Talk:Water–electrolyte imbalance

Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) and are typically review articles. Here are links to possibly useful sources of information about Water–electrolyte imbalance.

PubMed provides review articles from the past five years (limit to free review articles)
The TRIP database provides clinical publications about evidence-based medicine.
Other potential sources include: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and CDC

Initial comment[edit]

Most of the articles linked from the table are stubs at this stage. I plan to standardise and expand all of these as time permits. -- FirstPrinciples 03:19, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Definition[edit]

The style for articles is to define the term in the first sentence, and not back into it with a discussion. --NameThatWorks 15:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alarmist statement about renal failure[edit]

Here we have lots of scientific info and no references. I take particular issue with the following proclamation.

The most common cause of electrolyte disturbances is renal failure.

This appears to contradict the information in the next paragraph:

Chronic laxative abuse or severe diarrhea or vomiting can lead to electrolyte disturbances along with dehydration. People suffering from bulimia or anorexia are at especially high risk for an electrolyte imbalance.

I bet these conditions are more common than renal failure. Therefore I feel that the first statement is alarmist. Anyway, since when was Wikipedia in the business of offering diagnoses? I intend to investigate and possibly remove this statement since it seems false. Neoprote (talk) 18:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you may be incorrect, this statement is correct, as the primary causes of sodium imbalances are caused by rapid excretion of sodium from the body and also rapid alterations to the individuals fluid balance. Therefore this statement is not alarmist — Preceding unsigned comment added by AJH0014 (talk • contribs) 23:12, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe not alarmist, but definitely inaccurate. You mention sodium imbalance. Much more common are potassium and magnesium imbalance, the causes of which include metabolic disorders, cancer, dehydration, nutrient malabsorption, use or abuse of diuretics, alcohol, steroids, amphetamines etc. Also marathon runners sweat out electrolytes and sometimes over drink water. Even stress can cause a drop in potassium and magnesium. A lot of otherwise healthy people admitted to hospital with cardiac arrhythmias are found to have electrolyte problems not resulting from renal failure. Starvation is also a cause, including in cases of eating disorders. Renal failure is quite UNcommon, wheras the cases I mentioned above present regularly in emergency rooms. Medication happens to be the most common cause, and I CAN find citations for that. If no citation is forthcoming for the above statement, which I am almost certain is incorrect, I will be editing this with reliable sources. 21stcenturypolitix (talk) 11:32, 26 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hypercalcaemia?[edit]

This article lists calcium as one of the electrolytes that can be imbalanced. I think it would make sense to add a link to the article on hypercalcaemia to the See Also section. Hypercalcaemia, is the overabundance of calcium in the body.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercalcaemia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.115.13.130 (talk) 12:09, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]