Current Events > Does water retention mean you urinate less?

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So I was doing some reading about water and salt balance, kidney function, etc, and I have a few questions for those who have knowledge on the subject, since I've read some conflicting literature.

1. When you drink, say, 1 liter of water in a 24h hour period. Does that mean that you will excrete via urine exactly 1 liter? Or is that water going to be excreted via other forms as well? Sweating, breathing, temperature regulation, etc?

2. I've heard that if you eat a high sodium diet, your body will retain water. Does that mean that water is taken from what vou would normally excrete via urine and distributed along the body to balance the extra sodium consumed? In other words, does this "water retention" make you urinate LESS in a day, since water is being kept in the body instead of excreted via urine?

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You'll probably urinate most of it out, but some will be kept for cellular functions (if needed, most of your water actually comes from the food you eat) and some is lost through sweat and other processes as you stated.

Yep, retention means that you'll urinate less except I believe this is typically utilized by the body to preserve electrolytes, not get rid of them. So if your sodium levels were dangerously low, you might not urinate at all because the osmotic action would remove even more sodium from your system. I think they would probably treat acute urinary retention at the hospital with a hypertonic saline solution, but I'm not a doctor or anything like that.

There are many factors involved in this. Kidney function, hormone levels. It also depends on what you take in. If you're an avid coffee drinker you'll probably urinate more because caffeine functions as a diuretic.

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