The best thing to drink with diarrhea is a fluid that contains both a small amount of sugar and a pinch of salt. This combination works because your intestines have a specific pump that pulls sodium and water into your body, but only when glucose is present alongside the sodium. Plain water helps, but it doesn’t replace the salts your body is losing. The right drink does both jobs at once: rehydrates you and restores electrolytes.
Why Sugar and Salt Together Matter
Your small intestine has a transport mechanism that moves two sodium ions and one glucose molecule together across the intestinal wall. Without glucose, sodium isn’t actively absorbed. This is the entire basis for oral rehydration therapy, which has prevented millions of deaths from dehydration worldwide. When you drink something with the right balance of sugar and salt, water follows the sodium into your body automatically.
This is also why drinking something with too much sugar backfires. Fructose and other sugars in high concentrations actually stimulate the gut to push water and electrolytes out, loosening stools further. The key is a low, precise amount of sugar paired with salt.
The Best Options, Ranked
Oral Rehydration Solutions
Pharmacy-grade oral rehydration solutions (sold as Pedialyte, DripDrop, or generic store brands) are the gold standard. They’re formulated to match the ratio your intestines absorb most efficiently: roughly 60 millimoles of sodium per liter and about 3.4% carbohydrate. The World Health Organization’s formula contains just 2.6 grams of salt and 13.5 grams of glucose per liter of water, along with small amounts of potassium chloride and trisodium citrate. These aren’t tasty, but they work better than anything else you can buy.
Homemade Rehydration Fluid
If you can’t get to a store, the Red Cross recommends mixing one liter of clean water with half a small spoon of salt (about 3.5 grams) and four tablespoons of sugar (about 40 grams). Stir until both dissolve completely. This is an emergency substitute, not a perfect replacement for commercial solutions, but it’s far better than water alone. Getting the proportions right matters: too much salt can be harmful, especially for children.
Diluted Broth
Chicken or vegetable broth provides sodium naturally and is easy on an irritated stomach. It won’t have the ideal glucose-to-sodium ratio, but it’s a practical option when you’re also struggling to eat. Sipping warm broth between glasses of water or rehydration fluid can help you stay ahead of fluid losses while getting some calories in.
Herbal Tea
Chamomile tea is a reasonable choice. It’s caffeine-free and has traditional use as an antispasmodic, meaning it can help ease intestinal cramping. Ginger tea may also help settle nausea that often accompanies diarrhea. Neither one replaces electrolytes on its own, so think of herbal tea as a comfort drink alongside a proper rehydration fluid, not a substitute for one.
What About Sports Drinks?
Sports drinks like Gatorade are better than soda or juice, but they’re designed for sweat loss during exercise, not diarrhea. A typical sports drink contains about 18 millimoles of sodium per liter, roughly a third of what an oral rehydration solution provides. It also packs nearly 6% carbohydrate, almost double the concentration in medical rehydration fluids. That extra sugar without enough sodium means you’re getting less efficient absorption.
If a sports drink is all you have, diluting it with an equal amount of water improves the ratio somewhat. But for anything beyond a mild, short episode of diarrhea, an actual oral rehydration solution is the better choice.
What About Coconut Water?
Coconut water is rich in potassium but relatively low in sodium, which is the more critical electrolyte you’re losing with diarrhea. The Mayo Clinic notes that while coconut water contains electrolytes comparable to a sports drink, it’s no more hydrating than plain water. It’s fine as part of your fluid intake, but it has the same limitation as sports drinks: not enough sodium for serious rehydration.
Drinks That Make Diarrhea Worse
Soda and fruit juice. These are the most common mistakes. A can of soda or a glass of apple juice contains far more sugar than your intestines can efficiently absorb at once. The excess sugar pulls water into the gut through osmosis, which is essentially the opposite of what you want. Fructose is a particular offender. It’s concentrated in apple juice, pear juice, and anything sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Harvard Health identifies fructose as one of the biggest dietary triggers for loose stools even in healthy people.
Coffee and caffeinated tea. Caffeine speeds up contractions in the colon, pushing contents through faster than normal. When you already have diarrhea, that accelerated transit time means your body has even less opportunity to absorb water from what’s passing through.
Alcohol. Alcohol impairs water and sodium absorption in the small intestine, disrupts the normal muscle movements that slow food down for digestion, and can shorten transit time through the entire GI tract. It also acts as a mild diuretic. Even a single drink works against every mechanism your body uses to hold onto fluids.
Milk. Many people develop temporary lactose intolerance during a bout of diarrhea because the enzyme that digests milk sugar is produced in the tips of intestinal cells, which are often damaged during infection. Undigested lactose in the gut draws in water the same way excess fructose does.
How Much and How Often to Drink
Small, frequent sips work better than gulping large amounts. Drinking too much at once can stretch the stomach and trigger nausea or vomiting, which only accelerates fluid loss. A good rule is to take a few sips every five to ten minutes rather than finishing a full glass at once. If you’re also vomiting, even smaller amounts (a tablespoon at a time) can still be absorbed.
For adults, aim to drink at least a cup of fluid after every loose stool, on top of your normal fluid intake. For young children and infants, oral rehydration solutions should be offered continuously in small amounts. Children are more vulnerable to dehydration because they have less total body water to lose.
Signs You’re Getting Dehydrated
Mild dehydration shows up as darker urine, dry mouth, and increased thirst. These are signals to drink more aggressively. Moderate dehydration brings noticeable fatigue, dizziness when standing, and significantly reduced urine output. At the severe end, which represents roughly 7% or more of body weight lost as fluid, symptoms include confusion, lethargy, rapid heartbeat, cool or clammy skin, and very little urine. Severe dehydration is a medical emergency, particularly in children, older adults, and people with chronic illnesses, and requires intravenous fluids.
One quick check: pinch the skin on the back of your hand and release. If it snaps back immediately, hydration is likely adequate. If the skin stays tented for a second or two before flattening, you’re behind on fluids.