Water makes up around 70 per cent of the human body in a health adult. It is essential for digestion, joint function, healthy skin and removal of waste products. It forms the basis for all body fluids, including blood and digestive juices. Water aids in the transportation and absorption of nutrients; and it helps eliminate waste.

Dehydration occurs when more fluid is lost from the body than is taken in. You can lose too much fluid through vomiting or diarrhea (e.g. gastroenteritis), through sweating (e.g. a fever or exercising in hot conditions), or through excess urination (e.g. from diabetes). This causes an imbalance in important minerals, such as sodium and potassium, which are required for muscle and nerve function.

You can usually reverse mild to moderate dehydration by increasing your intake of fluids, but severe dehydration needs immediate medical treatment. The safest approach is prevention of dehydration. Monitor your fluid loss during hot weather, illness or exercise, and drink enough liquids to replace what you lose.

Two Types of Dehydration

* Isotonic dehydration. This is when you lose the same proportions of water and salt as those in the fluid surrounding your cells. It is the type of dehydration most often caused by diarrhoea.
* Hypernatraemic dehydration. This usually happens in infants or children. `Hypernatraemic` means high levels of salt in the blood, so hypernatraemic dehydration is when a child loses relatively more water than salt - for example, when they have watery diarrhoea and/or excessive vomiting.

What are the symptoms?

The main symptom of dehydration is feeling thirsty.

In mild to moderate dehydration, other possible symptoms include:

• Dry mouth, eyes and lips
• Headache
• Tiredness
• Dizziness or light-headedness
• Decreased urine output
• Muscle weakness

When dehydration is more severe, a person may experience:

• Extreme thirst
• Very dry mouth and eyes
• Loss of elasticity in the skin, making it look shriveled
• Passing small amounts of dark, concentrated urine
• Sunken eyes
• Lack of sweating
• Fast heartbeat

Prevention is Better Than Cures

The key to avoiding dehydration is to eat healthly food and drink plenty of water.
The following tips may help you prevent dehydration.

1. Two-thirds of the weight of healthy adults is made up of water and we need 2 - 3 litres of fluid every day to keep our bodies well-hydrated. This is more or less the amount of fluid we lose every day through excretion, breathing and sweating.

2. Our fluid intake comes from what we drink and eat. Our bodies also make a small amount of fluid as a result of the different processes that are always going on in our bodies like breathing and digestion.

3. Drinking regularly throughout the day is the best way to keep well-hydrated. This is because our bodies can't store extra water.

4. Don't let your body get dehydrated, instead keep your body properly hydrated at all times. Water is involved in a huge number of important processes that go on all the time in the body such as transporting nutrients and oxygen, getting rid of waste, temperature regulation of the body, swallowing, digestion, movement of joints and the eye, transport of sound, keeping the correct blood volume and pressure and respiration.

5. Dehydration can put a strain on your body. For instance, as you get more and more dehydrated, your heart has to work harder at pumping the "thicker" blood round the body.

6. Dehydration affects brain power too! Things like decision making, reaction times, concentration, skill delivery and general inaccuracies in what you are doing can all take a nose-dive. Just think about this is in terms of driving a car or riding a bike, apart from the effect on what you are doing at home, work, school or college.

7. If you feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated. It is therefore not the best indicator of how hydrated you are.

8. Checking the color of your pee is though - and it's easy too! Frequently passing large amounts of pale colored pee throughout the day means you are likely to be well-hydrated. However the color can be affected by individual foods such as beetroot, some medicines and vitamin supplements. (One of the B vitamins is bright yellow and as it is not stored in the body, any excess to requirements is lost in the urine.)

9. Water is your simplest and best way to keep up a good fluid intake throughout the day - whether at home or out and about.

10. Water is calorie-free, sugar-free, thirst-quenching and refreshing for body and mind.

11. Often dehydration can be confused with hunger pains. Sometimes by just drinking water the need to eat will also go away.

12. Water from a water ionizer is water that has been filtered while retaining the essential alkalizing minerals in solution. It is also water that is alkalizing, water that is micro-clustered and water that carries a strong negative electric charge (-ORP). Water from a quality water ionizer is healthy, restructured water that is easily absorbed and less likely to create that "lead balloon" feeling.