Polydipsia refers to excessive thirst or excess drinking.
It is a nonspecific symptom in various medical disorders.
It can be seen in diabetes mellitus, often as an initial symptom or in cases of poorly controlled disease.
Diabetes insipidus can also cause polydipsia.
Polydipsia can also be caused by a change in the osmolality of the extracellular fluids of the body, hypokalemia, decreased blood volume and other conditions that create a water deficit.
It is usually a result of osmotic diuresis.
Polydipsia is also a symptom of anticholinergic poisoning.
Zinc reduces symptoms of polydipsia by causing the body to absorb more fluids by reduction of diarrhea, and induces constipation, and it causes the body to retain more sodium.
Zinc deficiency can be a possible cause of polydipsia.
The combination of polydipsia and nocturnal polyuria is seen in primary hyperaldosteronism.
Antipsychotics agents cause dry mouth and may cause thirst.
Primary polydipsia is excessive thirst and water intake caused in the absence of physiological stimuli to drink, and
includes both psychogenic primary polydipsia and non-psychogenic primary polydipsia, such as in patients with autoimmune chronic hepatitis with severely elevated globulin levels.
Psychogenic polydipsia: excessive water intake with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, and/or the developmentally disabled.
On rare occasions psychogenic polydipsia can be life-threatening as the body’s serum sodium level is diluted to an extent that seizures and cardiac arrest can occur.
Habit drinking can be found in the absence of psychosis or other mental conditions.
Chronic ingestion of excessive water can produce diagnostic results that closely mimic those of mild diabetes insipidus.
Most patients with habit polydipsia have no other detectable disease.