WHEN WE ARE THIRSTY and in need of a drink, a glass of water is not really the most hydrating beverage around. Researchers found that while water is good in quickly hydrating the body, beverages with a little sugar, fat or protein do an even better job of keeping us hydrated for longer.
Why? It has to do with how our bodies respond to beverages. One factor is the volume of a given drink: The more you drink, the faster the drink empties from your stomach and gets absorbed into the bloodstream, where it can dilute the body’s fluids and hydrate you.
The other factor affecting how well a beverage hydrates relates to a drink’s nutrient composition. For example, milk was found to be even more hydrating than plain water because it contains the sugar lactose, some protein and some fat, all of which help to slow the emptying of fluid from the stomach and keep hydration happening over a longer period.
Milk also has sodium, which acts like a sponge and holds onto water in the body and results in less urine produced.
The same can be said for oral re-hydration solutions that are used to treat diarrhea. Those contain small amounts of sugar, as well as sodium and potassium, which can also help promote water retention in the body.
Electrolytes – like sodium and potassium – contribute to better hydration, while calories in beverages result in slower gastric emptying and therefore slower release of urination.
But beverages with more concentrated sugars, such as fruit juices or colas, are not necessarily as hydrating as their lower-sugar cousins. They may spend a little more time in the stomach and empty more slowly compared to plain water, but once these beverages enter the small intestine their high concentration of sugars gets diluted during a physiological process called osmosis. This process in effect “pulls” water from the body into the small intestine to dilute the sugars these beverages contain. And technically, anything inside the intestine is outside your body.
Juice and soda are not only less hydrating, but offer extra sugars and calories that won’t fill us up as much as solid foods. If the choice is between soda and water for hydration, go with water every time. After all, our kidneys and liver depend on water to get rid of toxins in our bodies, and water also plays a key role in maintaining skin’s elasticity and suppleness.
While staying hydrated is important – doing so keeps our joints lubricated, helps prevent infections, and carries nutrients to our cells – in most situations people don’t need to worry too much about how hydrating their beverages are.
If you’re thirsty, your body will tell you to drink more. But for athletes training in warm conditions with high sweat losses, hydration is a critical issue. Can beer and lattes keep you hydrated? Alcohol acts as a diuretic, which causes you to pass more urine, so when it comes to alcoholic beverages hydration will depend on a beverage’s total volume. Beer would result in less water loss than whiskey, because you are ingesting more fluid with beer. Strong alcoholic drinks will dehydrate, dilute alcoholic drinks will not. By Manny Palomar, PhD (EV Mail Dec. 26, 2022-Jan. 1, 2023 issue)
