Does Alcohol Dehydrate You? Facts, Research, and Tips

Dehydration can cause headaches, muscle aches, brain fog, and fatigue, and hydrating with water and electrolytes helps restore fluid balance and can minimize the unpleasant aftereffects of alcohol. With interrupted production of vasopressin due to the consumption of alcohol, you start to lose more water through urination, which can cause those symptoms of does liquor make you dehydrated dehydration. Sometimes we can enjoy these adult beverages a little too much.

Alcohol begins to build up in your bloodstream

• The Reframe app equips you with the knowledge and skills you need to not only survive drinking less, but to thrive while you navigate the journey.
• Alcohol works as a diuretic in your body, increasing urine output.
• Alcoholic beverages like wine have their pleasures, but drinking too much wine or other alcohol in short order can leave you feeling dizzy, tired, and even with a headache.
• To understand why alcohol makes you urinate more you need to understand ADH.
• Research published in Circulation found that potassium mitigates the adverse effects of alcohol on cardiovascular function and reduces the risk of high blood pressure.

If you alternate alcohol and water as you drink, you slow your intake of alcohol. This may give your liver more time to metabolize it, but that can also be accomplished by simply drinking more slowly. Pay attention to how your body is feeling whenever you drink. Monitor your fluid intake and how much urine you are producing.

• A vodka with soda is likely more hydrating than just a shot of vodka because you’re consuming more fluids from the soda.
• When you don’t adequately replace this excess loss of fluids, you become dehydrated.
• Generally, the more alcohol you drink, the more likely you are to have a hangover the next day.
• So that espresso martini or Irish coffee might end up making you need the bathroom.

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• These might lead to dehydration more quickly, according to a 2010 study 8 9.
• As a side note, that’s one of the reasons why one of the best at-home hangover cures is a few glasses of water as soon as you wake up and have a headache.
• Sipping on one whisky all evening will likely mean you ingest less alcohol overall than three or four standard glasses of wine.
• This, in turn, could slow down the urine production of your kidneys, which means you’ll pass the wine out of your system more slowly as well.
• While mild dehydration isn’t anything to worry about and can quickly be remedied by drinking water, moderate or severe dehydration can impair critical physiological functions.

Alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine, and liquor, can change your body’s fluid balance by reducing the secretion of vasopressin, a hormone involved in the regulation of urine output (6, 7, 8, 9). Between your Thursday night wine and your Saturday night cocktail, you have a fairly good sense of what kind of hangover you’re in for on Friday and Sunday mornings. But beyond the type of alcohol you’re imbibing, you might not realize how much dehydration enters into the hangover equation. In severe cases of dehydration, drinking water alone may be insufficient.

Choose Drinks with Lower Alcohol Content

But ask your healthcare professional if this is safe for you and how much medicine is best for you. These medicines may not work well together with other medicines you take. Electrolytes are found in common foods, including salt, bananas, and watermelon, and can also be consumed from electrolyte-specific drinks or mixes. Stoutz emphasizes the importance of hydrating before and during drinking, which can minimize how dehydrated you become.

Just because your friends are taking that extra tequila shot doesn’t mean you have to. Let’s talk about dehydration from alcohol — why it happens, how to avoid it, and the immediate remedies you can use to avoid a hangover. Mind you, you’ll be a bit better off than if you didn’t drink any extra water at all, but you’ll still be dehydrated.