How much water does one need to drink?

[Ray Moscow]

According to this article, most people don't really need to drink 8 glasses a day after all.

Fact or Fiction? You Must Drink 8 Glasses of Water Daily (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eight-glasses-water-per-day)

There's no denying that water is good for you, but does everyone really need to drink 64 ounces or more every day? According to Heinz Valtin, a retired professor of physiology from Dartmouth Medical School who specialized in kidney research and spent 45 years studying the biological system that keeps the water in our bodies in balance, the answer is no.

This is not a big shock since most Europeans (for example) don't drink anywhere near that much water, and yet they are on average at least as healthy as their water-swilling US cousins.

In fact, Valtin found that the 8 x 8 guideline may have originated from a misunderstanding. In 1945 the Food and Nutrition Board, now part of the National Academy of Sciences's Institute of Medicine, suggested that a person consume one milliliter of water (about one fifth of a teaspoon) for each calorie of food. The math is pretty simple: A daily diet of around 1,900 calories would dictate the consumption of 1,900 milliliters of water, an amount remarkably close to 64 ounces. But many dieticians and other people failed to notice a critical point: namely, that much of the daily need for water could be met by the water content found in food.

[LoneWolf]

That always seemed to be a bit too rigid for something as diverse as the human body. Body size, climate and activity level are going to be some major determining factors.

[David B]

None!

I often go weeks without drinking any water. When I do it is tap water - the bottled water industry is profligate with energy and other recourse use, and in Britain at least is less well safety checked than tap water.

Juice, milk, tea, coffee, wine, beer, fruit, the liquid content of food provide all the water one needs.

David

[Ray Moscow]

I drink a fair amount of water (not 8 glasses a day, though) -- but all tap water, too.

Still, I haven't seen much evidence that people need to drink all that much unless they have some usual health problem, are working/exercising in the heat, etc.

[Garnet]

Or you live in a hot, dry climate. Dehydration is no damned fun.

[Faerie]

Had a young lady here in the office who stopped drinking tap water after reports in the papers of the Zimbabwe cholera outbreak possibly migrating to Johannesburg, then she received an e-mail stating that bottled water in SA has a bigger chance of containing cholera as the bottlers claim it "comes straight from the earth". So she stopped drinking bottled water and switched to bottled coldrinks, until one sarcastic soul decided to point out to her that all coldrinks have a basis in water, so she stopped taking in fluids altogether. She collapsed some two days later, entirely dehydrated and at deaths door.

There aint no pills for stupid unfortunately.

[hecaterin]

I drink lots of water, because I like to. We have good tap water. It weirds me out when people praise me for being "good". Another good reason for drinking plenty of water is if you've been drinking alcohol. That can dehydrate you, too.

And right now I have a bad cold, and the mouth breathing is drying me out uncomfortably. In this case a fair part of my water intake is boiled, and mixed with lemon, honey and dark rum.

[LoneWolf]

Had a young lady here in the office who stopped drinking tap water after reports in the papers of the Zimbabwe cholera outbreak possibly migrating to Johannesburg, then she received an e-mail stating that bottled water in SA has a bigger chance of containing cholera as the bottlers claim it "comes straight from the earth". So she stopped drinking bottled water and switched to bottled coldrinks, until one sarcastic soul decided to point out to her that all coldrinks have a basis in water, so she stopped taking in fluids altogether. She collapsed some two days later, entirely dehydrated and at deaths door.

There aint no pills for stupid unfortunately.

Holy crap! That's a true story?

As long as my water is relatively clean and cold I don't care if it comes from a tap or a bottle. Of course living in Cambodia I tend to stay away from tap water unless I am in the Embassy, which has its own water purification system.

[Faerie]

Holy crap! That's a true story?


yep. :( World's full of funnies. :dunno:

[Christina]

Water is the only thing that I drink besides coffee. Our well water comes from an underground aquifer and it's clear and good and I don't like sodas or any other kind of sweet drink. The only time I buy bottled water is when I'm traveling because I'm not used to treated water and it makes me sick. I won't even brush my teeth in it. I probably drink the 64 ounces in the warm weather but I can't drink that much in the winter.

[Eudaimonist]

The tap water where I live in Sweden is clean and tasty, and I drink it often. I also mix it with a juice concentrate to make juice for myself. And I heat it up and make cappuccino (from power) and green tea for myself.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Garnet]

I grew up in Arizona and developed a habit of drinking a lot of water. In addition to the 2 diet Cokes* I drink every day, I drink over 2 gallons of water. Occassionally, I'll drink something else like hot tea in the winter or beer when I'm out to dinner. But for the most part it's my cokes and water.

Yes, I pee a lot.

*For those that have had this conversation with me before, yes, I am down to only 2 diet Cokes a day and have been for about 7 weeks now. I reckoned that 6 liters of the stuff was probably one of the reasons I wasn't sleeping well at night. Unfortunately, that didn't work out. I still don't sleep worth a shit but I'm saving money and I've got to think that much caffeine wasn't good for me in other ways.

[sohy]

I drink way more water than I need because I love it. It has to be cold with lots of ice. I'm drinking some now.

[Goldie]

It is, in fact, a myth that we need at least 8 glasses of water per day. Also, it doesn't make your skin any better to drink lots of water. We DO get most of the water we need from what we eat...IF....we eat healthy. However, coffee and alcohol cause dehydration, so if you are drinking either, you need to drink more water.
As for myself, I have chronic kidney stones, so I am never without water. I drink it constantly as I dehydrate easily. I can hardly stand not to be drinking water. Even if I am drinking something else, I drink water with it.
It is a healthy habit. Better to put a glass of water to your lips instead of smoking.
Also, a dry mouth causes bad breath.

[Ray Moscow]

I would think anyone who is prone to kidney stones should drinks lots of water.

I haven't seen any actual data for this, but it just seems like this might help prevent precipitation of the stones.

[David B]

We have a good evolved mechanism for telling us how much to drink,

It goes by the name of 'thirst'.

David

[Goldie]

I would think anyone who is prone to kidney stones should drinks lots of water.

I haven't seen any actual data for this, but it just seems like this might help prevent precipitation of the stones.

Well...yes.

It keeps them from becoming too large to pass. The "flow" keeps the crystals small.
David...I always feel thirsty. This might be a side effect of my plethora of drugs. Still, if one IS thirsty it is probably best /most healthy to drink straight water and drink the other things because you like them. :)

But, I DID recently see a study that showed that drinking large amounts of water didn't give one all of the benefits claimed by so many.
I can help with over-eating, tho.

[ofro]

Physiologically, the minimum of water the healthy kidneys always excrete in the urine is about 0.5 liters, with which the constantly waste products are removed from the body. In addition, depending on the environmental conditions, the body loses about 1-2 liters a day by breathing (breath is water-saturated) and through the skin. Some of that is made up by the water (0.3-0.5 liters) that the product (together with CO2) of burning the nutrients.

Which leaves us with the need to drink at last 1-2 liters of fluid per day, some of which does not need to be drunk as water or other liquids but can also come from the food (such as fruit).

I don't know into how much fluid 8 glasses of water translate. But is Goldie mentioned, it is wise idea to drink in the range of 1-2 liters a day because not drinking enough clearly puts you at increased risk of kidney stones. And you don't want to have those.

Just look at how dark your urine is. If it is dark yellow, you have not drunk enough; if it is clear, you can ease off with your drinking.

Of course, all this applies to the healthy human. There are conditions where a lot more urine is produced, which has to be compensated by drinking more. Probably the most common condition is diabetes mellitus, which is often diagnosed by noticing that somebody has to go ot the bathroom several times a night and is always thirsty.