Water, water everywhere

The nonsense about needing to drink eight glasses of water each day is just that...nonsense. For openers, what the body does require is roughly two litres (or eight 8-ounce glasses) of fluids on a daily basis. That amount of fluid can be obtained even if nary a drop of water passes your lips. The more obvious sources of fluid are beverages like juice and milk, but even so-called no-no's like coffee and tea will add to your fluid intake. So, for example, if you drink an eight-ounce cup of coffee you will get the benefit of roughly six ounces of fluid, since coffee is a diuretic and will cause some of the liquid to end up in the kidneys, bladder, and eventually, down the drain. Even a bottle of beer or soft drink (God forbid) adds to one's fluid intake. On top of that, regular food contains fluid. Yes, stuff like vegetables, fruit, even bread, meat and cheese contains fluid (on a cheese label check the moisture content).
The notion that we need to drink eight glasses of water a day in order to be healthy is one of a long line of nutrition myths that are out there (nutrition myth-busting is one of the main rationales for this blog). Like many ideas about the health-giving properties of various foods, the alleged properties of so-called "pure" water have been greatly exaggerated. Celebrities and wanna-be's are seldom seen without a bottle of water in their hands. I once was preceded on the podium at a nutrition conference by a CEO (not a nutritionist or registered dietitian)of a famous company and his bottle of water accompanied him to and from the lectern like a security blanket...but he never touched a drop of the stuff. We'll touch on the idiocy of bottled water shortly, but for now I'll be happy if you just understand that we get liquid from almost everything we consume.

If someone had told me when I graduated as a dietitian some forty odd years ago that someday people would pay more for water than they do for an equal amount of milk, I'd have sworn they were crazy. Our culture has become obsessed with water and, to be fair, it's certainly better to drink a glass of water than a glass of sweetened soda pop, but people are wallowing in the stuff, for no good reason. Even elite athletes competing in hot climates can include any type of beverage--even caffeinated ones--in their regimen.
Wondering where the "drink eight glasses of water per day" myth originated, I found an old U.S. federal guideline that recommended one mL of water for each calorie that one burns...leading to the two litres per day for someone expending 2000 calories each day. The guideline did include the advice that most of that amount of fluid could be found in prepared foods...but that advice was pretty much ignored. I also think that the weight-loss industry's advice to try squelching hunger pangs with water came into play as well. In short...there is no evidence, none whatsoever, that we need to drink eight glasses of water daily.

On the down-side, you can have too much of a good thing, and that goes for water,too. On one end of the spectrum we have the damage done to those suffering from kidney or heart disease, in whom an excess of water will eventually overload the kidneys, upsetting the sodium/potassium balance. On the other end we have the elite athlete who takes water consumption to extremes and overdoses on the stuff. They can suffer from what is called hyponatremic encephalopathy (hypo meaning too little; natremic referring to sodium in the blood; encephalopathy meaning changes [swelling] in the brain) leading, in some cases, to death.
The old adage "stay ahead of your thirst" has been distorted so that even the non-athlete can risk hyponatremia. In one instance an opera performer was so convinced of the need for water to ease the stress on his larynx that he suffered from hyponatremia.

Drinking bottled water is not just silly, it's harmful on so many levels. First of all, it's expensive: with the money you save by drinking tap water (and most experts, when confronted with a blind-taste test, preferred it over bottled) you can support WaterCan, a charity that helps supply clean drinking water in developing countries (Google Margaret Trudeau). Secondly, it's really bad for the environment since the plastic bottles stay in dumps and land-fills for a VERY long time. Thirdly, tests have shown that there are more bacteria in many brands of bottled water than in tap water.

Summing up then, drink water if it's your cup of tea, but don't go overboard, don't believe the eight glasses nonsense, and give tap water a try...you might even like it.