[pct-l] Water Consumption - desert

[Eric Lee]

Steel-Eye wrote:
>
I've heard that story several times over the years, and I don't believe it.
No-one yet has given me a sound, technical reason why such would be the
case.  Anyone care to try?
>

Add me to the list of people who think that's an urban (mountain?) legend.
It makes no sense according to my understanding of thermodynamics.  In fact,
reality is exactly the opposite.  Assuming you maintain a more or less
constant surface area, the object with the more mass inside of it will
actually retain heat longer and be more temperature-stable than the object
with less mass.

The only case I can think of when a full bladder might be correlated with a
cold body is if you get hypothermic so that both your body and your urine
are at a lower temperature than they should be.  In that case, it would be
best to eliminate the cold fluid so you don't spend energy warming it up to
98.6 F again.  But if you start out warm, a full bladder isn't going to play
any part in radiating heat away from your body faster than it would
otherwise.

Now, peeing before you go to sleep is good advice in any case, and I know
that when you have to go real bad that all of your other discomforts (real
and imagined) can seem to be magnified.  So yeah, waking up in the middle of
the night is no fun.  But the contents of your bladder have no effect on the
actual temperature of your body.

Eric