Lecture Series Focuses on Water, 'The Forgotten Nutrient'

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Susan Yeargin, left, and Lawrence E. Armstrong will give lectures this week about hydration.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Two leading experts on the importance of hydration will take part in a lecture series launched this year by the Human Performance Lab at the University of Arkansas. The series focuses on drinking water, what university researcher Stavros Kavouras calls “the forgotten nutrient.”

Kavouras, an assistant professor of exercise science, joined the faculty of the College of Education and Health Professions in August. He arranged to bring some of the leading researchers in the field of hydration to campus to give kinesiology students, many of whom conduct research in the Human Performance Lab, a chance to learn from these experts. The lectures are also free and open to the public.

“Even though water is the most important nutrient, we tend to forget it,” Kavouras said. “A significant percent of people tend to under-drink and so are chronically mildly dehydrated. This phenomenon happens because we don’t feel thirsty until we are already dehydrated.

“We have found that a mild degree of dehydration has detrimental effects both in health and exercise performance,” he continued. “I believe that scientific knowledge on hydration and health is approximately where smoking research was in the 1970s. There are still many things to learn.”

The two speakers will be on campus this week. Susan Yeargin will speak about “Protecting Youth During Exercise in the Heat.” She is assistant professor of athletic training at the University of South Carolina. Her talk will be at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 12, in Room 311 of the Health, Physical Education and Recreation Building.

Yeargin has conducted research on hydration and related issues for the past 10 years and serves as an expert for the Korey Stringer Institute’s Medical Board and MomsTeam.com panel. She also serves on committees of the National Athletic Trainer Association.

Her past studies include hydration status measurements, hydration behaviors of children and adolescents, heat acclimatization of youth, pre-cooling ergogenic aids, cooling for heat illness treatment, core body temperature validity, and thermoregulation in exercising individuals.

Lawrence E. Armstrong will speak about “Assessing Human Hydration Status” at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, March 14, in the auditorium of the Graduate Education Building. Armstrong is a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut. The National Academy of Kinesiology ranked Connecticut’s doctoral program in kinesiology No. 1 in the nation. Kavouras and two other assistant professors in Arkansas’ kinesiology department – Matthew Ganio and Brendon McDermott – earned their doctorates under Armstrong at UConn.

Armstrong’s research specialties include human fluid-electrolyte balance and assessment of hydration status, physiological responses to exercise, dietary intervention, heat tolerance, effects of dehydration on physical performance, effects of mild dehydration on mood and cognitive performance, physiological responses to wearing uniforms, and pharmacologic influences on thermoregulation and heat acclimatization as they apply to athletes, firefighters and military personnel.

Armstrong developed a widely used hydration assessment chart in the 1990s that represents how urine color indicates hydration status. Urine ideally should be pale yellow or straw-colored. The darker the urine, the more concentrated it is and the more dehydrated the individual.

Erica Perrier, a hydration and physiology scientist with Danone Research, spoke on campus in January as part of the series.