Can Dehydration Increase the Risk for Heart Disease and Stroke?

Yes it can!  

When you do not get enough water:

  1. Your blood gets thicker
  2. Your blood also clots more easily. The blood vessel walls secrete a substance called Von     Willobrans Factor, which causes more clotting.
  3. The blood vessels constrict. (The kidneys secrete angiotensin that causes the bloodvessels to constrict to maintain blood pressure).
  4. Blood vessels form plaques more easily, in an effort to provide hydration. 

One of my favorite resources for information is Dr. Dean Ornish’s web site, Ornish Lifestyle Medicine.

Dr. Ornish was the first to prove that you can reverse heart disease with lifestyle factors such as a low fat vegetarian diet, yoga and mediation, group support and moderate exercise.  His results were published over thirty years ago in the most prestigious medical journals. 

Here is what  I found on his web site about this topic:

“A study conducted in Japan in 2005 looked at people who drank two glasses of water per day compared to those who drank five or more glasses. It found a decreased risk of heart disease in the group of people who drank five glasses of water compared to the group who only drank two glasses. This research suggests that the more water participants drank, the less likely they were to develop heart disease. Furthermore, in the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine research, we noticed that participants experienced more angina when they were mildly dehydrated.”

So the answer is clear: drink plenty of water. A simple formula is about a quart a day if you are less than 150 pounds, 1.5 quarts if you are 150 to 200 pounds and two quarts if you are more than 200 pounds.