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Legendary college football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was hired by Texas A&M in 1954 in an effort to turn around a program that had only achieved two winning seasons out of its previous eight. He began with a now-infamous 10-day summer training camp in the Texas heat.

Temperatures hit triple-digits at times, but Bryant still implemented one of his tried-and-true methods for toughening up a football team: water deprivation.

Team trainer Smokey Harper agreed with the tactic, even reportedly saying: “Hell, you never pour ice water into a car’s hot radiator. So why pour ice water into a hot boy?”

Can you imagine? What a difference today. Even though there are still some dinosaurs around coaching kids today, most of the people training our kids know how critical water is to health.

Fortunately, we live in more enlightened times in which dehydration is recognized as the important health hazard it is, especially during these appallingly hot summer days.

The heat speeds up the dehydration process by causing profuse sweating which drains the body of fluids, sodium, potassium, calcium, bicarbonate and phosphate at an increased rate. You can get dehydrated at one of three different levels: mild, moderate and severe; with increasing risks of serious and possibly lasting consequences.

Mild dehydration can be treated easily by drinking water or sports drinks that contain electrolytes. Be careful though because some sports drinks have a surprisingly high sugar content and should be used as a supplement to water, not exclusively. Moderate dehydration may require medical attention, and severe dehydration requires a trip to the emergency room.

Symptoms of mild and moderate dehydration include:

• Thirst

• Dry mouth and/or tongue

• Darker yellow urine

• Headache

• Muscle cramps

If you’re beginning to experience any of these symptoms, try sipping water or sucking an ice cube. If improvement isn’t evident within 15 to 30 minutes consider getting medical help. Avoid salt tablets; they can cause complications, even though dehydration is caused in part by the loss of body salts.

Symptoms of severe dehydration include:

• Irritability

• Dizziness

• Lightheadedness

• Heart palpitations

• Rapid breathing

Any of these require quick attention in addition to gentle oral fluids.

If you’re a parent, take special care to make sure your children are drinking enough fluids as they play outside this summer, because the onset of dehydration occurs faster in children.

A child at play in hotter weather, particularly 95 degrees and above, doesn’t adjust as well to the heat as an adult would. Pay especially close to your child if they’re overweight, since they’ll experience mild dehydration symptoms sooner than a child in a normal weight range would.

If your child plays an outdoor sport during the summer, particularly when temperature and humidity are high, make sure he or she enters play hydrated and takes as many water breaks as possible. Preventing dehydration symptoms, not treating them, is the goal.

Keep in mind that if a child feels thirsty from physical exertion, he or she may already have mild dehydration and should stop to rest and drink water.

Get out and have fun; sweat a little; work those muscles but be smart. Smarter than Bear and Smokey, please.

Alfred Casale To Your Health
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/web1_casale.jpg.optimal.jpgAlfred Casale To Your Health

By Alfred Casale

To Your Health

Dr. Alfred Casale is chairman of surgery for the Geisinger Heart Institute, co-director of the Cardiovascular Service Line for the Geisinger Health System and Associate Chief Medical Officer for the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center. Readers may write to him via [email protected].