Water is Paramount in Summer Health Care
Water is Paramount in Summer Health Care
Water is the best beverage for cooling off in summer and serves as the source of blood, lymph, digestive fluids, sweat, urine, and interstitial fluids in the body. It is essential for maintaining metabolism, regulating body temperature, transporting nutrients, sustaining acid-base balance, and promoting the excretion of waste and toxins. On hot days, how should the elderly hydrate?
Develop a habit of proactive hydration
Summer heat causes heavy sweating, leading to maximum fluid loss. Elderly individuals have reduced organ function and about 15% less body fluids than middle-aged and younger adults, resulting in poorer thermoregulation and heat resistance. Failure to drink water regularly and promptly can easily lead to physiological dehydration, raising body temperature, causing dry mouth, dizziness, fatigue, increased blood viscosity, impaired circulation, and higher risk of serious conditions like hypertension, cerebral thrombosis, and myocardial infarction. Many elderly people already have high blood viscosity and greater risk of cardiovascular disease. Dehydration can trigger ischemic stroke or even sudden death. Dehydration also causes constipation, difficult defecation, and complications like hemorrhoids and anal fissures, causing great discomfort. Therefore, the elderly should drink water proactively, not waiting until thirsty. Thirst is a sign of dehydration crisis—by then, it's already too late to replenish.
Avoid binge drinking
Some elderly individuals, especially after returning home or completing physical labor or exercise, prefer to gulp down large amounts of water or other drinks. This "rapid intake" method provides only temporary relief and harms health. It suddenly increases cardiac workload, dilutes blood too quickly, drastically lowers blood concentration, causing palpitations, dizziness, and discomfort. Those with heart disease face greater danger. It also rapidly dilutes gastric juices, distends the stomach wall, damages the gastric mucosa, impairs appetite and digestion, worsening existing gastric conditions. Rapid water intake prevents normal absorption by tissues, failing to relieve thirst effectively and instead triggering excessive sweating, leading to arrhythmias and blood pressure instability. For elderly individuals with cardiovascular disease, this can cause sudden cardiac arrest. Therefore, elderly individuals should drink water slowly, in small amounts, multiple times daily—avoiding binge drinking.
Best choice: plain boiled water
Physiologists worldwide agree that plain boiled water has ideal physiological activity, easily passing through cell membranes for efficient utilization by the body. It enhances the activity of lactate dehydrogenase in organs, effectively improving the body’s resistance and immune function. It also helps quickly eliminate "fatigue substances"—lactic acid—from muscles, rapidly relieving fatigue, restoring energy, and maintaining alertness. Its health benefits surpass many premium beverages. Plain boiled water easily penetrates skin and cellular tissues, turning subcutaneous fat into a "semi-liquid" state, slowing skin aging, reducing wrinkles, and making the skin appear plump and soft. Thus, the elderly should drink more plain boiled water in summer.
Salt water and tea are most thirst-quenching
Excessive sweating in summer not only loses water but also salts (sodium chloride), vitamins, potassium, magnesium, and other trace elements. Drinking only plain water means ingested water struggles to enter blood vessels or stay in cells and easily passes into sweat glands and bladder, quickly excreted. This fails to quench thirst and may cause palpitations, dizziness, and discomfort. Adding a small amount of salt (about 1 gram per 500 ml water) to boiled water helps retain moisture and effectively relieves thirst.
Many elderly people enjoy drinking tea—a healthy habit. Tea contains abundant vitamins and other nutrients. Daily tea consumption replenishes lost fluids and essential nutrients, stimulates saliva production, refreshes the mind, boosts appetite, and offers detoxifying and antibacterial effects. However, elderly tea drinkers should observe four principles: 1) Prefer mild tea over strong tea; 2) Drink cool water, not scalding hot; 3) Consume small amounts slowly, not in large quantities at once; 4) Avoid tea before bedtime—prefer plain water—to prevent adverse reactions.
Drink appropriate amounts daily
Excessive water intake can cause cellular swelling and water intoxication. Brain cells react fastest—brain edema can have severe consequences. Thus, both dehydration and overhydration are harmful. How much water should one drink daily? Experts suggest healthy adults consume about 2,500 ml total daily from food and drinks. A simple rule: excluding dietary intake, drink 6–8 cups of water daily to meet basic needs and maintain fluid balance. For overweight individuals, add one extra cup for every 25 pounds (11.24 kg) above normal weight. Experts recommend elderly individuals drink one cup of water half an hour before lunch and dinner, another before bedtime, and two cups upon waking (each about 250–300 ml). Combined with small, frequent sips (including tea), this meets the body’s hydration needs.
Drink water upon waking to prevent illness
After waking, drinking two cups of water (each about 250–300 ml) on an empty stomach effectively replenishes physiological water loss, reduces blood viscosity, accelerates circulation, and promotes rapid elimination of metabolic waste like feces and urine. This plays a crucial role in preventing cerebrovascular events such as cerebral infarction, cerebral thrombosis, hypertension, atherosclerosis, angina, and urinary tract stones or infections. In summer, elderly individuals with low body fluid levels are prone to discomfort in aged tissues and joints due to significant water loss. Timely hydration in the morning prevents dehydration, moisturizes the body, and effectively avoids sudden cardiovascular crises. Regularly drinking cool boiled water upon waking is like taking a broad-spectrum tonic—highly beneficial for elderly health.
By Zhang Hongjun