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Why Does Diabetes Cause Excessive Thirst?
Various diabetes signs and symptoms can be easily detected for diabetes. Most resources on diabetes out there do not provide sufficient information on the ‘why’ part as far as this condition is concerned.
Research shows that over 60% of the body is made of water. When one experiences thirst, it is a way of the body communicating low water levels. While it is a normal feeling when it is hot or after some rigorous activities, thirst could go beyond the usual feeling. It is important that you get concerned if you keep on refilling your water bottle. This could be a signal for some health problems.
What are thirst and dehydration?
Dehydration is a condition where the body does not have sufficient water to run normal body tasks. One of the common symptoms is thirst. However, this could be as a result of diarrhea, vomiting, excessive sweating, and vigorous exercise among other reasons. Other signs of dehydration include:
- Headache
- Urine that is dark in color
- Dry skin and mouth
- Lightheadedness
- Unexplained fatigue
- Feeling need to pee often
Thirst and dehydration are closely related. If the need to take water is unreasonably high, consult with your doctor.
Diabetes and thirst
Having a serious urge to quench your thirst could be a signal for something worse. It is one of the symptoms of diabetes. Excess sugars in the body could be passed to the urine. This means more water is drawn into the urine thus causing you to pee frequently. The need for more water, thirst, increases since your body must replace the lost water through urine. Other symptoms that could come along thirst during diabetes include:
- Unexplained hunger
- Fatigue
- Poor or blurred vision
- Poor healing of bruises and cuts
This type of diabetes is called Diabetes Inspidus. There is a need to understand some of the reasons why thirst tends to increase with diabetes.
Why does diabetes cause thirst?
It is important to mention that not all cases of thirst indicate signs of diabetes. In most cases, this is not a good indicator. It could slowly creep thus not causing alarm. Fever, flu, common cold, allergies, and dehydration could also cause thirst. When excessive thirst is linked to another condition, the symptom is known as polydipsia. Until certain dehydration levels, thirst in diabetics could be ignored or unnoticed to be a symptom. Glucose gets highly concentrated in the blood.
The ability of the kidneys to reuptake the glucose from water goes down. Normally, almost all glucose should be removed. Osmotic pressure builds up causing reduced water absorption back into the bloodstream, but rather it is lost. This causes increased urge for more water to replace it.
