High-Protein Diets Cause Dehydration
By Liza Jane Maltin
WebMD Medical News
April 22, 2002 -- Even super-fit endurance athletes can become dangerously dehydrated while adhering to popular high-protein diets, new research shows.
Researchers presented their findings today at the Experimental Biology meeting in New Orleans.
William Forrest Martin, graduate student in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Connecticut, and colleagues watched what happened to trained athletes when they consumed diets containing low, medium, and high levels of protein.
Based on a 150-pound person, the diets contained 68 grams, 123 grams, and 246 grams of protein, respectively, and were adjusted for each athlete. The athletes remained at each protein level for four weeks.
The researchers tested each athlete periodically for blood urea nitrogen, a measure of proper kidney function that also indicates how well someone is hydrated.
Although all the athletes drank about the same amount of fluids, their hydration level went down significantly as their protein intake went up.
What this all means, the researchers say, is that athletes and regular folk alike should drink plenty of water when they're eating a lot of protein, whether or not they feel thirsty. In fact, most of us could all do with a few more glasses of water each day, they say. Even slight dehydration increases the likelihood of heat illness and other disorders and impairs cardiovascular function.

We don't do high protein. We do high fat

Perhaps someone will figure this out one of these days.

Problem:


Solution:


I don't see a problem here.

Nat

Heheheh

Nat I always thought the golden rule regardless if you were dieting or not was to drink 8 - 8 oz glass of water a day.

For some reason this seems to slip past everyone

I personally don't see a problem with having to drink more water ... it is after all what the body is mostly made up of

Whenever I see that fact about the human body I have this Star Trek flashback where humans are identified as "ugly bags of mostly water"

Nat (geek)

Actually, we posted and discussed this "study" in our Research/Media forum, way back in April when it was first publicized. You can read it, our discussion and related articles here.

What we noted was that the "study" was actually little more than an experiment. There were only 5 participants, and no control group. They did NOT restrict carb intake.

The study concluded that people consuming a high protein diet need to drink more water.

Duh!

Doreen