Evaluation and education of hydration and sodium status in a cool environment among Chinese athletes

Y.-L. Fan, Z.-Y. Li, Y.C. Loh

Department of Human Resources, Xinxiang Institute of Engineering, Xinfei Dadao South Section, Xinxiang City, Henan Province, China. lizeyun@yahoo.com

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• Sports Medicine

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to find the significance of several factors with parameters of urine tests and blood tests. Finally, we aimed at evaluating the percentage of athletes from the study sample regarding their hydration level.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The current study is the prospective type and was conducted on Chinese athletes between June 2021 to April 2022. The study was done in 2 parts for obtaining measurements in the summer season and the winter season and then they were correlated between them. Urine and blood samples were evaluated for determining the required parameters. The parameters of the physical environment like temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, etc. were obtained from the concerned weather station for each day.

RESULTS: It was observed that 14.5%, 59% and 26.5% of the female participants were found to have hyper-hydrated, euhydrated and dehydrated, respectively. While 17.57%, 69.69% and 12.74% of the males were classified as hyper-hydrated, euhydrated and dehydrated, respectively. The participants with hyper-hydrated were found to have increased urine volume (p<0.001), reduced specific gravity (p<0.001) and reduced-sodium level (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: The study found that there is a significant difference in sodium levels between gender and seasons. The level of serum osmolality is also significantly different between the whole study populations concerning combined seasons. In this way, many other parameters are evaluated by correlation with seasons and gender. Hence, this study has brought forward various important findings and gives an overall evaluation of hydration status.

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