Why does sodium-heavy liquids like pickle juice, chicken noodle soup, or saline hydrate you better than regular water when you’re dehydrated, but salt water dehydrates you?

Question

Why does sodium-heavy liquids like pickle juice, chicken noodle soup, or saline hydrate you better than regular water when you’re dehydrated, but salt water dehydrates you?

In: 925

Answer 1

Salt water has a much higher amount of salt in it than those other things. If you’re dehydrated you probably are low on salt (electrolytes) so a bit of salt is good. But if you take in a lot of salt your body has to flush it out with water through urine which gets rid of the water in your body