Dehydration can lead to attention deficiencies
Stay Hydrated
Story by: Joyce Kpeglo
Researchers at Penn State’s Department of Biobehavioral Health discovered that even minor dehydration can reduce a person’s capacity to focus on tasks over time.
The researchers discovered that the amounts of dehydration that occur during nonstrenuous, ordinary activities decreased people’s ability to pay attention to tasks longer than 14 minutes but had no significant influence on other executive functions, such as working memory.
Specifics of the Study
The researchers, led by Asher Rosinger, associate professor of biobehavioral health and anthropology and director of the Water, Health, and Nutrition Lab, and Kyle Murdock, associate professor of biobehavioral health, evaluated 78 adults aged 47 to 70 years old, all of whom had adequate access to safe drinking water, three times over three months.
“We chose to study middle-aged and older adults because this is the age group where we start to see risk of cognitive decline,” Rosinger stated.
Previous study, according to medicalexpress.com, has highlighted concerns about the effects of dehydration on cellular health, kidney function, biological ageing, the risk of chronic disease, and early mortality. According to Rosinger, it has generated mixed outcomes in terms of cognitive ability.
Unlike prior research that produced participants’ dehydration, this study did not modify hydration status and instead examined ad libitum dehydration—adults’ naturally occurring dehydration from normal, everyday functions. Participants were advised to avoid high-fat foods, coffee, and exercise on the days of the assessment in order to accurately measure their level of dehydration.
To assess hydration, the researchers examined the balance of dissolved particles, such as sodium or potassium, and water—known as serum osmolality—in blood samples from each subject at three time points.
Participants in the study completed surveys and four neurological tests to examine their inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and sustained attention. The researchers discovered that the more dehydrated the person, the lower their performance on the sustained attention task.
“This suggests that if a person is, on a daily basis, drinking less water than their body needs, it may take them slightly longer to complete certain long tasks with slightly more errors,” Rosinger said.
“The good news is that dehydration was only associated with poorer performance for tasks requiring sustained attention,” “It shows that in daily life when adults are not experimentally dehydrated—such as sitting in a sauna or going for an hour bike ride without drinking water—their cognitive performance on short tasks is not different than those who are better hydrated,” Asher Rosinger explained.
Consequences of dehydration.
The study’s main finding, that dehydration mainly affects lengthier tasks, has practical consequences. Rosinger emphasized the importance of water for good cognitive function in professional obligations, which frequently require prolonged concentration without rests in between.
Dehydration can cause a variety of mild to severe symptoms, ranging from brief mood disturbances to life-threatening problems.The findings highlight the necessity of proper hydration in maintaining people’s optimal functioning as they age.
“It is important that older adults drink water regularly,” Rosinger added.
He explained that raising awareness regarding hydration would benefit this population, particularly since previous Penn State research demonstrated that as people age, their thirst in response to dehydration steadily declines.
“The relationship between hydration and cognitive performance is particularly important in middle-aged and older adults given that they are more vulnerable to dehydration,” Rosinger said. “They start to drink less water.”
The researchers stated that they intend to keep researching the effects of hydration on adults who are susceptible to dehydration. Their future research will focus on how access to clean water is impacted by climate change and extreme weather events, as well as how interventions may be used to enhance health and well-being.
“This issue is going to be increasingly important as temperatures increase under future climatic scenarios, which will increase water needs,” Researcher Asher concluded.
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