Rehydration by mouth worked about as well as a drip in children
Across 17 trials and 1,811 children with gastroenteritis, drinking a rehydration solution matched an intravenous line, and those treated by mouth went home about a day sooner.
What the study found
Rehydration by mouth kept 24 in 25 children off a drip
The medical use this category borrows its name from is the one with the evidence behind it. Pooling 17 trials and 1,811 children with gastroenteritis, drinking a rehydration solution worked about as well as an intravenous line, and those treated by mouth went home roughly a day sooner.
The caveat · Sick children, not anyone in a gym
Children with gastroenteritis, which is nobody in a gym. The trials were graded poor to moderate quality and mostly unblinded, since a drink cannot be disguised as a drip. Each route carries its own complication: vein inflammation with the drip, a stalled gut with drinking, roughly one in 50 and one in 33. The death counts, six against two across four trials, are far too small to read anything into.