8 ms·

It's worth emphasizing, which they also do, that this primarily affects middle-aged to older people, and "extreme" conditions. There is no benefit to "stay hydr

by 8372049 2y ago

It's worth emphasizing, which they also do, that this primarily affects middle-aged to older people, and "extreme" conditions. There is no benefit to "stay hydrated" beyond not being dehydrated and in fact it can be somewhat harmful to drink too much water. If you are middle aged or above, if you are in an excessively warm or cold climate, if you do great physical exertion etc. you may need to be mindful of your water intake and make sure you drink enough (and not too much), but generally your body will regulate this through the sense of thirst. Obviously being too focused on your work can also mean you neglect said thirst, so frequent breaks are healthy for several reasons.

Carrok 2y ago
You would have to try VERY hard to drink too much water. Every one of all ages can benefit from staying hydrated.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  The point is that the 8 glasses of water a day thing is bullshit. I see people carrying giant jugs of water around all the time and people commenting on basically forcing this on themselves. Drink when you're thirsty. That's all you need to do.
  - Carrok 2y ago
    I live a mile in elevation, if I wait till I am thirsty to drink, my hands turn to ash, my voice gets coarse, and my brain turns to mush. Not everyone has the same needs. Don’t worry about anyone else drinking too much water please.
    - 8372049 2y ago
      Your specific circumstances don't change the general rule, which is that for most people and under most conditions, hydration status is correctly balanced by thirst. There are indeed exceptions, such as when getting older, which I addressed in my initial comment.
    - smelendez 2y ago
      The first time I visited Denver I walked around a lot and was very confused why I felt hungover when I hadn’t been drinking. I was living in Louisiana at the time, which is at sea level and very humid!
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      I live about a thousand feet above you. I notice very few effects of "under-drinking". So yeah, not everyone has the same needs. On the flip side, I was working outdoors in the sun all day today, and probably ended up drinking about 2 gallons of water without needing to pee much. So not everyone has the same needs even on a day to day basis.
      - Carrok 2y ago
        > I live about a thousand feet above you. I’ve also lived extensively over 9,000ft in altitude. Are we getting into a height pissing contest? If so, why? Just drink water. Fucksakes.
        PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        You're the one who opened with a statement about elevation, presumably to note that it made a difference, somehow. Fucksakes.
  - ianburrell 2y ago
    8 glasses of water is pretty close to the suggested amount. Adequate average daily intake is 15.5 cups for men, and 11.5 cups for women. The saying doesn't say how large is a glass, but 16 cups is 8 16oz glasses, or with 20% from food, 8 12oz glasses.
    - tiahura 2y ago
      Most of the largest mammals live their entire lives without a sip of fresh water.
      - jamil7 2y ago
        You realise not all mammals have the same nutrition and hydration requirements right?
      - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
        Unless you are an aquatic mammal specifically designed to live in saltwater, that seems mostly irrelevant.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- nkurz 2y ago
  > You would have to try VERY hard to drink too much water. On what do you base this claim? I think it's badly overstated. I'd say instead that it depends on circumstance. Seated in an air-conditioned office, you might be right. But if you are doing endurance athletics in a hot desert environment, it can be both easy and dangerous to drink too much plain water: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-dangers-of-hyponatremia/ https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-dangers-of-hyponatrem...
  - Carrok 2y ago
    I think it’s clear from context we are not talking about a desert endurance race. I would hope anyone engaged in such an endeavor would be working with a doctor to help set their own guidelines.
    - ckcheng 2y ago
      It can happen in many places … even in Boston: > Hyponatremia occurs in a substantial fraction of nonelite marathon runners and can be severe. > As marathon running has surged in popularity during the past quarter-century, reports have emerged of serious illness and death from hyponatremia, as in the case of a 28-year-old woman who died after the 2002 Boston Marathon. > Participants in the 2002 Boston Marathon were recruited … 488 runners (64 percent) provided a usable blood sample at the finish line. Thirteen percent had hyponatremia (a serum sodium concentration of 135 mmol per liter or less); 0.6 percent had critical hyponatremia (120 mmol per liter or less). [1]: Hyponatremia among Runners in the Boston Marathon. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa043901 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa043901
      - jerlam 2y ago
        Also the Grand Canyon, which attracts much more people than the Boston Marathon: However, a 6-year study reported that exercise-associated hyponatremia, dehydration, and heat exhaustion occurred at nearly the same rate, prompting re-examination of emergency protocols. Most exercise-associated hyponatremia cases at the Grand Canyon occur among summer hikers to the inner Canyon and are often misdiagnosed as exertional heat illness due to overlapping signs and symptoms. https://journals.lww.com/cjasn/fulltext/2024/05000/exercise_associated_hyponatremia_in_the_grand.19.aspx https://journals.lww.com/cjasn/fulltext/2024/05000/exercise_... Hyponatremia is especially dangerous because a common response is to drink even more water, which makes the condition even worse. The National Park Service changed all their hiking advice to explicitly recommend "salty snacks" and "sports drinks".
- 8372049 2y ago
  You would have to try harder to drink too little water, because your body regulates hydration by getting thirsty, under normal conditions. Overhydration can lead to significant consequences such as heart failure and urinary tract abnormalities. Excess water consumption can cause hyponatremia, which is an independent risk factor for bone fractures. "Staying hydrated" means to match the body's needs, not more, not less. Like with all other silly hypes (antioxidants, electrolytes, vitamin supplements, etc. etc.), too much is potentially harmful. It is a hype, because it's so easy to say "stay hydrated" and it seems like an uncontroversial thing, but it can be just as harmful as dehydration. In fact, among e.g. long distance runners, severe complications from overhydration are more common than severe complications from dehydration. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27548748/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27548748/
  - Carrok 2y ago
    What an absurd statement. Over hydration has to go WAY over to compete with the dangers of under hydration.
    - 8372049 2y ago
      If you can back that up with a source, please do so. In any case, my point isn't about margins. My point is that you get thirsty if you need to drink more water. With some exceptions, such as old age. Drinking too much water is harmful. Drinking too little water is harmful. You want a proper hydration balance, and in most circumstances—with several exceptions—this is well regulated by thirst. All of this is well documented and none of this is should be controversial at all.
      - BOOSTERHIDROGEN 2y ago
        My sense of thirst seems somewhat off.
      - beeeeerp 2y ago
        Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but I have heard of very few over-hydration cases whereas medical dehydration seems pretty common. Granted the pressures for dehydration are a lot more common (hiking with too little water, running competitions, maybe little access to water in a hot climate, etc). Once one has ample access to water, I doubt there is much pressure to keep drinking to over-hydration.
- koolala 2y ago
  veryveryhard...
- alhadrad 2y ago
  Actually, this is completely false. It is extremely easy to over hydrate to a life threatening degree if you do physical activity. It is quite trivial in fact to become hyponitremic.
m463 2y ago
It is important to note this line "due to a gradual decoupling of thirst from hydration status" older people gradually lose their ability to sense thirst. So, if you're older, you can be dehydrated but not feel thirsty. I suspect the practical solution to this is to drink more all the time. But I also think there's probably a market for some way of letting older people monitor their hydration status, maybe through a watch or other sensor.
takklz 2y ago
Agreed.. if I guzzle water without adding in electrolytes I get a guaranteed migraine aura with vision loss.
euroderf 2y ago
Coffee seems to defeat the thirst reflex. Try to remember to have a glass (or half) or water an hour or two after a coffee.
j45 2y ago
A lot of people are chronically dehdryated. A lot more than I ever realized. There are also symptoms that turn out to be dehydration and not something you end up getting medicated for. Making sure one’s hydrated, especially for the brain at least helps the brain and body be at its capable baseline before addressing further. I recently started 1L of water first thing in the morning with a pack of electrolyte like a biosteel. The key is to drink at the pace that doesn’t make you pee, which seems possible in the morning. My understanding is most ppl wake up dehydrated after sleep. It was noticeable after a few days and let me delay and eliminate the first caffeine and progressively push it to later in the morning. Might not be for everyone but it would be surprising if more than a few people didn’t discover they might be a little dehydrated. Caffiene is back to being a boost.
- ErikBjare 2y ago
  A lot of people aren't "chronically dehydrated". If you're not thirsty when you wake up, you're most likely not dehydrated.
nikitay 2y ago
Try out https://takesip.com/ https://takesip.com/ app for macOS. Find out your recommended level of water intake: https://takesip.com/calculator/ https://takesip.com/calculator/. Cheers.

Carrok 2y ago

You would have to try VERY hard to drink too much water. Every one of all ages can benefit from staying hydrated.

bongodongobob 2y ago
The point is that the 8 glasses of water a day thing is bullshit. I see people carrying giant jugs of water around all the time and people commenting on basically forcing this on themselves. Drink when you're thirsty. That's all you need to do.
- Carrok 2y ago
  I live a mile in elevation, if I wait till I am thirsty to drink, my hands turn to ash, my voice gets coarse, and my brain turns to mush. Not everyone has the same needs. Don’t worry about anyone else drinking too much water please.
  - 8372049 2y ago
    Your specific circumstances don't change the general rule, which is that for most people and under most conditions, hydration status is correctly balanced by thirst. There are indeed exceptions, such as when getting older, which I addressed in my initial comment.
  - smelendez 2y ago
    The first time I visited Denver I walked around a lot and was very confused why I felt hungover when I hadn’t been drinking. I was living in Louisiana at the time, which is at sea level and very humid!
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    I live about a thousand feet above you. I notice very few effects of "under-drinking". So yeah, not everyone has the same needs. On the flip side, I was working outdoors in the sun all day today, and probably ended up drinking about 2 gallons of water without needing to pee much. So not everyone has the same needs even on a day to day basis.
    - Carrok 2y ago
      > I live about a thousand feet above you. I’ve also lived extensively over 9,000ft in altitude. Are we getting into a height pissing contest? If so, why? Just drink water. Fucksakes.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        You're the one who opened with a statement about elevation, presumably to note that it made a difference, somehow. Fucksakes.
- ianburrell 2y ago
  8 glasses of water is pretty close to the suggested amount. Adequate average daily intake is 15.5 cups for men, and 11.5 cups for women. The saying doesn't say how large is a glass, but 16 cups is 8 16oz glasses, or with 20% from food, 8 12oz glasses.
  - tiahura 2y ago
    Most of the largest mammals live their entire lives without a sip of fresh water.
    - jamil7 2y ago
      You realise not all mammals have the same nutrition and hydration requirements right?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      Unless you are an aquatic mammal specifically designed to live in saltwater, that seems mostly irrelevant.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
nkurz 2y ago
> You would have to try VERY hard to drink too much water. On what do you base this claim? I think it's badly overstated. I'd say instead that it depends on circumstance. Seated in an air-conditioned office, you might be right. But if you are doing endurance athletics in a hot desert environment, it can be both easy and dangerous to drink too much plain water: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-dangers-of-hyponatremia/ https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-dangers-of-hyponatrem...
- Carrok 2y ago
  I think it’s clear from context we are not talking about a desert endurance race. I would hope anyone engaged in such an endeavor would be working with a doctor to help set their own guidelines.
  - ckcheng 2y ago
    It can happen in many places … even in Boston: > Hyponatremia occurs in a substantial fraction of nonelite marathon runners and can be severe. > As marathon running has surged in popularity during the past quarter-century, reports have emerged of serious illness and death from hyponatremia, as in the case of a 28-year-old woman who died after the 2002 Boston Marathon. > Participants in the 2002 Boston Marathon were recruited … 488 runners (64 percent) provided a usable blood sample at the finish line. Thirteen percent had hyponatremia (a serum sodium concentration of 135 mmol per liter or less); 0.6 percent had critical hyponatremia (120 mmol per liter or less). [1]: Hyponatremia among Runners in the Boston Marathon. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa043901 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa043901
    - jerlam 2y ago
      Also the Grand Canyon, which attracts much more people than the Boston Marathon: However, a 6-year study reported that exercise-associated hyponatremia, dehydration, and heat exhaustion occurred at nearly the same rate, prompting re-examination of emergency protocols. Most exercise-associated hyponatremia cases at the Grand Canyon occur among summer hikers to the inner Canyon and are often misdiagnosed as exertional heat illness due to overlapping signs and symptoms. https://journals.lww.com/cjasn/fulltext/2024/05000/exercise_associated_hyponatremia_in_the_grand.19.aspx https://journals.lww.com/cjasn/fulltext/2024/05000/exercise_... Hyponatremia is especially dangerous because a common response is to drink even more water, which makes the condition even worse. The National Park Service changed all their hiking advice to explicitly recommend "salty snacks" and "sports drinks".
8372049 2y ago
You would have to try harder to drink too little water, because your body regulates hydration by getting thirsty, under normal conditions. Overhydration can lead to significant consequences such as heart failure and urinary tract abnormalities. Excess water consumption can cause hyponatremia, which is an independent risk factor for bone fractures. "Staying hydrated" means to match the body's needs, not more, not less. Like with all other silly hypes (antioxidants, electrolytes, vitamin supplements, etc. etc.), too much is potentially harmful. It is a hype, because it's so easy to say "stay hydrated" and it seems like an uncontroversial thing, but it can be just as harmful as dehydration. In fact, among e.g. long distance runners, severe complications from overhydration are more common than severe complications from dehydration. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27548748/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27548748/
- Carrok 2y ago
  What an absurd statement. Over hydration has to go WAY over to compete with the dangers of under hydration.
  - 8372049 2y ago
    If you can back that up with a source, please do so. In any case, my point isn't about margins. My point is that you get thirsty if you need to drink more water. With some exceptions, such as old age. Drinking too much water is harmful. Drinking too little water is harmful. You want a proper hydration balance, and in most circumstances—with several exceptions—this is well regulated by thirst. All of this is well documented and none of this is should be controversial at all.
    - BOOSTERHIDROGEN 2y ago
      My sense of thirst seems somewhat off.
    - beeeeerp 2y ago
      Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but I have heard of very few over-hydration cases whereas medical dehydration seems pretty common. Granted the pressures for dehydration are a lot more common (hiking with too little water, running competitions, maybe little access to water in a hot climate, etc). Once one has ample access to water, I doubt there is much pressure to keep drinking to over-hydration.
koolala 2y ago
veryveryhard...
alhadrad 2y ago
Actually, this is completely false. It is extremely easy to over hydrate to a life threatening degree if you do physical activity. It is quite trivial in fact to become hyponitremic.

m463 2y ago

It is important to note this line "due to a gradual decoupling of thirst from hydration status" older people gradually lose their ability to sense thirst. So, if you're older, you can be dehydrated but not feel thirsty. I suspect the practical solution to this is to drink more all the time. But I also think there's probably a market for some way of letting older people monitor their hydration status, maybe through a watch or other sensor.

takklz 2y ago

Agreed.. if I guzzle water without adding in electrolytes I get a guaranteed migraine aura with vision loss.

euroderf 2y ago

Coffee seems to defeat the thirst reflex. Try to remember to have a glass (or half) or water an hour or two after a coffee.

j45 2y ago

A lot of people are chronically dehdryated. A lot more than I ever realized. There are also symptoms that turn out to be dehydration and not something you end up getting medicated for. Making sure one’s hydrated, especially for the brain at least helps the brain and body be at its capable baseline before addressing further. I recently started 1L of water first thing in the morning with a pack of electrolyte like a biosteel. The key is to drink at the pace that doesn’t make you pee, which seems possible in the morning. My understanding is most ppl wake up dehydrated after sleep. It was noticeable after a few days and let me delay and eliminate the first caffeine and progressively push it to later in the morning. Might not be for everyone but it would be surprising if more than a few people didn’t discover they might be a little dehydrated. Caffiene is back to being a boost.

ErikBjare 2y ago
A lot of people aren't "chronically dehydrated". If you're not thirsty when you wake up, you're most likely not dehydrated.

nikitay 2y ago

Try out https://takesip.com/ https://takesip.com/ app for macOS. Find out your recommended level of water intake: https://takesip.com/calculator/ https://takesip.com/calculator/. Cheers.