The Body's Need For Water

Water is the main liquid contained in the human body. Its role can hardly be overestimated, since most substances are found in tissues and organs precisely in the composition of aqueous solutions. In general, the body of an adult consists of three quarters of water, a newborn child is more - up to 90% of the body weight. With age, the amount of water gradually decreases, which primarily affects the appearance: the skin becomes flabby and loses its elasticity. Loss of water, even insignificant, can lead to serious, including irreversible consequences, without water consumption, a person cannot live more than three days.

Water plays the most significant role in the human cell. Being the best natural solvent, water molecules surround molecules of other substances and ions, separating them from each other and allowing their movement and chemical reactions. Without water, the body would not be able to contain salt, protein, sugar. But even for insoluble substances, such as fats, water is necessary, since it separates them from solutions, creating the possibility of biological activity. Water is the so-called hydrostatic skeleton of a living cell - the basis that ensures its existence, growth and division. By maintaining a constant pressure of water on the cell walls, it becomes possible to build human tissues.

As a chemical element, water is involved in key reactions: hydrolysis of fats, proteins, carbohydrates, the release of energy from ATP molecules, which is why it is so important during physical activity. The transport function of water is no less important - it is the basis of blood and lymph, which carry nutrients and oxygen to organs and tissues and take away decay products and carbon dioxide to remove them from the body. This process takes place in the human body every second, even during sleep.

Without water, a person would not be able to maintain a constant temperature, since this substance has a huge heat capacity - 4200 J. Heat is distributed evenly throughout the volume of the cell, which is filled with water, heat is transferred along the channels of blood vessels, warming the most distant organs and tissues, when the body overheats water evaporates from the surface, giving off heat during the destruction of hydrogen bonds and thereby cooling the body.

Since antiquity, disputes about water have not stopped both among doctors and among people who simply care about their health. The most important question seems to be how much water should be drunk per day for the greatest benefit to the body. Sometimes the figure is one and a half - two liters. However, the most serious studies only lead to the conclusion that everything depends on the individual characteristics of the organism and lifestyle. If a person lives in a hot climate, then the body initially needs much more water than in a cold one, when excess fluid is completely undesirable. If he leads an active lifestyle, goes in for sports, the water consumption increases, the same happens with increased emotionality, nervous overexcitation, intensive work of the brain. The most essential pointdetermining the need for water in the body - the metabolic rate, which depends on all the listed factors and physiological characteristics of each person.

In this regard, it is much healthier and safer for health to drink exactly the amount of water that the most natural and natural water level regulator dictates to a person, taking into account all individual characteristics and the influence of the environment - this is a feeling of thirst. If you neglect this factor for the sake of prescriptions made on the basis of general considerations and average statistical data, you can not only fail to achieve the desired result, but also cause irreversible serious harm to your health, this applies both to those situations when a person is thirsty, and those when forcibly consumes large amounts of water. It is possible to increase or decrease the amount of fluid consumed only as directed by a doctor when it comes to serious metabolic diseases, kidney diseases, and in some situations in pregnant women.

There are many guidelines for water intake for those looking to lose weight. Most of them are based on the fact that you can drink water instead of food, thereby "deceiving" the body. In fact, such an operation is impossible, since the centers responsible for the feeling of thirst and hunger are independent, not directly connected, so no matter how much a person drinks water, he will still feel hungry. In addition, thirst is often quenched with drinks that are high in carbohydrates and fat, such as milk or juices, and their consumption is sometimes tantamount to a small, low-calorie breakfast.

Author: Maria Lev (specially for Calorizator.ru)

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