When my son was younger, I admit that I have used carbonated drinks as a substitute for oral rehydration solution we he suffered from gastroentiritis and diarrhea. Mainly because he wouldn't take anything. The oral rehydration solution must have been really awful for his taste. I know i don't like its taste either.


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But when he started puking out the meds that was prescribed by his pediatrician, I had no choice but to go back to the doctor's clinic and asked the my son be confined in the hospital so he could be put on IV fluids. The pediatrician agreed. I guess she also didn't want to take the risk in a toddler fast losing fluids.

Now, the question. Are carbonated drinks effective alternatives to oral rehydration solution? As a chemist I know, that oral rehydration solution contains the right balance of salts necessary for somebody losing body fluids such as in diarrhea and vomiting. Carbonated drinks have more sugar than salts!

Moreover, researchers at the children's emergency department at Watford General Hospital were unable to find any published trials to back this up whether carbonated drinks are as effective as oral rehydration solutions. As they published in the May issue of Archives of Disease in Childhood - 'Flat' carbonated drinks should not be used as an alternative for oral rehydration solution to prevent dehydration in children with acute vomiting and diarrhea!

The authors concluded:

There was little information available from clinical studies on the effectiveness of using carbonated drinks compared with oral rehydration solution for the prevention of dehydration in children with gastroenteritis, but that there were many scientific analyses demonstrating their inappropriateness.

Carbonated drinks, 'flat' or otherwise, including cola, provide inadequate fluid and electrolyte replacement and cannot be recommended.

I agree. But what do we do to make kids drink electrolytes? I gave up so I went back to the hospital. But then inserting the IV needle to a 2-year old arm was another horrible experience. More than three years have passed and our experience have not happened again. Not yet. I've been really careful since then, especially with the drinking water. We've been drinking bottled water since then.

Source: Science Daily