SAMUEL TAYLOR Coleridge knew a thing or two about dehydration, judging by his lines in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water everywhere and all the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere Nor any drop to drink.”
Coleridge’s Mariner wore the carcass of an albatross around his neck, not a classic sign of dehydration, but he may also have been suffering from weakness, low blood pressure, dizziness, confusion, and even premature wrinkling of the skin, due to lack of drinking water.
Yet unlike the Ancient Mariner, we may not actually realise we are becoming dehydrated.
Warns physician Arnaldo Liechtenstein: “People over 60 generally stop feeling thirsty and consequently stop drinking fluids (see ‘Why do we forget to drink?’).
“When no
