Why is it important to control water levels in your body?

Answer 1

Water, more precisely "normal saline" once it is processed in the body, affects all other hormones. For example, if you aren't drinking enough water plus other fluids, it can affect your Sodium levels which also can affect calcium, chloride, magnesium, and most importantly, potassium. Sodium and Potassive have an inverse relationship, like a seesaw-- when one goes up, the other goes down. So if you hold back too much on salt intake and don't drink fluids containing sodium, your sodium can go down, forcing your potassium up. Both sodium and potassium affect muscle--your heart is a muscle. An imbalance of potassium can affect heart rhythm.

As well, we sweat all day and night, and especially with exercise. If you don't drink water and other fluids after exercise, you can make an electrolyte imbalance even more pronounced. You can become dehydrated, go into lactic acidosis, and need IVs to replace fluids and bring the acidosis under control. Without IVs your muscles (heart, stomach, intestines) would ache, then the larger muscles. Your heart could become arrhythmic; acidosis would continue to climb; your kidneys would be taxed.

Conversely, too much fluid intake can "shift" the electrolytes so severely that you can suffer brain-fluid intoxication--which can kill.

It's important to note, however, that people who have swelling-- like swollen ankles, called edema, often think they must restrict their fluid intake. But in most cases--not all though--we need to drink to help get rid of edema and keep electroltyes in normal balance. So if you have edema in ankles or ascites in the belly, talk to your doctor first about what fluids you should or should not have.