Why when you don’t drink enough water it gives you a headache
In: Biology
This is interesting to me. Reading up on this I looked at the “international classification of headaches disorders” manual, which is over 200 pages long, and lists over 300 types of headache. And guess what is not mentioned as a headache type? Dehydration!
https://ichd-3.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/The-International-Classification-of-Headache-Disorders-3rd-Edition-2018.pdf
As for published, peer reviewed literature on the subject, there is:
a 34 person study, that postulated maybe dehydration headaches exist (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14979888/)
And a study that could not determine if increasing water intake reduced headaches. ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280392526_Increased_water_intake_to_reduce_headache_Learning_from_a_critical_appraisal)
An literature review saying there is no evidence of causal link between headache and dehydration (https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/73/suppl_2/97/1930742)
An article saying fluids did not help headaches (https://emj.bmj.com/content/37/8/469)
But google dehydration headaches and there are hundreds of links talking about dehydration headaches…
So while there are plenty of reasons why dehydration could cause a headache (salt levels in the blood, toxins in the blood not flushing away, low blood pressure) I cannot find (reasonable) primary evidence that dehydration is a cause of headache, or that drinking water helps with headache.
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