Jimmy Carter Hospitalized for Dehydration
There’s no doubt that dehydration can be a serious issue with severe health consequences. Understanding dehydration is an important step in making sure you avoid it.
Jimmy Carter and his Wife Eleanor Rosalynn Smith
There’s a high chance that you’ve already heard about all the reasons why staying hydrated is important. From ensuring physical energy to maintaining optimal brain performance, fluids are extremely important to our bodies.
For this reason, we want to discuss the issue of dehydration and all of the negative effects it can have. We’ll explain what it is that happens to your body when it loses fluids, and what you can do to prevent that from happening.
But before we do that, we want to show an example of how serious dehydration can be. This is why we want to share the case of former US president Jimmy Carter.
Collapsing from Dehydration
Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn have been supporters of the non-profit organisation Habitat for Humanity for years. Not only do they donate to the charity, they also actively participate in building the homes.
Carter was helping to build a house in Winnipeg when he suddenly started to feel unwell, after which he collapsed. He had been working in the sun for around one hour, which caused his body to dehydrate. He immediately received medical attention and recovered after rehydration.
Ever since then Carter has asked of everyone to stay hydrated while working, since the adverse effects of dehydration can be serious. He’s undoubtedly right about this, since everyone performing any kind of physical task should make sure not to lose too much fluids.
We wanted to give you this example to paint a picture of what dehydration can do. The symptoms can range from mild to severe. To make sure that you understand this, let’s dig a bit deeper into the issue of dehydration.
Dehydration and Its Effects on the Body
To put it simply, dehydration means that there’s more water leaving your body than entering it. When this happens, you might start experiencing a wide array of symptoms.
Even low levels of dehydration (around 2% of body weight lost in fluids) can cause some uncomfortable symptoms. These include dizziness, low mental clarity, and excessive thirst. This is a tell-tale sign that your body is running low on water, so you should find a way to replenish it as soon as possible.
If you ignore it, dehydration continues producing other symptoms, such as low energy, lethargy, unconsciousness, and even death.
Even though most of us become dehydrated at one point or another, people living an active lifestyle are far more prone to dehydration. A significant amount of water can exit the body primarily through sweating, so dehydration can happen very quickly.
For example, athletes that don’t rehydrate properly will notice a significant drop in performance. This is because loss of fluids brings with it the loss of important electrolytes as well. Ensuring the replacement of these fluids and electrolytes is essential to maintaining optimal performance.
How to Know If You’re Dehydrated?
If you notice any signs that we mentioned above, there’s a high chance that you’re not properly hydrated. If your urine becomes darker or lower in volume, this can also mean that your body needs more water.
What’s important is to rehydrate your body as soon as you notice the first signals. You need to find a good way of replacing the water that you lose, and make sure that your rehydration method is healthy.
Proper Rehydration Strategy
Even though simply drinking plain water might help you avoid dehydration to an extent, this is only true if you’re not losing a lot of it in the first place. If you’re an athlete, or a person doing a physically demanding job, plain water probably isn’t going to be enough.
What you need to do is ensure that your body absorbs the water properly, so your cells can hydrate. Many sports drinks promise to do this, but they’re actually not doing enough and can even damage your health.
To make sure that everyone living an active life can maintain sufficient levels of water and electrolytes, we formulated SOS. Our drinks contain high concentrations of electrolytes and no artificial components.
This means that your body will be able to absorb water quickly so that you can recover in a short amount of time. Drinking SOS and plain water intermittently can ensure that you have an adequate rehydration strategy. If you want to learn more about our solution, be sure to visit our shop.
