Context:
Drinking water (especially bottled water) makes me just… *more* thirsty for water.
I generally don’t feel very thirsty through the day. Like, I just don’t feel like I need a drink. But whenever I drink water, like I said, it makes me feel a lot more thirsty like I *need* more water.
It’s as if I’m eating snow, the more “water” I consume the more I feel like it’s actually dehydrating me. And admittedly, sometimes my throat feels more dry, or *still* feels dry after drinking (if I already felt dry).
Someone said it may be because I need more electrolytes. What are those and what do they do? How does this help me not feel like I’m dehydrating when I drink water?
In: Biology
Thirst is triggered by something called high osmolarity.
Electrolytes are things dissolved in blood. The most abundant and the most important electrolyte in blood is sodium. Sodium determines the osmolarity of blood, or in other words how much stuff is dissolved in blood. This is important because water likes to flow from high concentration of stuff to low concentration of stuff (osmosis) so inbalance in amount of sodium can cause water to leave the cells or enter them (causing them to die).
When the concentration of sodium in the blood gets too high, your body triggers thirst in order to add more water to dilute the sodium.
When you exercise, sweat contains a little bit of salt so if you work out and sweat a lot and then only replace the water part then your sodium becomes too low. This does not trigger thirst but rather water retention (you will pee less) to maintain the same concentration of sodium.
For your example: drinking pure water should never make you more thirsty, it seems you just are not taking in enough water your body needs so it keeps sending the thirsty signal. On the other hand, drinking salty sea water will make you thirsty because you are adding water to your blood but also a shit load of salt so you are making the situation worse.
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