You might not realize that hydration is essential for healthy hormone activity in your body. Supporting blood circulation is necessary to spread hormones where they’re needed in your body. Because hormones impact everything from mood to hunger, cognition, blood pressure, and blood sugar, dehydration can seriously impact your functioning in some surprising ways. You might even experience some symptoms of hormone imbalances because of hydration without realizing it.
How Hydration Affects Key Hormones
Here are a few examples of how inadequate hydration impacts crucial hormones.
Cortisol
Maintaining hydration helps regulate levels of cortisol, which is associated with stress and plays a role in your body’s fight-or-flight system. Low cortisol levels can help you avoid weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, and osteoporosis associated with elevated cortisol. In contrast, high cortisol can impact your mood, energy, sleep, cognition, menstrual cycle, and immune system. Prolonged cortisol increases can damage the heart because of raised heart rate and blood pressure.
Testosterone
Proper hydration is necessary to produce and regulate testosterone, which is needed for building muscle, ovulation, mood, and energy levels. You need the right amount of testosterone and supportive hydration to maintain fluid balance, blood volume, and overall metabolic function. Your doctor can help determine if you have low testosterone and might benefit from testosterone replacement therapy or TRT. Discover for yourself testosterone cypionate for sale if you have declined testosterone levels.
Insulin
Research shows that drinking more water is associated with less insulin resistance. This helps regulate your blood sugar and may reduce your risk of diabetes along with immediate symptoms such as shakiness, hunger, dizziness, irregular heartbeat, and numbness. Increasing hydration can also help regulate blood sugar in patients with Type II diabetes.
HGH
Humane growth hormone, or HGH, is carried through your bloodstream after being produced in the pituitary gland. As the name suggests, HGH is important for proper growth, especially in children. However, HGH may also have anti-aging effects. That’s why adults with increased fat, low mass, and energy are encouraged to talk to their doctors about getting a blood test to determine HGH levels. If the hormone is low, doctors can write a prescription to get back to healthy levels, much like doctors may prescribe TRT to those with low testosterone.
Estrogen
Hydration’s relationship with estrogen isn’t well understood yet. This is due in part to estrogen’s complicated relationship with another hormone, an androgen known as progestin. Levels of estrogen and progestin fluctuate during your menstrual cycle, making it harder to stay hydrated because estrogen helps tissues retain moisture.
So, you may need to drink more water during some parts of your cycle to feel hydrated.
Of course, dehydration can impact other hormones, and combinations of hormone instability can cause other problems. So, these are far from the only concerns of not being hydrated enough.
Signs You Might be Dehydrated
A good rule of thumb is to drink whenever you’re thirsty, which is often enough to keep you hydrated. However, sometimes our bodies fail to send the right signals, or we don’t catch them, which can lead to dehydration. The following are a few signs that you might be dehydrated.
Dark Urine
If your urine is dark and smelly strongly, you might be dehydrated. It’s normal for urine to be slightly darker when you wake up. As you hydrate, it will become lighter, however.
Fatigue
You may feel fatigued when your tissues lack the necessary moisture to function properly. You don’t have to be seriously dehydrated to experience tiredness caused by lack of hydration.
Dryness
A dry mouth is often a surefire sign that you may be dehydrated unless another condition or medication causes this symptom. Thirst can make your tongue feel thick, while your lips may become dry and cracked.
Your mouth isn’t the only place you’ll feel dry when dehydrated. Dry eyes and skin may indicate that you’re not hydrated. You can even pinch your skin to see if it bounces back to shed some light on your hydration status.
Dizziness
You might associate dizziness or lightheadedness with low blood sugar, but it’s also a sign that you’re not hydrated enough. Dizziness or lightheadedness can impact your focus and balance, so it’s important to intake more water if dehydration is at play.
Headache
Headache is a sign of dehydration that many of us have experienced at least once. The headaches are caused by your brain literally shrinking in response to dehydration. A lack of electrolytes that comes with dehydration may also play a role.
Fortunately, minor dehydration is easily fixed by drinking fluids, especially water. Sports drinks can replenish electrolytes, and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables is also good for hydration. If your issues persist despite a healthy diet and adequate water consumption, it may be time to talk to your doctor.