New Study Shows How Dehydration Harms Cognitive Performance

With only a few hours of intense activity in the heat without drinking enough liquids to affect the concentration.

Conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology, the new meta-analysis examined 33 studies involving 413 subjects in total, focusing on the effects of acute dehydration on cognition. or do not drink.

After statistically analyzing the studies, the team found that functions including attention, coordination, and complex problem solving suffered the most. The results also showed that the majority of participants were committing more and more errors during attention – related tasks that were often repetitive and unattractive, such as hitting a button.

Activities such as reacting quickly, decreased, but not so much. "The simplest reaction time tasks have been the least affected, even though dehydration has worsened, but tasks requiring attention have been affected," says Mindy Millard-Stafford, Senior Researcher at the University of Toronto. 39, study

. car, monotonous work in a hot factory that requires you to stay alert are some of them. Higher order functions like doing maths or applying logic have also dropped. "

The researchers warned that dehydration could even increase the risk of an accident, for example in situations combining abundant sweating and dangerous machines." Dehydration can occur and cause these mental mistakes, the researchers say. There is no exact rule, however, according to the studies included in the review, which aimed at a loss of 1 to 6% of body mass due to dehydration, it appears that impairments more severe start at 2%, a figure also found in other studies.

There is already a lot of quantitative documentation that if you lose 2% in the water, it affects the physical abilities as well. Muscle endurance or sports tasks and your ability to regulate your body temperature, "said Millard-Stafford, adding: you'll be doing sports for a few hours, you lose four pounds, and that's 2% of mass

"If you drop 4 or 5 percent, you're going to feel really bad," said Millard-Stafford. "Water is the most important nutrient."

However, she warned that you can get too much water. "Some people too aggressive, for fear of dehydration, drink so much water that they dilute their blood and their brain swells", which can in extreme cases even lead to death.

She also added that while too much salt is bad for sedentary people or those with high blood pressure, those who sweat a lot need salt to keep the water that they drink.