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[–] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

I feel like three days isn't enough time to die from the absence of wine, but then again I'm not French.

It's just funny the way the headline is written. I'm assuming they meant more along the lines of "survives 3 days while drinking wine" not "survives 3 days by drinking wine" lol because unless you are starting out extremely dehydrated already, then a 3-day dry fast is absolutely not going to kill you.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    ??? 3 days without water can definitely be lethal

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago

    Well yeah, 10 minutes without water can definitely be lethal under the right circumstances too if you are already only 10 minutes away from dying from dehydration. I'm just saying that lying mostly still in a sunless ravine in autumn in France for 72 hours, while it's raining, is not peak conditions for quick death from dehydration. And in any case, all I'm really saying is that claiming the guy survived by drinking the wine, meaning he would have otherwise died from dehydration, is not a supoortable conclusion and is just there to make the headline more fun.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    He wasn't in the Rockies. It was France in October. The issue would have been to stay warm so I don't imagine dehydration was seriously an issue obviously it would have become eventually but not after 3 days.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    Three to four days is the longest you can survive without water before you die. So he probably would have been dead or close to death without the wine.

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  • [+] -1 points 1 year ago (7 children)
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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    BBC science News today says it will hydrate you enough to keep you alive. The guy in the news story stayed alive too.

    https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/on-a-desert-island-would-it-be-better-to-drink-wine-or-go-thirsty

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The threshold for dehydration is about 2% alcohol, so no it won't

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Wine would provide enough hydration to prevent you from dying of thirst.

    Source On a desert island, would it be better to drink wine or go thirsty? - BBC Science Focus Magazine https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/on-a-desert-island-would-it-be-better-to-drink-wine-or-go-thirsty

    "For the 13 per cent alcohol content of most wines, that equilibrium point would still leave you badly dehydrated (not to mention hopelessly drunk), but it should prevent you from dying of thirst"

    Very similar situation to the news story we're commenting on.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Oh, thanks for that, I read different but here's the key thing that I think was missing from the analysis I read:

    But the concentration of alcohol required for this increases as you get thirstier. If you just drank wine on your desert island, you would initially lose more water than you gain from wine, but as your body became more dehydrated, it would produce more ADH to compensate and you'd eventually reach an equilibrium point.

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