How to Prevent an Electrolyte Imbalance

Fluids in your body

Athletes have been swigging electrolyte replenishers since 1965. That was the year a Florida Gators coach asked doctors why his players were wilting so quickly in the heat. Their answer? The players were losing too many electrolytes. Their solution was to invent Gatorade. So, what are electrolytes and why are they important?

Water and electrolytes are essential to your health. At birth, your body is about 75 to 80 percent water. By the time you’re an adult, the percentage of water in your body drops to approximately 60 percent if you’re male and 55 percent if you’re female. The volume of water in your body will continue to decrease as you age.

Fluid in your body contains things such as cells, proteins, glucose, and electrolytes. Electrolytes come from the food and liquids you consume. Salt, potassium, calcium, and chloride are examples of electrolytes.
Electricity and your body

Electrolytes take on a positive or negative charge when they dissolve in your body fluid. This enables them to conduct electricity and move electrical charges or signals throughout your body. These charges are crucial to many functions that keep you alive, including the operation of your brain, nerves, and muscles, and the creation of new tissue.

Each electrolyte plays a specific role in your body. The following are some of the most important electrolytes and their primary functions:
Sodium

    helps control fluids in the body, impacting blood pressure
    necessary for muscle and nerve function

Chloride
    helps balance electrolytes
    helps balance electrolytes
    balances acidity and alkalinity, which helps maintain a healthy pH
    essential to digestion

Potassium

    regulates your heart and blood pressure
    helps balance electrolytes
    aids in transmitting nerve impulses
    contributes to bone health
    necessary for muscle contraction

Magnesium

    important to the production of DNA and RNA
    contributes to nerve and muscle function
    helps maintain heart rhythm
    helps regulate blood glucose levels
    enhances your immune system

Calcium

    key component of bones and teeth
    important to the movement of nerve impulses and muscle movement
    contributes to blood clotting

Phosphate

    strengthens bones and teeth
    helps cells produce the energy needed for tissue growth and repair

Bicarbonate
    helps your body maintain a healthy pH
    regulates heart function

When electrolytes become unbalanced

Fluids are found inside and outside the cells of your body. The levels of these fluids should be fairly consistent. On average, about 40 percent of your body weight is from fluids inside the cells and 20 percent of your body weight is from fluids outside the cells. Electrolytes help your body juggle these values in order to maintain a healthy balance inside and outside your cells.

It’s normal for electrolyte levels to fluctuate. Sometimes, though, your electrolyte levels can become imbalanced. This can result in your body creating too many or not enough minerals or electrolytes. A number of things can cause an electrolyte imbalance, including:

    fluid loss from heavy exercise or physical activity
    vomiting and diarrhea
    medications such as diuretics, antibiotics, and chemotherapy drugs
    alcoholism and cirrhosis
    heart failure
    kidney disease
    diabetes
    eating disorders
    severe burns
    some forms of cancer

Preventing electrolyte imbalance

The International Marathon Medical Director’s Association offers the following guidelines for maintaining good hydration and electrolyte balance during activity:

    If your urine is clear to straw-colored before a race or workout, you’re well hydrated.
    You should drink a sports drink containing electrolytes and carbohydrates if your sporting event or workout lasts longer than 30 minutes.
    Drinking water with a sports drink decreases the beverage’s benefits.
    Drink when you’re thirsty. Don’t feel you must constantly replenish fluids.
    Although the needs of each individual differ, a general rule of thumb is to limit fluids to 4–6 ounces every 20 minutes of a race.
    Seek immediate medical advice if you lose more than 2 percent of your body weight or if you gain weight after running.

Serious emergencies from electrolyte imbalances are rare. But it’s important to your health and, if you’re an athlete, your performance to maintain a healthy electrolyte balance.
Symptoms of electrolyte imbalance

Symptoms of electrolyte imbalance vary depending on which electrolytes are most affected. Common symptoms include:

    nausea
    lethargy
    fluid retention

Call 911

Electrolyte imbalances can be life-threatening. Call 911 if someone has the following symptoms:

    confusion or sudden change in behavior
    severe muscle weakness
    rapid or irregular heartbeat
    seizures
    chest pain

Treatment

Treatment is determined by the cause of the electrolyte imbalance, the severity of the imbalance, and by the type of electrolyte that’s either in short supply or overabundant. Treatment options normally include either increasing or decreasing fluid intake. Mineral supplements may be given by mouth or intravenously if depleted.

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Sea Salt good for skin care, not just for eating alone !

The Ahava lab is a mandatory stop for tourists to the Dead Sea. You first watch smart, white-coated technicians working among machines behind a glass partition, then tour a shop filled with an amazing array of products. Dream merchants! The creams, pills and solutions — all made from the “magnificent” minerals of the shrinking sea nearby — promise spotless skin, flawless complexion, and an ageless body. Later, you enter the sea after a dip in black, gooey mud enriched with these mineral salts.

Salt, it would seem, is the next big beauty ingredient. The mineral may get a bad rap with food, but “in its raw, crystal form, salt stimulates skin renewal and boosts radiance,” . “The minerals activate ‘osmotic pump’, that attracts water and nutrients from the lower layers of the skin up to the outer skin layer, where moisture is needed most.” A handful of coarsely ground sea salt, mixed with skin-nourishing grape-seed oil can slough off dead skin cells, while the oil replenishes moisture. Sea salt may cause dryness, but it's a wonderful exfoliant, it adds. Mineral-dense Dead Sea salts bring water into the skin, and prevent fine lines and wrinkles. Cleopatra used it!

Works as an ex-foliator

Incorporating sea salt into your beauty regimen may do you a world of good. “Used with almond / coconut / mint oil, it exfoliates, invigorates, and nourishes the skin. Fill a spray bottle with lukewarm water and a teaspoon sea-salt, spritz it on your face and blot it dry. The salt should dry out any troublesome acne, but remember to moisturise afterwards. Create a paste with salt, baking soda and water, and scrub your teeth with it every other day. You’ll quickly notice your teeth sparking!”

It is said that stubborn acne started to clear up when one swam regularly in the sea. Convinced that the minerals in salt are anti-inflammatory and can soothe skin problems, she began experimenting with salt mixtures, and came up with a combo of “mineral-rich” Himalayan pink salt and the “sodium chloride-heavy” Pacific Ocean salt to “clear up acne without irritating sensitive skin.” Add salt to shampoo for a scalp massage before washing as “salt will help absorb excess oil, unclog follicles stopped up with sebum and product gunk, and reduce the inflammation associated with dandruff and psoriasis on the scalp.

 Salt, because it is crystalline, can be rubbed on the skin to act as an exfoliator, a skin polish, says Dr.  It does mechanical, micro-dermabrasion. You can do it with sodium chloride or aluminium hydroxide — it's like having a sand, mud or clay-paste pack. But don’t let it get into the body, she warns. In a thermogenic effect, the chemicals get absorbed. Salt retains water and may precipitate kidney problems.

May be Dead Sea salts are lighter and smoother; use them only if they don’t harm you.

The flipside

Dermatology treats individual skin type, a specific problem, they say. When you get your skin treated, you have to use prescribed creams, not over-the-counter ones. Our medicines are those approved by the FDA. One needs a medical base, a license to prescribe them. There is no “rejuvenating salt”. We can only go by “published evidence”. The product must have gone through proper trials like double-blinding and evidence-grading, says Dr.  Products made abroad go through rigorous tests and mandatorily publish their composition. Here we see “conditions apply”. Even when we use aloe vera-based products, we recommend compositions that contain emollients to balance their alkaloid effect on the skin.

“A dip in the Dead Sea is supposed to cure psoriasis,” Dr.  says. “But it could be ultra-violet-B rays (photo-therapy) and the relaxation. Psoriasis responds beautifully to both. But back at home it returns and the patient returns to us.”

ps- this is only for information, always consult you physician before having any particular food/ medication/exercise/other remedies.

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