3 ms·

If you're thirsty, drink water until you're no longer thirsty. If you're not thirsty, don't drink water.

• onion2k 11y ago
  How do you know you're thirsty? For a start, there are a lot of medical and neurological issues that can stop you feeling thirsty (diabetes etc). A large percentage of the population don't have the correct hormone response that tells them to drink. Secondly, especially in Western societies, there are social conventions that mean we always have a drink with food. That creates a conditioned response that means many people literally mistake thirst for hunger, so when they feel thirsty they eat something. (That also contributes to obesity.) 'Drink X glasses of water a day' is a simple adage that mitigates all these problems with very little risk.
  • bkmartin 11y ago
    "A large percentage of the population don't have the correct hormone response that tells them to drink." Please define large percentage and offer a reference to this fact. The point made in the article was based around "otherwise healthy idividuals"... not people who have a health issue that would not let them know they are thirsty.
    • onion2k 11y ago
      That was hyperbole on my part really. There are about 10% of people with some form of diabetes, and one or two percent for the other conditions. That's a 'large percentage' if you compare it with other unifying factors across the population (you can't say '12% percent of people have X condition' for many medical problems), but I guess it's not strictly a large percentage on it's own.
• sliverstorm 11y ago
  For whatever reason that has just never worked all that well for me. I can be significantly dehydrated, and not really feel very thirsty. I have the same problem with food though, I can be 3,000 calories under my daily BMR and not really feel all that hungry.