2y ago

What are the long-term effects of childhood dehydration?

Does anyone have a list of long-term effects that may arise from periods of severe dehydration in childhood, particularly how this might affect overall health in adulthood?

3 comments

I guess in very severe cases the kidneys and the urinary tract in general could be affected.
Well, the context matters greatly here. If dehydration is severe enough to lower blood pressure (a.k.a. hypovolemic shock) it can cause long term brain, liver, kidney, and heart damage. That is assuming you survived. It could also cause local ischemia ( loss of blood flow) requiring limb amputation.
If it is not bad enough to cause shock, the most probable long term sequelae would be kidney damage. Dehydration can precipitate ATN (acute tubular necrosis). In a kid this may appear to be transient. It would kill a certain percentage of your available nephrons. As a kid, you only need ~20% of your nephrons to assume full kidney function. This would mean that you would appear to recover but would likely go into kidney failure at an early age.
There are also psychological effects depending on severity and duration.
Likely a person will, like livestock, put on less LEAN weight and be smaller in size. Quantity and quality water results in higher yields in all domestic livestock.