We all get poorly and become unwell at times and the body deals with these illness by elimination through the body's organs trying to get things moving to get you back to health, some signs of illnesses are fever, vomiting or diarrhoea, these are signs something is wrong, each one however causes your body to lose additional fluids.
In these cases your body is working harder and require greater resources and you should drink more fluids. Infection such as bladder and urinary tract infections also require increased water intake. Some illnesses make it difficult for the body to excrete fluid and you may need to balance/limit fluid intake.
Caffeinated drinks are diuretic and stimulating in nature so fluid loss and urination can increase because of them, such stimulant are simply not a good idea when you are unwell, give the body what it needs not another job to do. Caffeine is found in coffee, teas, and many soft drinks. Try to drink caffeinated beverages in moderation and focus on consuming more water.
Dehydration is often described as mild, moderate or severe and is usually proportional to your body weight loss through fluids.
Thirst is the first sign of dehydration, your bodies way of saying fluid is needed please drink, excessive thirst (polydipsia) can also be due to illness so if in doubt and there is no relief from your thirst upping your water intake speak to your doctor.
Other symptoms may include dizziness or light-headedness, headache, tiredness, dry mouth, lips and eyes, concentrated urine (dark yellow) passing only small amounts of urine infrequently (less than three or four times a day).
Moderate dehydration can causes you to lose strength and stamina, drink manufacturers spend a fortune and use it constanly as a marketing tool, ie quoting a 4% drop in hydration can give 20% drop in performance.
dehydration is the the primary cause of heat exhaustion, drinking more fluids you should be able to reverse mild to moderate dehydration without medical attention.
If dehydration is chronic and ongoing (chronic) its severe, it can affect your kidney function and also cause liver, joint and muscle damage, cholesterol problems, constipation.
If left untreated mild or moderate dehydration can lead to severe dehydration.
Severe dehydration is a medical emergency and requires immediate medical attention. You should seek medical attention if you or your child has any of the following symptoms: dry, wrinkled skin that sags slowly into position when pinched up, an inability to urinate, or not passing urine for eight hours, irritability, sunken eyes, low blood pressure, cold hands/feet, weak pulse, tired/lethargic, if your vomiting and have blood in it, blood in your stools, fits or seizures.
Severe dehydration is dangerous and can lead to complication, people can die from dehydration.
Hospitalisation may be necessary for this level of dehydration, put on a drip to restore the substantial loss of fluids. You should visit your GP if your symptoms continue, despite drinking plenty of fluids or if you suspect that your baby or toddler is dehydrated.
If your doctor suspects dehydration he will carry out a number of tests.
Contact your GP or out-of-hours service straight away if you are experiencing have any of the following symptoms:
Feeling tired/lethargic or confused, dry mouth and eyes that don't produce tears, not passing urine for eight hours, dry skin that sags slowly into position when pinched up, rapid heartbeat, blood in your stools (faeces) or vomit, low blood pressure.
If your child has persistent diarrhoea that lasts longer than five days, or vomiting that lasts more than 24 hours in adults or 12 hours in a child.
Remeber if in doubt talk to your doctor, just remember the simply act of drinking water is vital, often neglected and forgotten but still vital.
So drink, drink and drink water you’ll feel better for it!
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Water - are you getting enough!
Most people don’t take into account the value and essential nature of water and often informed they are getting plenty with their tea and coffee, unfortunately anything which is a diuretic (encourages the body to lose water) and a stimulant is definitely not the source we need. If you have tea and coffee don’t have to much, enjoy it for what it is a nice drink, it should not be included in your daily quota.
Water is one of the most essential elements to good health it helps;
Digestion, your absorption of food
Proper muscle tone
Supplies oxygen and nutrients to the cells
Eliminates body waste
Water cushions joints and protects tissues and organs like the brain from shock and damage, on a MRI scan dehydration is regularly evident with dengerative changes.
There is not a practising doctor or health professional who doesn’t know or disagrees about the importance of it and generally recommends at least 8 glasses a day every day. It is something we all actually agree on and that speak volumes!.
What is Water – water is the common name for a compound of hydrogen and oxygen H2O. It’s odourless, tasteless, clear liquid, Essential and our survival depends on it.
Since water contains no calories and can serve as an appetite suppressant and helps the bodies metabolism, including fat metabolism therefore a factor in losing weight.
Water is a major and fundamental picture in our quality of our life. Today, people are concerned about the quality of the water they drink. Although water covers more than 70% of the Earth, only 1% of the Earth’s water is available as a source of drinking. Yet, our society continues to contaminate this precious resource. Before water reaches the tap it comes into contact with many different substances, including chemicals and other contaminants. Utility companies use various chemicals such as chlorine to destroy disease-producing contaminants that may be present in the water. Treatment of water is necessary and you have only to look at developing countries to see the desperation for clean water, unfortunately the taste and odour of chlorine is disliked. There are also questions and debates over by-products with possible health risks giving rise to a multitude of filter systems being installed into houses and filters in water containers to help further clean and purify the water.
Water freezes at 0° C (32° F), and its boiling point is 100° C (212° F). Water reaches its maximum density at 4° C (39° F) and expands upon freezing, that’s why in the building industry a lot of problems occur.
Water combines with salts to form hydrates and reacts with metal oxides to form acids (see Acids and Bases) resulting in corrosion in unwanted places.
Water makes up 50 to 90 percent of the weight of living things. Protoplasm is a solution of water and fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and salts. Water transports, combines, and chemically breaks down these substances. Water also aids the metabolic breakdown of proteins and carbohydrates.
A person can survive about two months without food, but only a few days without water.
Water helps maintain a healthy weight. It is hard to distinguish between hunger and thirst. If you feel hungry, drink some water first and then reassess your hunger status.
Water is an important part of your daily bodily functions, so it is important to continually replenish it. Each day, your body loses water through sweat, urination, excretion and breathing. The body loses even more water if you exercise, live in hot or dry climates, consume high fibre diets, and consume caffeine or alcohol.
The bottom line drink more water and make sure you getting enough!
Water is one of the most essential elements to good health it helps;
Digestion, your absorption of food
Proper muscle tone
Supplies oxygen and nutrients to the cells
Eliminates body waste
Water cushions joints and protects tissues and organs like the brain from shock and damage, on a MRI scan dehydration is regularly evident with dengerative changes.
There is not a practising doctor or health professional who doesn’t know or disagrees about the importance of it and generally recommends at least 8 glasses a day every day. It is something we all actually agree on and that speak volumes!.
What is Water – water is the common name for a compound of hydrogen and oxygen H2O. It’s odourless, tasteless, clear liquid, Essential and our survival depends on it.
Since water contains no calories and can serve as an appetite suppressant and helps the bodies metabolism, including fat metabolism therefore a factor in losing weight.
Water is a major and fundamental picture in our quality of our life. Today, people are concerned about the quality of the water they drink. Although water covers more than 70% of the Earth, only 1% of the Earth’s water is available as a source of drinking. Yet, our society continues to contaminate this precious resource. Before water reaches the tap it comes into contact with many different substances, including chemicals and other contaminants. Utility companies use various chemicals such as chlorine to destroy disease-producing contaminants that may be present in the water. Treatment of water is necessary and you have only to look at developing countries to see the desperation for clean water, unfortunately the taste and odour of chlorine is disliked. There are also questions and debates over by-products with possible health risks giving rise to a multitude of filter systems being installed into houses and filters in water containers to help further clean and purify the water.
Water freezes at 0° C (32° F), and its boiling point is 100° C (212° F). Water reaches its maximum density at 4° C (39° F) and expands upon freezing, that’s why in the building industry a lot of problems occur.
Water combines with salts to form hydrates and reacts with metal oxides to form acids (see Acids and Bases) resulting in corrosion in unwanted places.
Water makes up 50 to 90 percent of the weight of living things. Protoplasm is a solution of water and fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and salts. Water transports, combines, and chemically breaks down these substances. Water also aids the metabolic breakdown of proteins and carbohydrates.
A person can survive about two months without food, but only a few days without water.
Water helps maintain a healthy weight. It is hard to distinguish between hunger and thirst. If you feel hungry, drink some water first and then reassess your hunger status.
Water is an important part of your daily bodily functions, so it is important to continually replenish it. Each day, your body loses water through sweat, urination, excretion and breathing. The body loses even more water if you exercise, live in hot or dry climates, consume high fibre diets, and consume caffeine or alcohol.
The bottom line drink more water and make sure you getting enough!
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Food and RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis)
An interesting article I come across while researching inflammation.
Rheumatoid Arthritis Diet: RA and Food Allergies
A new study suggests that food allergies may be linked to RA, after all
By Denise Lynn Mann
If you’ve thought your joints felt achy after a meal, only to doubt yourself after hearing that no evidence links food allergies to rheumatoid arthritis (RA), you are not alone. Until now there has been little evidence of foods that cause inflammation. Evidence suggests it may be time to consider a rheumatoid arthritis diet.
Most studies have focused on antibodies (proteins that attack and destroy foreign substances) in the blood, but that focus may have been wrong. Food-related antibodies may show up in the gut – rather than the blood – of people with RA, and that’s just where researchers at the University of Oslo, Norway, looked.
They found that, in test tubes at least, the intestinal fluid of people with RA had higher levels of antibodies to proteins from cow’s milk, cereal, hen’s eggs, codfish and pork than that of people without RA.
“The gut is the first site of exposure to food, and the immune system in the gut is the first to recognize potential allergens,” says Jonathan Brostoff, DM, professor of allergy and environmental health at Kings College London.
Food allergies occur when your immune system mistakenly believes that something you ate is harmful. To protect you, the immune system produces immunoglobulin E – also called IgE antibodies – against that food. The antibodies set off a chain reaction that causes symptoms.
In some people, the antibodies and proteins bind together and form immune complexes in the intestine. These immune complexes then circulate and get into every nook and cranny of the body, including the joints, where they may contribute to inflammation, says Dr. Brostoff. Once antibodies are made against a particular food, the body instantly recognizes that food the next time it is consumed, and the cycle begins again.
So what should you do if you think certain foods make your RA worse? Keep in mind that this study is preliminary, and it looked at results only in test tubes. The researchers withdrew intestinal fluid from the participants and then added the proteins to the fluid in the lab; participants didn’t actually eat the suspect foods. So unknowns remain.
But if you think there are foods that cause inflammation for you, Dr. Brostoff suggests trying an elimination diet. “Try eating the standard Stone Age diet, which includes only fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, for one month,” he says. Studies have shown that if a person is food-sensitive, this type of diet can help reduce morning stiffness and pain, improve range of motion and lower inflammatory mediators in the blood.
In fact, Dr. Brostoff did an experiment and found that more than one-third of people with RA felt better and had less morning stiffness on this diet. “We had one or two patients who, after one or two months, were so much better they could go walking and do all the things they could do before,” he says.
The next step is to reintroduce foods, one at a time. “The only way of knowing if you are sensitive to a food is to eliminate it and then add it back,” Dr. Brostoff says.
Further information on arthritis can be found on http://www.arthritistoday.org
Any questions please email, thanks Francis Connor info@manchester-osteopaths.co.uk
Rheumatoid Arthritis Diet: RA and Food Allergies
A new study suggests that food allergies may be linked to RA, after all
By Denise Lynn Mann
If you’ve thought your joints felt achy after a meal, only to doubt yourself after hearing that no evidence links food allergies to rheumatoid arthritis (RA), you are not alone. Until now there has been little evidence of foods that cause inflammation. Evidence suggests it may be time to consider a rheumatoid arthritis diet.
Most studies have focused on antibodies (proteins that attack and destroy foreign substances) in the blood, but that focus may have been wrong. Food-related antibodies may show up in the gut – rather than the blood – of people with RA, and that’s just where researchers at the University of Oslo, Norway, looked.
They found that, in test tubes at least, the intestinal fluid of people with RA had higher levels of antibodies to proteins from cow’s milk, cereal, hen’s eggs, codfish and pork than that of people without RA.
“The gut is the first site of exposure to food, and the immune system in the gut is the first to recognize potential allergens,” says Jonathan Brostoff, DM, professor of allergy and environmental health at Kings College London.
Food allergies occur when your immune system mistakenly believes that something you ate is harmful. To protect you, the immune system produces immunoglobulin E – also called IgE antibodies – against that food. The antibodies set off a chain reaction that causes symptoms.
In some people, the antibodies and proteins bind together and form immune complexes in the intestine. These immune complexes then circulate and get into every nook and cranny of the body, including the joints, where they may contribute to inflammation, says Dr. Brostoff. Once antibodies are made against a particular food, the body instantly recognizes that food the next time it is consumed, and the cycle begins again.
So what should you do if you think certain foods make your RA worse? Keep in mind that this study is preliminary, and it looked at results only in test tubes. The researchers withdrew intestinal fluid from the participants and then added the proteins to the fluid in the lab; participants didn’t actually eat the suspect foods. So unknowns remain.
But if you think there are foods that cause inflammation for you, Dr. Brostoff suggests trying an elimination diet. “Try eating the standard Stone Age diet, which includes only fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, for one month,” he says. Studies have shown that if a person is food-sensitive, this type of diet can help reduce morning stiffness and pain, improve range of motion and lower inflammatory mediators in the blood.
In fact, Dr. Brostoff did an experiment and found that more than one-third of people with RA felt better and had less morning stiffness on this diet. “We had one or two patients who, after one or two months, were so much better they could go walking and do all the things they could do before,” he says.
The next step is to reintroduce foods, one at a time. “The only way of knowing if you are sensitive to a food is to eliminate it and then add it back,” Dr. Brostoff says.
Further information on arthritis can be found on http://www.arthritistoday.org
Any questions please email, thanks Francis Connor info@manchester-osteopaths.co.uk
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