Overview of dehydration: What to know, drink types, and tips

The pancreas helps regulate how your body uses insulin and responds to glucose. If your pancreas and liver don’t function properly due to pancreatitis or liver disease, you could experience low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia. Dehydration-related effects, like nausea, headache, and dizziness, might not appear for a few hours, and they can also depend on what you drink, how much you drink, and if you also drink water. But more recent research suggests there’s really no “safe” amount of alcohol since even moderate drinking can negatively impact brain health. People who binge drink or drink heavily may notice more health effects sooner, but alcohol also poses some risks for people who drink in moderation. The more you drink, especially in a short period of time, the greater your risk of alcohol poisoning.

Alcohol and energy drinks

Dehydration occurs when you cannot consume enough fluids to keep up with your losses. An increase in fluid loss can occur during extreme heat, prolonged exercise, bouts of illness, medication intake, or due to certain conditions. You can stay hydrated and prevent dehydration by finding enjoyable ways to consume adequate fluids and increasing your intake of foods with a high water content. Alcohol suppresses a hormone produced by the brain called vasopressin, which tells the kidneys to retain fluid. Instead of retaining fluid, the body will increase urination and lose fluids.

Severe dehydration

One large study found excessive alcohol consumption is linked to accelerated facial aging. Reaching for hydrating beverages is the best way to alleviate a hangover’s unpleasant effects — but not every liquid fits this bill. These are substances that promote urine production, or diuresis. The best hangover electrolytes contain at least 1,000 milligrams of potassium and no more than 40 milligrams of sodium.

How can I prevent dehydration?

Anyone may become dehydrated, but the condition is especially dangerous for young children and older adults. The best way to quickly rehydrate is does alcohol dehydrate you to regain the minerals flushed out due to excessive urination. Although it’s unknown whether alcohol dehydrates muscle, it still has an effect.

Does Alcohol Dehydrate Muscle, Skin, or Both?

While it’s well known that drinking too much alcohol can lead to a hangover, even moderate alcohol consumption can lead to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. If you have mild dehydration symptoms (e.g., thirst, dry mouth, dark yellow urine, headache), simply drinking an ample amount of plain water will likely sufficiently restore your fluid balance. A good way to limit your overall alcohol consumption, and thus limit alcohol’s dehydrating effects, is to alternate alcoholic drinks with glasses of water. Electrolyte drinks, such as pickle juice and healthy, low-sugar sports drinks, help replenish essential minerals like sodium and potassium, which are lost through sweat.

Typical symptoms include fatigue, weakness, thirst, headache, muscle aches, nausea, stomach pain, vertigo, sensitivity to light and sound, anxiety, irritability, sweating, and increased blood pressure. Due to the lower alcohol content, beer will dehydrate you slightly less than liquor. However, due to how alcohol affects the production of ADH, you will still become dehydrated after drinking beer. Consuming one beer leads to a 62% increase in urine produced compared to having a glass of water. The higher the alcohol content, the more dehydrating the drink will be.

• Dehydration can affect multiple bodily functions and cause a wide range of symptoms.
• Consuming a meal containing plenty of healthy fats before drinking buffers alcohol absorption and allows more time to process and detoxify alcohol, which helps prevent dehydration.
• If you are experiencing serious medical symptoms, please see the National Library of Medicine’s list of signs you need emergency medical attention or call 911.
• Dehydration represents a heterogeneous group of conditions with varying clinical and biochemical presentations.

Alcohol works as a diuretic largely because it suppresses the release of a hormone called vasopressin, which is also known as antidiuretic hormone. With less vasopressin in your system, the body excretes more water, which in turn causes you to pee more (2). Acetate and other waste products are then removed from the body as carbon dioxide and water, primarily through lungs. Although the kidneys remove waste products, most of the water loss is due to the effect of vasopressin. The action of suppressing this hormone exacerbates the diuretic effect and leads to dehydration.