Myths about drinking water

[sarahmichigan]

I was going to put together a really comprehensive post, with links to reputable sources, about all the myths about how much water you should drink, why, and so on. But snopes did a pretty good job already, I think.

Myth: Everyone must drink 6-8 servings of water every day
Fact: There's nothing wrong with doing this, but it's not really necessary for most people in decent health. You get the water you need from juices, milk, and water-containing foods like fruit and soup, so 6-8 servings of water a day aren't strictly necessary.

Myth: By the time you're feeling thirsty, you're already dehydrated.
Fact: Your body does a pretty good job of signalling you to drink. It's perfectly fine for most healthy people to drink when they're thirsty.

Myth: Caffeinated drinks dehydrate you.
Fact: Not really. The only reason you pee a lot when you drink a lot of Pepsi or coffee is that you're putting liquid into your system. If you drank an equivalent amount of water, you'd have to pee a lot, too. At most, there's some weak evidence that caffeinated beverages don't hydrate as well as water, but even if you assume (as some links I've found suggest) that 1 serving of caffeinated beverage is only the equivalent of about 2/3 as much pure water, you're still NOT dehydrating yourself by drinking caffeinated beverages.

The snopes.com article is here:
http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

Comments

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, you definitely don't want to do 6-8 servings of juice per day-- that's a lot of sugar without much redeeming value nutrition-wise other than some vitamin C.