According to a new study, those who fail to drink enough water every day are putting themselves at risk of a deadly disease!
That being said, experts urge people to make sure they get their 6 to 8 glasses of water per day if they wish to significantly decrease their risk of experiencing heart failure.
Heart failure usually happens when the heart is not able to pump blood throughout the body properly, most of the time because of the organ becoming either stiff or just generally weak.
This is usually a long term condition that tends to get worse as time goes on and it sounds like water intake has a lot to do with it.
The lead author of the study, Dr. Natalia Dmitrieva, explained that “Similar to reducing salt intake, drinking water and staying hydrated are other ways to support our hearts and may help reduce long term risks for heart disease.”
The US National Institutes of Health researcher and her team studied nearly 12,000 adults from the US, all between the ages of 45 and 66.
Furthermore, they all had health records spanning 25 years and did not suffer from diabetes, obesity or heart failure at the beginning of the study.
Amongst them, about 11.5 percent (1,366 people) did develop heart failure later on in life, which is a pretty common affliction that comes with aging.
As part of the research, the team of scientists assessed their blood sodium levels, which tend to increase when fluid levels are low.
With that being said, a normal range is between 135 and 146 milliequivalents per liter, and those who had around 143 mEq/L in their midlife, had no less than 39 percent increased risk of developing heart failure!
Naturally, the conclusion is clear – staying hydrated is really important if you want to support a healthy blood circulation.
Moreover, for every 1 mEq/L increase in serum sodium over the normal range, the chances of being diagnosed with heart failure went up by no less than 5 percent!
The same data also proved that those over the age of 70 with a sodium level of 143 mEq/L were a shocking 62 percent more likely to experience thickening of the heart, a problem medically known as left ventricular hypertrophy.
