently?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| I'm no expert either, but I consider the likelihood of
| distilled water being neutral-to-good to be pretty poor. I
| can't really imagine naturally-occurring freshwater sources
| without minerality of some kind, and so I thus expect
| evolution to "expect" that minerality in water at the
| organism level.
| quesera wrote:
| I'm sure that naturally-occurring water sources will have
| much higher mineral content (i.e. dissolved solids) than
| distilled water.
|
| But I'm not convinced that "drinking water" is a
| significant contributor of minerals to the human diet.
|
| My instinct (not a nutritionist!) is that there are far
| more accumulated minerals in the plant and animal "apex
| hydrators" that I eat than I could get directly from
| water. And I probably drink a lot more direct water than
| most people do.
|
| The anti-DW "leaching" argument is that you _have_ the
| minerals in your body already through other sources and
| accumulation, and when you drink DW (yuck anyway), it has
| so much capacity to dissolve things that it leaches
| necessary stuff from you. The counterargument is that
| most of the incorporated minerals aren 't coming out of
| your organs easily, so DW mostly sucks up bad stuff that
| you'd probably excrete most of anyway, but every little
| bit helps. These both seem flawed to me!
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >But I'm not convinced that "drinking water" is a
| significant contributor of minerals to the human diet.
|
| I don't think I'm claiming that. I'm sure kidney
| functions work so long as some salts get in 'em, whether
| dietary or water intake, I just suspect that the body
| expects the minerality to already be in the water
| directly, because the vast majority of non-human-curated
| drinking water seems to be that way.
| hinkley wrote:
| You can explode a salt water adapted single celled
| organism by putting it in fresh water. The osmotic
| pressure sucks in water and the cell blows up like a
| balloon.
|
| I'm not talking about minerals in drinking water being a
| nutritional supplement. I'm talking about your kidneys
| not being able to block minerals from leaving in your
| urine. Any water coming in with absolutely no mineral
| content means a net loss on the other end.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Rain fits the bill for what you describe.
|
| The RDA for calcium is about 1.2g per day and magnesium
| is about 420 mg. It's hard to think of a way that the 24
| mg calcium (2% of RDA) in a cup of bottled water and 5 mg
| of magnesium (1.1% of RDA) could have any effect at all
| compared to the massive amount in food. I guess if you
| were marginal on your doses of those minerals it could
| add up, but I can't think of a way deionized or distilled
| water could actually be harmful.
|
| Disclaimer: I drink reverse osmosis water every day with
| a ppm of about 8 compared to my tap which is 100 ppm.
| Rainwater varies but is probably about 8 ppm. :)
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Sure, but nobody and nothing is standing out in the rain
| to "drink" the majority of their water intake. It's hard
| to think of any civilizations that relied on mostly
| rainwater, but maybe I haven't heard of any. What little
| prehistory I do comprehend suggests that consistent
| freshwater sources control patterns of human habitation
| (eg, most capitals are on rivers; Ur is a desert ruin
| because it is no longer a port city covered in greenery
| but was once).
|
| Your point about diet is reasonable, but I still think
| it's probably "easier" to get it right in the water.
|
| >Disclaimer: I drink reverse osmosis water every day with
| a ppm of about 8 compared to my tap which is 100 ppm.
| Rainwater varies but is probably about 8 ppm. :)
|
| Parts per million of what? Maybe I'm stupid and that
| stands for "particles per milliliter"?
| hinkley wrote:
| Either way, we are entering the Trough of Disillusionment
| with respect to Hydration with a capital H. Drinking liters
| of water a day is not the solution to all of your health
| woes.
| quesera wrote:
| Indeed, there is no silver bullet.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| It really depends on the diet. I eat mostly vegetables,
| rice sometimes, and almost never drink water (I just
| force myself with mouthwashes before sleeping, with some
| dilluted and clean seawater it's even better), never feel
| thristy because my diet is extremely low in sodium (maybe
| too much even) and ultra rich in fiber
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| From my experience, optimal hydration comes with vegetables,
| because that's the perfect mixture with water, minerals,
| vitamins, other elements and fibers, so also as raw (to
| preserve their qualities) and ripe as possible, fermented too
| is great
| Mistletoe wrote:
| https://figshare.com/articles/figure/A_histogram_of_the_corr...
|
| Here is a histogram. 142 seems about average.
| jonahbenton wrote:
| Personal anecdote. Experiences vary but for me over the past few
| years deliberately drinking a lot of water- generally 64oz+ per
| day, lightly salted (a couple of coarse grains per 32oz jug)- has
| had a huge positive impact.
|
| I almost never feel thirsty when I don't drink and so have to put
| in conscious effort to do it but when I do many aspects of my
| psychic experience change. I am more awake, think more clearly,
| have more energy, on and on. Many more purely physical aspects
| improve as well- my digestion is better, I have better appetite
| management, my skin is clearer, etc.
|
| Last year we had a temporary issue with our fridge ice maker so I
| used that as an excuse to get the family a super bougie
| standalone ice maker- the GE Opal. It has unexpectedly made the
| water habit much easier for everyone. Now I can't think of a
| better spent $600.
|
| Really would like Huberman to do a hydration/water/salt episode.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| How do you deal with peeing? I've gotten into a good water
| habit, but its such a burden having to pee all the time and
| being in actual pain if I can't get to a bathroom easily for
| whatever reason.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| I use it as a nice break from whatever I'm working on
| bmacho wrote:
| Yes but how often. What if you are driving/on a public
| transport, or you have to deal with people?
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Yeah, that's great unless what you are working on is
| sleep...
| feet wrote:
| If you have a healthy drinking habit throughout the day
| you should be able to stop ~1hr before bed and drink
| excess right away when you get up in the morning
| staindk wrote:
| I have the same issue. I mostly only drink out of habit.
|
| This year I aim to get more active, and bought a fancy water
| bottle a while ago which will hopefully help with staying
| hydrated.
|
| Regarding your 'lightly salted' water, if you can source it
| easily enough I'd suggest you try some Pocari Sweat [1] for a
| workout type drink - it's an electrolyte replenisher. I got
| into it when we lived in the middle east (found it in cans for
| cheap) and since then I sometimes buy it in powdered form [2].
| I really like the taste - lightly sweet/salt.
|
| I'll try adding a bit of salt to my drinking water and see how
| it goes, thanks!
|
| [1]
| https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/nutraceutical/products/pocariswe...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Otsuka-Pharmaceutical-Pocari-Sweat-
| Po...
| iaaan wrote:
| Careful with Pocari Sweat; similar to Gatorade, it's full of
| sugar and not really suitable for all-day drinking.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Also despite being clear and implying a clean, fresh
| taste... it tastes like shit.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| People with sodium-rich diet need to hydrate themselves more,
| it really depends on what you eat
| lapama wrote:
| Rule of thumb: if expulsed urine volume (after fall) exceeds ripe
| lemon color, you have to drink more. How this relates to the
| paper? Only intuitively.
| Tepix wrote:
| Here's something to aim for: Drink enough so that at least once
| per day your urine is clear.
| mustafabisic1 wrote:
| Another anectode, the 2 weeks ago I had some minor urinary tract
| infection and the solution was - drink more fluids. Water or tea.
|
| I was sure how much was it, so I drank much more than usual of
| tea and a water intake was normal.
|
| At some point I reversed it. Stopped drinking tea, but drank 1
| liter of water conciously.
|
| And man did that changed things quickly. In two days my uti was
| gone and I had such a great time working more, thinking more
| creatively, even having clearer skin.
| parasti wrote:
| I've suffered acne pretty much my entire life well into my
| thirties. It used to get pretty bad. Over the past year I
| randomly discovered a correlation: drinking water helps, not
| drinking water makes it worse. I can't count how many times I've
| seen articles that end with generic off-hand advice to "hydrate"
| and just ignored it, because I consume fluid every day. Never
| occurred to me that this is actually the most important part -
| drinking enough water will literally improve your life.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| Very interesting - as a fellow sufferer I'll give this a go.
|
| I've also found a strong correlation for my own breakouts with
| drinking caffeine. If I have a caffeinated coffee I can
| guarantee that a break out will occur within the next few days.
| arcticfox wrote:
| Caffeine is a diuretic FWIW; you may even be noticing the
| same hydration effect through a different mechanism
| powersnail wrote:
| I used to drink water only when thirst climbs up my throat; over
| the course of last year or two, I gradually increased the
| frequency and amount of water intake, to about 2.5 liters per
| day. Not an extraordinary amount, but quite effectively, it has
| alleviated my chronic stuffy nose.
|
| Slowing down aging, improvements of digestive system, etc. I
| can't really feel. But the freedom to breath through my nose,
| which used to occur only after a hot shower, to be liberated from
| having to gape my mouth like a dazed cat all the time, is a huge
| reward in itself.
|
| Anecdotal, of course. But I've rule out tons of other variables
| already (location, allergen, air humidity, temperature, diet,
| etc.) for this chronic---and inherited---condition, and I'm
| reasonably confident in my uneducated guess that hydration has
| something to do with it.
| personjerry wrote:
| This might be my problem. Did you ever go to a doctor? Doctors
| told me I have inflammation in my nose but I always just felt
| something was dry. I've found a humidifier helps to an extent,
| but perhaps my problem is drinking water.
| powersnail wrote:
| Both my father and I have gone to doctors, and were diagnosed
| with inflammation. That was a long time ago and I don't
| remember the specifics, but essentially, it's the kind of
| disease that is chronic and they didn't really know the
| specific cause of it. We got prescribed those steroid nose
| spray to use on a bad day. It helps to an extent, but not
| quite solving the problem. The effect only lasts for a few
| hours and I think they strongly recommend against using it
| more than once a day. Plus it's kinda expensive if used
| frequently.
|
| Drinking a lot of water, on the other hand, has a huge effect
| on my breathing. I can breath through my nose all day now. It
| probably doesn't treat the underlying cause, but symptom-
| wise, it works better than any prescription I've taken.
|
| I'm in no position to give real medical advice, but since
| drinking a bit more water is usually regarded as harmless
| (2.5 liters is well within the safe range of water intake as
| far as I know), I'd say give it a try. Just prepare to pee
| more frequently.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| The study measured hydration in terms of sodium, but how do we
| know that the effective age reduction was not (or additionally)
| due to relatively higher consumption of potassium rich foods
| (such as fruits & vegetables)? Potassium can reduce sodium via
| membrane potential.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| We don't. This is why these studies should be taken with a huge
| grain of salt.
| l33tman wrote:
| Very funny :)
| [deleted]
| adrian_b wrote:
| I doubt that the there is any way in which a higher potassium
| intake could reduce the sodium concentration in the blood.
|
| All the living cells in the body pump inside them all the
| potassium that exists in their environment.
|
| When more potassium is ingested, there is more potassium inside
| the cells. That draws more water inside the cells, to restore
| the intracellular concentrations, i.e. the equilibrium between
| the intracellular and extracellular osmotic pressures.
|
| This leaves less extracellular water, but the same amount of
| sodium, so the sodium concentration in the blood increases,
| which causes thirst. After drinking water, both the
| extracellular sodium concentration and the intracellular
| potassium concentration are back to normal.
|
| It does not matter whether one eats more sodium or more
| potassium. The final effect is the same, more water retained in
| the body, after initially having both a higher extracellular
| sodium concentration and a higher intracellular potassium
| concentration.
|
| The difference between sodium and potassium is that when eating
| more potassium there is more water inside the cells and less
| outside, while when eating more sodium the reverse relation is
| true (but the deviations from normal will be corrected when
| sodium and potassium will be excreted).
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm having a Bad Pants day today because we had a big bowl of
| popcorn with our movie last night and I'm retaining water
| because of it.
|
| One of the ways I've controlled weight, tooth decay and
| crossing the A1C threshold into prediabetes is to swap sweets
| for savory snacks, which almost universally come with a higher
| sodium burden (not just salt but also umami).
|
| Telling people that sodium is bad is part of how we got to
| overindulgence in sweets. We do not want to go back down that
| road.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Or even on a more basic level; people that manage their
| hydration probably overall manage their health better.
|
| For me it's a constant balance that's hard to find, am I
| thirsty and lips cracked or did I visit the bathroom six times
| this morning?
| jerryu wrote:
| It would be interesting to run tests with this data on
| alcoholics. Most binge drinkers damage their bodies mostly due to
| dehydration. Could also explain how some get away with minimal
| damage to health
| m463 wrote:
| Could it be that people who sweat have lower serum sodium?
|
| I wonder if it's possible to lower the value not only by adding
| water, but by sweating out the sodium?
|
| People who exercise or use saunas have much lower mortality
| rates.
|
| Of course, maybe they have to hydrate, as they remove sodium
| through their sweat and their body might accentuate their sense
| of thirst.
|
| additionally, people's sense of thirst is decreased as they get
| older.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-02 23:01 UTC)