No Need to Guzzle All That Water, Expert Says
 

No Need to Guzzle All That Water, Expert Says
Fri Aug 9, 7:40 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trying to do the "right" thing by drinking eight full glasses of water a day may do little more than make a person run to the bathroom, a researcher said on Friday.

Related Links
• Dartmouth Medical School news release

Newspaper articles, health and beauty magazines all advise drinking at least 8 full glasses of water a day totaling 64 ounces for optimal health -- an approach called "8x8" by proponents.

But Dr. Heinz Valtin of Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire said there is no scientific evidence to back up this advice, which has helped create a huge market for bottled water.

"After 10 months of careful searching I have found no scientific evidence that supports '8x8'," Valtin, who has written textbooks on the subject of human water balance, said in a telephone interview.

Writing in the American Journal of Physiology, Valtin, a kidney specialist, said people forget that the food they eat also contains some water.

The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council ( news - web sites) has recommended that people take in about one milliliter of water for each calorie of food eaten.

This adds up to two liters, or 74 fluid ounces on an average 2,000-calorie diet. But the National Research Council also noted that much of this is already contained in food.

"I did 43 years of research on that system -- the osmoregulatory system. That system is so precise and so fast that I find it impossible to believe that evolution left us with a chronic water deficit," Valtin said.

LOW ON FLUID

If a person gets low on fluid, the body compensates by bringing fluid back out of the kidneys and by slowing the loss of water through the skin, Valtin said. Thirst kicks in long before dehydration starts, he added.

"It does it very quickly and very accurately and it does so in minutes," Valtin said.

He said he and colleagues became concerned after seeing dozens of newspaper and magazine articles urging people to sip water all day. "I started talking to my colleagues and asking them 'Do you know of any evidence for this?'. Invariably, they said, 'No I think it's a myth'," Valtin said.

The journal asked him to review all the scientific studies he could find and he concluded that someone misinformed has been telling people to drink large amounts of water when most do not need to.

"I am referring to healthy adults in a temperate climate leading a largely sedentary existence," Valtin said. "Persons with certain diseases must have large volumes of water -- kidney stones are probably the most common example."

The rest can just drink enough to slake thirst -- and this includes coffee, tea, and even beer -- despite their diuretic effects, Valtin said.

He hopes people will be relieved of the guilt of not getting enough water, and of the expense of buying bottled water to drink throughout the day.

"There is also the possibility that if you drink a lot of water that happens to be polluted then of course you get more pollutants," Valtin said.

"Then there is the inconvenience of constant urination, the embarrassment of having to go to the bathroom all the time," he added.

And overdoses of water can cause water intoxication that can lead to confusion and even death. Water intoxication is one deadly effect of taking the drug Ecstasy, for instance, because it makes people thirsty beyond their physical needs.

Water Intoxication?? :confused:

Interesting article... Well without drinking enough water throughout the day, could lead to dehideration couldn't it? You also get thirsty which of course is a good reason to have a bottle of water... The water is also a source of fiber, which is good for that. hmm

SooCee :wave:

Water intoxication occurs at levels of 2 gallons of water per day or more.

Low-carbers need extra water. Ketosis dehydrates. If low-carbers don't drink their water, they can get kidney stones. On the other hand, high-carbers retain water and don't need to drink as much, because they are bloated.

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/.../a/aa051200.htm

bascially, you drink so much water, your blood sodium level drops because the water is diluting the blood. this causes brain swelling and a whole host of problem from confusion up to seizures, coma and death.

this link talks about it in atheletes but another cause is metal illness. you have to drink _alot_ of water.

And overdoses of water can cause water intoxication

goody, a lot cheeper than beer.

I think I will go to the water garden tonight rather than the beer garden.

Lez

Huh? water is a source of fiber? :q:

Good post, Havanah. I think some people carry this water thing a little far.



If you're in ketosis, that may be true. But note this:


So many people absolutely have no trust that their sense of thirst functions and if they don't drink a gallon of water a day they're going to dry up and blow away.

I find it odd, they utterly trust the messages from their bladder or intestines to go to the bathroom, they trust their appetites, they trust their urge to sleep or wake... why do people so utterly distrust their thirst mechanism? Doesn't it seem like human beings would have had a hard time surviving if they didn't have some kind of reliable indicator that they should drink water?

What I've heard most often is that by the time you get the signal that you're thirsty, it means your body is already dehydrated!

I've not believed in the 64oz/day minimum for a long time. I also agree that water is water and it doesn't matter where it comes from. Yes, if you are sensitive to caffeine then you may require more water to balance the diuretic effect, but a lot of us get immune to that and don't have a problem when caffeine is a regular part of our diet.

I don't calculate the water I take in as solid foods. But I do count coffee, tea and the occasional SF soda. I've never had a problem with dehydration, and actually find that the more I drink the more I retain!

I read an article similar to this several years ago and the conclusion the authors came to was the 64oz recomendation started with a health spa that was promoting their own spring water! Unfortunately I've not been able to find the article again, even tho I've searched several times.

But like the article pointed out that stuff you hear is just myth. It's the sort of garbage they print over and over in women's magazines. This guy has been studying thirst and water usage in humans for a long time:



And lets read this again:



We've got a lot of years of programming to overcome by the crappy junk science (shoot, calling it junk is glorifying, its nonsense... it's spouting myths) writing in magazines and marketing hype from bottled water companies.

Around here, the water is high in fiber. Wood fibers from the paper mill upstream. Yecchhh. :lol:

Exactly!!!......well put.




To me that’s like saying "if you wait until you’re hungry it means you’re already starving"……….or "always slow down 30 seconds before you have a car accident" :rolleyes:

Interesting. I never knew low-carbing contributed to kidney stones. I'm skeptical. Can anyone show me some evidence of that?

Oh, why do I ever wander over here to to main forums? I always get in trouble.

But, really:

Some of these public posts are seriously deranged. Water is a good source of fiber? I hope not where I live. And I don't live very far from CindySue, who does seem to have her wits about her.

PLEASE, new members....understand that at least half of what you read here is heresay,and personal anecdotal opinion. Most of us are only relating our own experiences, and everyone's weight loss experience differs.

But fiber in water? Come on.

Kay

Actually this came from Atkins center. However I personally cannot drink water when I'm not thirsty!