dehydration

Also known as hypohydration

In physiology, dehydration is a lack of total body water that disrupts metabolic processes. It occurs when free water loss exceeds intake, often resulting from excessive sweating, health conditions, or inadequate consumption of water. Mild dehydration can also be caused by immersion diuresis, which may increase risk of decompression sickness in divers.

AI overview

Dehydration happens when your body loses more water than it takes in, which disrupts the normal chemical processes your body needs to function. This can occur from sweating a lot, certain health conditions, or simply not drinking enough water.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Key facts

Medical condition (new).name: Dehydration
Medical condition (new).image: Cholera rehydration nurses.jpg
Medical condition (new).caption: Nurses encourage a patient to drink an oral rehydration solution to treat dehydration caused by cholera.
Medical condition (new).field: Critical care medicine
Medical condition (new).symptoms: Increased thirst, tiredness, decreased urine, dizziness, headaches, and confusion
Medical condition (new).complications: Low blood volume shock (hypovolemic shock), coma, seizures, urinary tract infection, kidney disease, heatstroke, hypernatremia, metabolic disease, hypertension
Medical condition (new).causes: Loss of body water
Medical condition (new).risks: Physical water scarcity, heatwaves, disease (most commonly from diseases that cause vomiting and/or diarrhea), exercise
Medical condition (new).treatment: Drinking clean water
Medical condition (new).medication: Saline

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Research

59,103 papers

via PubMed

Wikidata facts

Image: Humanitarian aid OCPA-2005-10-28-090517a.jpg

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WordLift URL: data.medicalrecords.com/medicalrecords/healthwise/dehydration
ICPC 2 ID: T11
exact match: purl.obolibrary.org/obo/SYMP_0000020
NCI Thesaurus ID: C26740

Sources (8)

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Article

14 sections

Contents

Signs and symptoms
Cause
Mechanism
Diagnosis
Definition
Physical examination
Laboratory tests
Prevention
Treatment
Prognosis
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Most people can tolerate a 3–4% decrease in total body water without difficulty or adverse health effects. A 5–8% decrease can cause fatigue and dizziness. Loss of over 10% of total body water can cause physical and mental deterioration, accompanied by severe thirst. Death occurs with a 15 and 25% loss of body water. Mild dehydration usually resolves with oral rehydration, but severe cases may need intravenous fluids.