Water – New article
Question:
Thank GOODNESS for some sanity on the water question! Three or four glasses of water a day is all I can handle and I still get up twice a night with just that. I have never had any problem with kidney stones. I’m not all that physically active. And when I have bumped my water to higher levels in the hope that it would help with weight gain it did not. The obsession with keeping hydrated seems to be a Gen X thing along with the love for anything made of Titanium. The only time I’ve ever seen anyone actually dehydrated was after an extreme attack of vomiting and diarrhea. It’s not something you ever forget but it wasn’t something you could fix by drinking water either.
Response:
Good article. Personally, I d =on ‘t like drinking a lot of water, but I came up with what I find to be an acceptable compromise. I make *weak* decaf iced tea, and always have a pitcher in my fridge, I drink a lot. Peter
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Thought you’ll might like this. Someone sent it to me. Kind of long. LINK CHANGES DAILY WITH NEW NEWS STORY BUT HERE’S THE ONE ON WATER. Click here: Harvard Health Letter – Harvard Health Online Harvard Health Letter August 2001 Nutrition Got Water? We are sometimes told to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water every day. But that adds up to a water-logging half-gallon each day. The fact is that this stock advice, which is based on some pretty rough assumptions, doesn’t apply to many people. How much water you need to drink varies enormously with the medications you’re taking, how much you exercise, what you eat, the health of your kidneys, and other factors. And some recent research suggests that in older people, that much water may do more harm than good. The benefits Of course our bodies need water. It helps regulate body temperature, aids in respiration, transports nutrients, voids waste, provides lubrication, and gives tissues their structure. By weight, it makes up about 60% of the male and 50% of the female body. By weight, many of our organs are mostly water. For instance, the brain is 75% water. Water on the brain is bad; water in the brain is essential. Drinking plenty of fluids – and water, in particular – does seem to protect us against a few specific diseases and medical conditions. The classic example is kidney stones. Hippocrates told his patients to drink plenty of water to prevent a recurrence, and research has shown that he was right. Drinking plenty of fluids helps prevent constipation. And while it may seem simplistic, high water consumption may cut cancer risk by, essentially, washing carcinogenic substances out of the body before they have a chance to come into contact with vulnerable tissues. In effect, the inside of the bowel and urinary tract are exposed to "outside," potentially toxic substances just like the skin and lining of the respiratory tract are. Using data from a long-term study of 48,000 male health professionals, Harvard researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine several years ago that the risk for bladder cancer was 51% lower in those who had at least 6 cups of water per day compared with those who drank less than 1 cup daily. Other fluids were protective, but not as much as water. Several other studies have also found that drinking large quantities of water lowers the risk for colon cancer. These cancer prevention studies have to be weighed against others that show a modest increase in risk for bladder cancer from drinking chlorinated water. Just how reliable these studies are is debatable, however. If the risk is real, then the likely culprits are by-products of the interaction of the chlorine with naturally occurring organic materials. Water drawn from lakes, rivers, and reservoirs has higher levels of organic material in it and, therefore, more of these possibly harmful by-products than does water drawn from underground sources. Keeping in balance Whatever the long-term effects might be, the immediate biological purpose of drinking water is to replace the water we lose. And the amount we lose is heavily influenced by how much we sweat. During a hard workout, an athlete might sweat as much as two quarts of water in an hour, for example. But at normal activity levels, most of us lose about 2-3 cups of water (500-700 milliliters) a day in perspiration. How much water is lost in urine also varies greatly, ranging from 1-2 cups (400-500 milliliters) to a quart and a half (1,500 milliliters) depending mainly on fluid intake but also diet, medications, and the health of the kidneys. Some water is also lost in feces (about 200 milliliters) and in exhaled air. The water intake that offsets these losses comes from three places: biochemical reactions that produce water as a by-product, food, and, of course, drink. The contribution from biochemical reactions is relatively minor (250 milliliters). For the average adult, about another quart (1,000 milliliters) comes from the water contained in food. Many fruits and vegetables are 80%-90% water. Meat is also fairly watery: a 100-gram hamburger patty contains a fifth of a cup (45 milliliters) of water. The rest comes from what we drink. When it established water consumption recommendations over 10 years ago, the National Research Council (NRC) said it was "impossible to set a general water requirement" because it depended so much on activity levels and other factors. So, for "practical purposes," the NRC settled on a sliding scale: 1 milliliter of water for every calorie burned. Therefore, someone burning 2,000 calories per day would need a total of 2,000 milliliters of water. If you subtract the contribution of food and metabolism (1,250 milliliters), the water you would need to get from fluids comes to 750 milliliters, or just 3.1 cups, not 8. But the NRC also said that a higher rate of 1.5 milliliters per calorie burned might be appropriate "to cover variations in activity level, sweating, and solute load." If the 1.5 milliliters standard per calorie is used, then the total water needed is 3,000 milliliters and the daily fluid consumption recommendation comes out to 7.29 cups, which is much closer to, but still not quite, a full 8 cups. Fluid vs. water Do those cups really have to be water? Not really. Water is water, even if it comes in the guise of some other fluid. In fact, researchers often combine water and other drinks to come up with a figure for total fluid intake, rather than for water intake per se. On the other hand, among all the fluids you might drink, water is a great choice. It’s cheap, calorie-free, and filling. And as mentioned, some studies have found benefits from the consumption of water, in particular. Other beverages can be a bad dietary influence. Soda and juice supply water, but they are also Trojan horses for armies of calories. Milk might be better, but unless it’s skim milk, you’ll be introducing saturated fat. The ingredients of some drinks also have a pronounced – and sometimes deleterious – effect on how the body handles the water they supply. The prime example: beverages containing alcohol or caffeine. Both are diuretics, agents that promote urination, so while alcoholic beverages, coffee, and caffeine-containing teas are water-based, they also drain the body of water. Water needs of older people There is some debate about how much water older people should drink. For years, the paramount concern has been dehydration, which can cause everything from delirium to constipation. Older people "forget" to drink because the sensation of being thirsty ebbs with age. Several years ago, researchers came up with a special food pyramid for people over age 70. The base of the pyramid was a recommendation to drink 2 quarts of water per day. Dr. Kenneth Minaker, a Massachusetts General Hospital geriatrician and member of the Harvard Health Letter’s editorial board, counsels many of his patients to think of water as a drug – something that they must "take" to stay healthy. Yet many older people suffer from nocturia, excessive urination at night, which creates or feeds into sleeping problems. High fluid intake can make nocturia worse. These days, many older people also have congestive heart failure, and doctors warn such patients not to drink too much fluid because it can worsen the condition. Some researchers are questioning just how common dehydration is among independent older people because many of the previous studies have been based on hospital or nursing home patients. University of New Mexico School of Medicine researchers published a provocative study in the Journal of Gerontology last year, for example, that found no evidence of dehydration among the subjects who said they drank less than six glasses of water each day. Moreover, a small percentage of older people are prone to hyponatremia, an abnormally low sodium concentration because of too much water in the body. Often it is caused by the kidneys resorbing too much water when they filter the blood. Some pain medications, a bad cough, or nausea can trigger the resorption problems. Other times, hyponatremia is the result of not enough blood reaching the kidneys, which can happen for a variety of reasons, including heart failure and some thyroid conditions. What you should do Half a gallon is a lot of water to guzzle down every day. Should you do it? Maybe. How much water you need to drink depends largely on how active you are. If you’re a runner or a frequent tennis player, half a gallon might not be enough. You certainly need to drink more during these hot summer months because you sweat more. Diet also plays a role. If you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, you may not need to drink as much because you are getting water in your food. Researchers continue to thrash out the pros and cons of pushing older people to drink lots of water. Dehydration, which can have many serious consequences, is a problem for many. For people with nocturia, heavy fluid intake might make the problem worse. But don’t throw out the drinking with the bath water! Drinking enough water is one of the single best things you can do for your health, especially this time of year. If eight glasses a day seems excessive, try six. Make a habit of drinking a glass of water with and between meals, and you’ ll hit the six-cup-a-day goal with relative
… read more »
Response:
Wow! Thanks for all of the great info. I’ll print this out and keep it as a reference. I am so hooked on water that I’ll probably continue to drink more than I really need. Take care
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Thought you’ll might like this. Someone sent it to me. Kind of long. LINK CHANGES DAILY WITH NEW NEWS STORY BUT HERE’S THE ONE ON WATER. Click here: Harvard Health Letter – Harvard Health Online Harvard Health Letter August 2001 Nutrition Got Water? We are sometimes told to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water every day. But that adds up to a water-logging half-gallon each day. The fact is that this stock advice, which is based on some pretty rough assumptions, doesn’t apply to many people. How much water you need to drink varies enormously with the medications you’re taking, how much you exercise, what you eat, the health of your kidneys, and other factors. And some recent research suggests that in older people, that much water may do more harm than good. The benefits Of course our bodies need water. It helps regulate body
temperature, aids in respiration, transports nutrients, voids waste, provides
lubrication, and gives – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – tissues their structure. By weight, it makes up about 60% of the male and 50% of the female body. By weight, many of our organs are mostly water. For instance, the brain is 75% water. Water on the brain is bad; water in the brain is essential. Drinking plenty of fluids – and water, in particular – does seem to protect us against a few specific diseases and medical conditions. The classic example is kidney stones. Hippocrates told his patients to drink plenty of water to prevent a recurrence, and research has shown that he was right. Drinking plenty of fluids helps prevent constipation. And while it may seem simplistic, high water consumption may cut cancer risk by, essentially, washing carcinogenic substances out of the body before they have a chance to come into contact with vulnerable tissues. In effect, the inside of the bowel and urinary tract are exposed to "outside," potentially toxic substances just like the skin and lining of the respiratory tract are. Using data from a long-term study of 48,000 male health professionals, Harvard researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine several years ago that the risk for bladder cancer was 51% lower in those who had at least 6 cups of water per day compared with those who drank less than 1 cup daily. Other fluids were
protective, but not as – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – much as water. Several other studies have also found that drinking large quantities of water lowers the risk for colon cancer. These cancer prevention studies have to be weighed against others that show a modest increase in risk for bladder cancer from drinking chlorinated water. Just how reliable these studies are is debatable, however. If the risk is real, then the likely culprits are by-products of the interaction of the chlorine with naturally occurring organic materials. Water drawn from lakes, rivers, and reservoirs has higher levels of organic material in it and, therefore, more of these possibly harmful by-products than does water drawn from underground sources. Keeping in balance Whatever the long-term effects might be, the immediate biological purpose of drinking water is to replace the water we lose. And the amount we lose is heavily influenced by how much we sweat. During a hard workout, an athlete might sweat as much as two quarts of water in an hour, for example. But at normal activity levels, most of us lose about 2-3 cups of water (500-700 milliliters) a day in perspiration. How much water is lost in urine also varies greatly, ranging from 1-2 cups (400-500 milliliters) to a quart and a half (1,500 milliliters) depending mainly on fluid intake but also diet, medications, and the health of the kidneys. Some water is also lost in feces (about 200 milliliters) and in exhaled air. The water intake that offsets these losses comes from three places: biochemical reactions that produce water as a by-product, food, and, of course, drink. The contribution from biochemical reactions is relatively minor (250 milliliters). For the average adult, about another quart (1,000 milliliters) comes from the water contained in food. Many fruits and vegetables are 80%-90% water. Meat is also fairly watery: a 100-gram hamburger patty contains a fifth of a cup (45 milliliters) of water. The rest comes from what we drink. When it established water consumption recommendations over 10 years ago, the National Research Council (NRC) said it was "impossible to set a general water requirement" because it depended so much on activity levels and other factors. So, for "practical purposes," the NRC settled on a sliding scale: 1 milliliter of water for every calorie burned. Therefore, someone burning 2,000 calories per day would need a total of 2,000 milliliters of water. If you subtract the contribution of food and metabolism (1,250
milliliters), the water – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – you would need to get from fluids comes to 750 milliliters, or just 3.1 cups, not 8. But the NRC also said that a higher rate of 1.5 milliliters per calorie burned might be appropriate "to cover variations in activity level, sweating, and solute load." If the 1.5 milliliters standard per calorie is used, then the total water needed is 3,000 milliliters and the daily fluid consumption recommendation comes out to 7.29 cups, which is much closer to, but still not quite, a full 8 cups. Fluid vs. water Do those cups really have to be water? Not really. Water is water, even if it comes in the guise of some other fluid. In fact, researchers often combine water and other drinks to come up with a figure for total fluid intake, rather than for water intake per se. On the other hand, among all the fluids you might drink, water is a great choice. It’s cheap, calorie-free, and filling. And as mentioned, some studies have found benefits from the consumption of water, in particular. Other beverages can be a bad dietary influence. Soda and juice supply water, but they are also Trojan horses for armies of calories. Milk might be better, but unless it’s skim milk, you’ll be introducing saturated fat. The ingredients of some drinks also have a pronounced – and sometimes deleterious – effect on how the body handles the water they supply. The prime example: beverages containing alcohol or caffeine. Both are diuretics, agents that promote urination, so while alcoholic beverages, coffee, and caffeine-containing teas are water-based, they also drain the body of water. Water needs of older people There is some debate about how much water older people should drink. For years, the paramount concern has been dehydration, which can cause everything from delirium to constipation. Older people "forget" to drink because the sensation of being thirsty ebbs with age. Several years ago, researchers came up with a special food pyramid for people over age 70. The base of the pyramid was a recommendation to drink 2 quarts of water per day. Dr. Kenneth Minaker, a Massachusetts General Hospital geriatrician and member of the Harvard Health Letter’s editorial board, counsels many of his patients to think of water as a drug – something that they must "take" to stay healthy. Yet many older people suffer from nocturia, excessive urination at night, which creates or feeds into sleeping problems. High fluid intake can make nocturia worse. These days, many older people also have congestive heart failure, and doctors warn such patients not to drink too much fluid because it can worsen the condition. Some researchers are questioning just how common dehydration is among independent older people because many of the previous studies have been based on hospital or nursing home patients. University of New Mexico School of Medicine researchers published a provocative study in the Journal of Gerontology last year, for example, that found no evidence of dehydration among the subjects who said they drank less than six glasses of water each day. Moreover, a small percentage of older people are prone to hyponatremia, an abnormally low sodium concentration because of too much water in the body. Often it is caused by the kidneys resorbing too much water when they filter the blood. Some pain medications, a bad cough, or nausea can trigger the resorption problems. Other times, hyponatremia is the result of not enough blood reaching the kidneys, which can happen for a variety of reasons, including heart failure and some thyroid conditions. What you should do Half a gallon is a lot of water to guzzle down every day. Should you do it? Maybe. How much water you need to drink depends largely on how active you are. If you’re a runner or a frequent tennis player, half a gallon might not be enough. You certainly need to drink more during these hot summer months because you sweat more. Diet also plays a role. If you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, you may not need to drink as much because you are getting water in your food. Researchers continue to thrash out the pros and cons of pushing older people to drink lots of water. Dehydration, which can have many serious consequences, is a problem for many. For people with nocturia, heavy fluid intake might make the problem worse. But don’t throw out the drinking with the bath water! Drinking enough water is one of the single best things you can do for your health, especially this time of year. If eight glasses a day seems excessive, try six. Make a habit of drinking a glass of water with and between meals, and you’ll hit the six-cup-a-day goal with relative ease. Water Content of Some Foods
… read more »
Response:
Thought you’ll might like this. Someone sent it to me. Kind of long. LINK CHANGES DAILY WITH NEW NEWS STORY BUT HERE’S THE ONE ON WATER. Click here: Harvard Health Letter – Harvard Health Online Harvard Health Letter August 2001 Nutrition Got Water? We are sometimes told to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water every day. But that adds up to a water-logging half-gallon each day. The fact is that this stock advice, which is based on some pretty rough assumptions, doesn
