Factors Influencing Drinking & Hydration



Factors Influencing Drinking & Hydration

Water is the most abundant compound and the largest single constituent of the human body. Stability of composition and volume of body fluid is of paramount importance for the survival and function of living organism (Voke et al 1994). However water is the most abundant constituent of every tissue (Adolph et al 1933) plays a key role in maintaining multiple physiological functions (Thomas et al 2008).

It accounts for approximately 60 percent of the total body weight in normal adult (Groff et al 1999).Two thirds of water in the body is intracellular (Thomas et al, 2008). How ever the intracellular component of the body water accounts for about 40 percent and extra cellular component for about 20 percent (Ganong et al 2003).Thomas et al (2008), observed Only 25% is intravascular, plasma is about 5% of body weight and 75% outside the blood vessels ,(interstitial fluid about 15% of body weight). The total blood volume is about 8% of body weight (Ganong et al 2003).Although water make up from 40 to 70 percent of body mass, depending on age, gender, and body composition; it constitutes 65 to 75 percent of the weight of muscle and about 10 percent of fat mass (McArdle et al 2006).

The relation ship between total body water and age among healthy free living. Visser et al (1998) observed that the amount of total body water decreases independent of body weight changes. But Noppa and colleagues followed 79 women in five different age strata for 6 years and observed an increase was statistically significant in the two oldest age strata in which the women were 54 and 60 years, respectively, at baseline. Hewitt and Williams 1993, although, observed that the total body water volume in older and young adult male ...