Dehydration Lab Report

Our experiment was centered on taking four testing groups and setting a baseline level of dehydration across all four groups. From there each group would be assigned water, coke, Gatorade or remain dehydrated. The test subjects would then consume their assigned drinks based on their body weight. Urine would then be collected at thirty-minute time intervals to measure urine changes. The goal of our experiment was to determine the influence of fluids being introduced into the body of various compositions. All of our subjects were instructed to refrain from eating or drinking five hours prior to lab to try and ensure that all of the subjects were starting at a similar physiological state of slight dehydration. This was done to attempt to place …show more content…
It was expected that following consumption of the assigned drinks there would be an immediate increase across all test groups starting at the thirty-minute interval and slowly tapering off as the test continued. However, what was observed proved opposite to the hypothesis for all test groups except for the Coke test group. The Gatorade, and non-drinker groups remained even at their flow rate at the thirty-minute interval. The water group declined in flow rate contrary to expectations at the first void period. By the second void period, we noticed a steep increase in the flow rate across all groups except for the non-drinking group, and this trend continued up to the ninety-minute interval with the Coke group having the largest flow rate of all test groups. This could be due to the body attempting to assess steps to take to properly return the body to homeostasis and adjusting how much of each regulatory hormone to send to the renal system. It The antidiuretic hormone released from the posterior pituitary likely required time to reach the renal system to trigger the reabsorption of water through the aquaporin channels. In addition, there is a half-life for all hormones that regulate the renal system and as such will not immediately cease their functions. This includes Aldosterone which facilitates the reabsorption of sodium in the nephrons, since the majority of these fluids contain a large amount of sodium there will need to be a slight increase in the level of Aldosterone as the test progresses since the body must also maintain a proper osmolarity. The final hormone ANP, will likely decrease in the beginning of the test due to this hormone promoting the excretion of sodium and water through the collecting duct which is counter to the bodies need to restore hydration levels and maintain osmolarity of the plasma. As