oral rehydration therapy

oral rehydration therapy (ORT), treatment consisting of a salt-and-sugar-based solution taken orally to treat dehydration from diarrhea. The salts can be prepackaged and typically include a combination of sodium, glucose, potassium, and citrate to be mixed with clean water.

Oral rehydration therapy is cheap, effective, and easy to administer. A homemade solution can be prepared by mixing eight level teaspoons of sugar and one level teaspoon of salt in one liter of clean water. ORT has been shown to reverse dehydration in more than 90 percent of patients with acute diarrhea. Since the World Health Organization began using ORT in 1978 as its primary means of fighting diarrhea, the annual death rate among children under 5 suffering from acute diarrhea has fallen from 5 million to fewer than 1 million. Diarrhea is a leading cause of death among children under 5 in developing countries. When a person has diarrhea, the body loses both fluid and necessary electrolytes, including sodium and potassium. Even though the person may still be experiencing diarrhea, ORT works to replenish the body in two ways: sugar or glucose makes the absorption of salt into the intestine more efficient, and salt promotes water’s absorption into the intestinal walls.

Research that led to the development of ORT began in 1960 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, when the Cholera Research Laboratory was established to evaluate treatments for cholera. In 1971 an outbreak of cholera among refugees from the Indo-Pakistan conflict rapidly depleted supplies of intravenous saline. This provided an opportunity to use the oral rehydration solution that was being tested at the Johns Hopkins Center for Medical Research and Training in Kolkata. The fatality rate from cholera among refugees fell from 30 percent to 3.6 percent. Since then, ORT has successfully reduced mortality related to diarrhea throughout the developing world.