There’s no evidence that we need to drink 8 glasses of water a day

Most of us have spent our lives feeling pressured by the notion that we need to drink at least eight glasses of water a day in order to avoid dehydration and stay healthy. But according to American paediatrician Aaron E. Caroll from Indiana University, there's absolutely no science to back this up, and there never was.

Caroll has already co-written a widely cited research paper and book debunking common health myths - primarily the idea that all humans need to drink eight 8-ounce (237 mL) glasses of water a day - but the rumour just won't go away, with an onslaught of media this year alleging that dehydration is on the rise due to children not drinking enough water. So Caroll took to The New York Times this week to clear things up once and (hopefully) for all.

"Contrary to many stories you may hear, there’s no real scientific proof that, for otherwise healthy people, drinking extra water has any health benefits," he writes. "For instance, reviews have failed to find that there’s any evidence that drinking more water keeps skin hydrated and makes it look healthier or wrinkle free."

So where did the great water myth come from? It's generally believed that the source is a 1945 Food and Nutrition Board Recommendation that declared, "a suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 litres daily in most instances. An ordinary standard for diverse persons is 1 millilitre for each calorie of food". As you might have guessed, 2.5 litres more or less works out to be around eight glasses. But what's usually ignored from that report is the crucial next sentence: "Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods."

In fact, depending on your diet, there may be no reason to drink excess water at all. "Water is present in fruits and vegetables. It’s in juice, it’s in beer, it’s even in tea and coffee," writes Caroll. "Although I recommended water as the best beverage to consume, it’s certainly not your only source of hydration. You don’t have to consume all the water you need through drinks."

Before you object and tell us that coffee, tea, and alcohol dehydrate us, and therefore can't count towards our daily water intake, science has debunked that myth too.

A 2002 review by physician Heinz Valtin from Dartmouth University in the US found that not only was there no peer-reviewed evidence to support the eight glasses a day rule, there was also no research to suggest that other drinks couldn't be used to adequately hydrate us.

"This conclusion is supported by published studies showing that caffeinated drinks (and, to a lesser extent, mild alcoholic beverages like beer in moderation) may indeed be counted toward the daily total, as well as by the large body of published experiments that attest to the precision and effectiveness of the osmoregulatory system for maintaining water balance," Valtin concludes.

In the same study, he also broke down the myth that by the time we feel thirsty it's 'too late'. In reality, we feel thirsty exactly when we're supposed to: "when the concentration of blood (an accurate indicator of our state of hydration) has risen by less than 2 percent," he says, "whereas most experts would define dehydration as beginning when that concentration has risen by at least 5 percent.".........

Impressive. Does the report mention why he went after this so called myth? Does it mention what he states is wrong with hydrating with water? Does it mention the destruction of American health and health care?

I read it, and I didn’t see any of that. Per usual we non physicians are too stupid to be allowed to follow logic

Our medical system has been destroyed. In two years, after the new president takes over, he had better be able to fix it in some manner, because what I see out there is a lot of extremely uninformed people who will be glad to follow along and blame political entities for it and the republicans, having just wrested the controls away from the idiotic, selfish, destructive democrats, are going to be standing likely deer in the headlights, as usual, and with no plan, taking all the blame

What I see are people hooked on medical care, surgery, pharmaceuticals, government funding, affordable, reasonable insurance plans, bad processed foods, thriving fast food establishments on every corner, obesity, pharmaceutical drug dependency and alcoholism.

Very few people are outside walking around, fixing things, playing driveway basketball, riding bikes

And very few people are enrolling in medical school for what I imagine are very good reasons

This doctor could look at any one of those issues plus the autism epidemic, the negative effects of birth control pills, including that it is in the same carcinogenic category as tobacco use

But he, like most doctors, even those on all kinds of boards with certifications up the yin yang, fail to look at anything outside their lets prove it world or let’s disprove it

We could use this attitude in our need to stop global warming theory from being accepted as fact

But this doctor studied the effects of drinking water with a hypothesis to disprove a 60 year old policy taken during a time when Wally and The Beav were out playing hoops and delivering papers and their mother prepared every meal and took care of illnesses by prevention and early detection and care, and paid for medical care out of pocket.

The doctor is likely finding that there is way less money for research than ever imagined and is wasting his time on this silliness

And I say schadenfreude as it was doctors in their common lack of administrative skills which first led to a widespread failure of Medicare to remain solvent, back in the early 1980s through widespread fraud waste and abuse and the utter failure to give up on it even through and now beyond obamacare and the destruction it will bring

Part of what IS coming is wise people practicing real preventive medicine, which used to be accepted normal daily life and knowledge of basic cures and treatments

Of course the AMA could renounce its support of abortion and get back into good fortune with the grace of God but I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Until then, doctors have to live with the remnants of a medical system they created that thrives on people being sick and living the unhealthy lifestyle

He would do well to go check out a local high end gym and see what capitalism is doing to react to the disaster our socialized medical system has created

Just two points on what I wrote:

“What I see are people hooked on medical care, surgery, pharmaceuticals, government funding, affordable, reasonable insurance plans...”

Those insurance plans are going to be gone in as short a time from now as it took them to become unmanageable

“it was doctors in their common lack of administrative skills which first led to a widespread failure of Medicare to remain solvent...”

While true, I also believe Medicare was seriously flawed to start and doomed to failure. It is based on an illogical premise, the way I see it

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