If you are stranded in the desert and only have Soda to drink

[Osprey]

Sorry, I haven't waded through this entire thread and if this has been mentioned, my bad- but don't forget the whole issue of the salt replacement. If you're trudging through a desert and sweating (or sometimes even running a marathon) and all you drink is pure, fresh water, you will drop your sodium and be in danger of neurological problems, seizure and death. Because you are excreting salt through your sweat and you are only replacing it with dilute waterr, you are diluting your body's plasma chemical composition which will drop your sodium and put you at risk for badness. I don't think soda is any better than water, I believe that's why things like Gatorade came about.

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Well, if we're going back to the medical discussion, I'll chime in.

The issue with dehydration has more to do with the sodium/water ratio than it does with actual total body water. This is why drinking sea water is deadly - the sodium content is too high and causes problems with hypernatremia well before volume depletion would be a problem.

Caffeinated soda will cause some diuresis - therefore, drinking a volume of caffeinated soda will make you pee more than an equal volume of water would. But caffeine is a weak diuretic and there isn't that much in soda anyway. It seems unlikely that you would excrete more volume than you took in, especially if you were somewhat dehydrated to start off with.

So, in order of death, first - nothing, second - soda, third - water.

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Since you seem to know what you're talking about, does the sugar that you're going to get from the soda do anything as far as helping your body operate? With just water (and no food) you're going to kinda run out of energy and be only burning fat, which you would run out of at some point.

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Yes, the sugar in soda will provide you with some energy (calories). I was only considering the water issue (which is much more important than calories - you can survive weeks with no caloric intake, but only a few days without water). So I still think that you would survive longer with just water than with just caffeinated soda.

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[theBruiser500]

kurosh is kind of crazy that's all, some of you others are mean though. reminds me of a book i read a long time ago about high schoolers who use the power of a group to pick on one weaker person, Chocolate War (the author, Robert Cormier is also author of everyone's favorite book, I Am The Cheese).

[microbet]

Osprey,

True. I wandered the desert one time and got very dehydrated. I would throw up after drinking water. Gatorade was the thing.

[Alobar]

this thread is pretty sad for a number of reasons

thanks for the good read!