Acceso usuarios
Cristina Casals Vázquez, María de los Angeles Vázquez Sánchez, José Luis Casals Sánchez, Ernesto Suárez Cadenas
Introduction: Currently, there is a lack of information about the effect of dehydration on cognitive performance in athletes. Moreover, this information could be an incentive for athletes to improve their liquid intake and, consequently, obtain performance and health benefits.
Objective: To check the effect of dehydration on cognitive and skill performance in sport.
Method: Systematic review following the Campbell Collaboration guidelines. A bibliographic search was performed in Web of Science using the following topic search strategy: (dehydration OR hydration OR liquid* OR fluid*) AND (cognitive performance OR cognitive function OR decision making) AND (sport* OR athlete*); by two independent reviewers. Inclusion criteria were: original research that test the effect of dehydration on cognitive performance with similar conditions for experimental and control groups, not including food-intake restriction. From a total of 56 articles, 12 articles met the inclusion criteria.
Results: Most of the studies (n=8) showed an impairment of cognitive capacities or skills in sport by dehydration. However, 4 articles did not find significant effects. In general, laboratory tasks are more sensitive to find negative effects of dehydration than a more real context (e.g., basketball shooting).
Conclusions: Cofound variables could affect results due to dehydration induction mechanisms and lack of control studies. Notwithstanding, dehydration seems to impair the cognitive performance and it can be used as an incentive for athletes to prevent dehydration and health problems.
