I have heard that it dehydrates you to death, but couldn’t you just keep drinking water? Even before modern medicine I’m sure water wasn’t impossible for people to get.
Edit: Thank you for the simple answers! In hindsight, I feel kind of silly not realizing that you need to ABSORB the water…
In: Biology
It is not just the water, it really becomes the loss of electrolytes that is problematic after some time or if the diarrhea is severe enough.
And before you ask, no – Gatorade or other electrolyte waters won’t be enough to restore normal electrolyte balance in moderately severe or worse diarrhea.
Even in a best case scenario, if you were to try and restore what you were losing by drinking lots of fluid, it gets to a point where you can’t consume enough fluid with electrolytes fast enough to keep up with losses, or you cause more electrolyte abnormalities by drinking too much “pure” water. This is why when you go to the hospital for severe diarrhea or dehydration, we use intravenous fluids which have high concentrations of certain electrolytes in them (usually salt, others have potassium, sodium bicarbonate, and different ratios of sodium chloride)
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