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

Basically your body is always trying to find balance which is called homeostasis. Dehydration also usually means low electrolytes so sodium replacement is important.

Also waster follows salt so giving saline basically means you are giving the body both the water it needs and the salt it needs to draw it into the kidneys.

If you want to know more about how this works google the loop of Henle, this is the structure within the kidneys which draws in the sodium and thus the water. Fascinating biology