Drink
to Your Health
New Views on Fluid Consumption
The hyponatremia issue has forced sports and medical groups to
take a new look at their hydration guidelines, and several have
already adjusted their recommendations.
Boot
camp: The Army has put new recruits through a period of hard physical
training since day one, but the first hyponatremia death wasn't
reported in the journal Military Medicine until early 1999. Two
years later, the same publication brought news of 17 hyponatremia
cases in a 2-year span, along with the statement: "The authors
conclude that hyponatremia resulted from too aggressive fluid
replacement practices for soldiers in training status." The
Army's fluid-replacement recommendations have since been lowered.
Marathon
medicine: Last fall, the International Marathon Medical Directors
Association (IMMDA) issued the first fluid-consumption guidelines
from a medical organization completely focused on runners (as
opposed to, say, soccer, baseball, or football players). IMMDA,
which represents some 150 major marathons on all seven continents,
suggests that marathoners should consume 13 to 27 ounces of fluid
per hour, with an absolute ceiling at 27 ounces. For more, visit
aims-association.org/immda.htm.
That's
about half the fluid requirement proposed since 1996 by the widely
quoted "Exercise and Fluid Replacement" position stand
of the American College of Sports Medicine, which calls for 20
to 40 ounces per hour. For more, visit acsm-msse.org, and click
on "Position Stands."
Boston
Marathon and USA Track & Field: For the first time in its
107-year history, the Boston Marathon this spring provided all
20,000 runners with a fold-out pamphlet from the American Running
Association and the American Medical Athletic Association. It
advised runners to stay hydrated but not to overdrink, to maintain
a salty diet, to favor sports drinks, and to recognize warning
signs. Also at Boston, USATF released its first-ever guidelines,
"Proper Hydration for Distance Runners," which recommended
that runners weigh themselves before and after long, hard training
runs to determine their own unique sweat rate. For more info,
visit usatf.org/coaches/library.
A
note from our friends at Gatorade: Sure, they're an advertiser.
But the thing we like most about Gatorade is the company's long
commitment to supporting research and education efforts on topics
relating to fitness, nutrition, and health. The Gatorade Sports
Science Institute (gssiweb.com) has recently published one of
the most comprehensive advisories on hyponatremia, "Hyponatremia
in Athletes." Here you'll find everything from the possible
effects of a recessive Cystic Fibrosis gene to a section on metabolic
water production while running. Mostly, the folks at Gatorade
want you to know that proper hydration is important, and that
you're an experiment of one. That is, each of us sweats at a different
rate, produces varying amounts of sodium in our sweat, and reacts
differently to heat stress.
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