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Eight glasses of water a day excessive for most people, study suggests
- fasthands9 4y ago>Many people only require about 1.5 to 1.8 litres a day, lower than the two litres typically recommended, the research suggests. Of all the overzealous health advice we give this one seems pretty minor. The article is saying that we "require" six glasses. The article also says there is no downside to your health for drinking more.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> The article also says there is no downside to your health for drinking more. You can poison yourself by drinking too much water. Can happen amongst very fit people doing a lot of exercise who think this means they have to down 10 litres of water in half an hour.
- QuarterReptile 4y agoI don't know how anyone can do this without feeling intensely ill. I drank a gallon in about 40 minutes once, and it was readily apparent that nothing about it could be healthy, pleasant, or in almost any way a good idea.
- chrisseaton 4y agoI think they build up to it over time, all trying to out drink each other. I’ve seen mild cases in people in practice - people told to just sip a bit of water but they go ahead and drink multiple gallon jug fulls and then wonder why their legs stop working. 10 litres was an exaggeration of course. I think like 6 or something in a couple of hours is dangerous from the doctors I worked with? This is from a group of fitness obsessed people doing very arduous exercise.
- gregoryl 4y agoIt's a common problem at large trail races. Enough so that it's one of the two things usually explicitly called out in the race briefings (the other is a reminder to not take ibuprofen).
- Our_Benefactors 4y agoWhy no ibuprofen? I’m not a distance runner so I wouldn’t know.
- plugin-baby 4y agoWhat’s the problem with ibuprofen?
- chrisseaton 4y agoUlcers, heart-attacks, kidney damage. But also they mask pain via reducing inflammation and the point of pain is to let you know something is wrong. Like water it’s fine until you’re swallowing pill after pill.
- joecool1029 4y ago>Ulcers, heart-attacks, kidney damage Also, tendon injury/tendonitis seems linked to ibuprofen use. It may delay other kinds of healing (bone fractures, etc)
- plugin-baby 4y agoNot disagreeing with anything here, but are these specific to trail racing?
- andreareina 4y agoNo, but if it's something that happens commonly in that context it makes sense to call out when in that context.
- fasthands9 4y agoYes. You can. But that is 5x the "eight glasses a day" rec. I'd also wager the amount of people with health related issues due to too much water consumption is very little compared to too little water consumption.
- nradov 4y agoHyponatremia is indeed a risk for endurance athletes, and can occur even with drinking less than 10 liters of water. People have somehow got this idea that they need to be constantly drinking water during any exercise, but the reality is there is no health or performance impact to being a little dehydrated for a few hours. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa043901 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa043901 https://wwnorton.com/books/Good-to-Go/ https://wwnorton.com/books/Good-to-Go/
- animal531 4y agoI just saw a study yesterday that concluded that this was the actual cause of Bruce Lee's death, I don't have the actual study now, but here's the first google link I found: https://www.abc27.com/news/entertainment/doctors-believe-bruce-lee-may-have-died-from-drinking-too-much-water/ https://www.abc27.com/news/entertainment/doctors-believe-bru...
- ericra 4y agoA bit tangential but.. A couple of years ago, I researched and wrote up an article on the effects of drinking additional water and weight loss. I was just curious because I was dieting and consistently read advice to drink lots of water to help aid dieting. tldr: "thermogenic" (calorie-burning) effects of additional water intake are mostly negligible and based on old, non-replicated research. There may be very modest benefits for obese people during dieting, but the research is unclear. No other clear benefits that have a solid backing of research (that I could find). https://ericra.com/writing/water_energy.html https://ericra.com/writing/water_energy.html
- smabie 4y agoI feel like drinking more water will make you feel more full which will cause you to consume more calories.
- zach_garwood 4y agoAs I understand it, the advice is not meant to promote a specific amount of water (what unit of measurement is a "glass"?), but that one should drink water consistently throughout the day, as in a glass of water every couple hours that you're awake.
- unixhero 4y ago1 glass = 200ml 8 glasses = 1.6 metric liters
- bradwood 4y agoNot to be confused with imperial litres.
- nikolay 4y agoMy reasoning is simple: Do you believe humans have been drinking 2-3 liters per day historically? If you don't think so, why are you drinking as much today?! Unless you have some condition, don't drink water when you're not thirsty!
- dorkwood 4y agoPeople tend to have a really strong reaction if you tell them they only need to drink when they're thirsty. I've stopped bringing it up in public since it's such a divisive topic.
- nikolay 4y agoMaybe if you tell them, "Well, then go to the bathroom every 30 minutes - it's healthier for you." then they will get the simple wisdom that we've survived so far following our internal signaling about our needs.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoyeah outside of meat, a lot of what we eat is like 50-70% water as well. Most people get plenty of water. I guess I'm not an r/hydrohomies :) . I drink plenty between coffee, water, veggies, and occasional soda. I have had long arguments with people that while you will tend to pee a bit more with coffee/tea/soda, it's still a -net- source of water rather a dehydrator. It's a hard sell to people
- nradov 4y agoEven cooked meat is something like 60% water (unless it's specifically dried out).
- heavyset_go 4y agoThis is the naturalistic fallacy. Historically, people also lived in near starvation conditions, average lifespans were much shorter and a broken leg could be a death sentence. If you apply the same logic to hunger, for example, even more people would be obese if they ate when they felt hungry, or if they followed their ancestors' instincts to gorge until full whenever the opportunity arose. It's possible that we've historically survived in a local maxima of resource scarcity, and that "optimal" metabolic performance exists in a place beyond that, where resources are less scarce.
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- reducesuffering 4y agoDrink water until your pee is mostly clear. Any exact X amount of recommendation is inaccurate because diets vary in the water content of your food and other drinks.
- nradov 4y agoThat's a myth. Unless it's really dark, urine color is not a useful indicator of hydration state. There is no reliable clinical evidence that having mostly clear urine produces better health outcomes. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10230169/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10230169/
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- deafpolygon 4y ago8 glasses advice is sensible if you weren't also consuming liquid in other form (such as food, etc). If you are, then 8 might end up being too much. Think: soup/stew, cereal, certain forms of salad, yogurt, ice cream and so on. All contain water. If your pee is clear, then you're probably hydrated just fine.
- nradov 4y agoThat's a myth. Unless it's really dark, urine color is not a useful indicator of hydration state. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10230169/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10230169/ There's no sense in any particular quantity. If you're thirsty then drink some water. That's it.
- pleb_nz 4y agoI believe 8 glasses came from a study that said we need approx. 8 glasses of water per day from all source, e.g. including food. But media outlets spread this as we should drink 8 glasses day and it stuck ever since.
- Ralfp 4y ago„Adam Ruins Everything” did a video on this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FwdqFHBaPwY https://youtube.com/watch?v=FwdqFHBaPwY TL;DW: marketing by drink producers invented a problem to sell people who pursue healthy habits bottled water.
- egberts1 4y agoNot to mention corporations getting state permits to emptying reservoirs for free.