During long-distance training, men get dehydrated faster than women, proved Dutch physiologists. In Radbud University in Nijmegen, they carried out an experiment which noted that men consume less water than women, but sweat it out four times faster, which puts them in much higher danger of dehydration.
Research
The research included 99 men between the ages of 21 and 82, who took part in the Four Day Marches. They are contests which happen in Holland, where the participants try in three categories divided into long distances. Three quarters of participants trained every day at the distances of 30, 40, and 50 km.
Results
The results provide that the male participants lost twice as much body mass as their female counterparts. Moreover, the monitoring of their levels of plasma indicated that men’s plasma levels decreased, while in women, it increased. The observation suggests that men drank much less than women in terms of water consumed to body mass ratio; on average they would drink 2L of water. After the four days of the Marches, 34% of men showed symptoms of dehydrations, compared to 12% of women.
Conclusion
Men should pay closer attention to the amount of liquids they intake, as they are, according to the research, more likely to not take full advantage of body hydration. You should, therefore, make sure that you drink an appropriate amount of water, based on your body mass, during prolonged training.
Source http//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22092671
