The blog of David Brake academic, consultant & journalist

13 August 2002

Filed under:Science & Technology at10:56 pm

Water contained in drinks such as coffee, tea or caffeinated soft drinks should count toward your total water intake

If your body needed more water you would get thirsty and

Dark urine doesn’t mean you are dehydrated.

So under normal circumstances you don’t need to hit a water “target” for health – just drink when you are thirsty…

3 Comments

Alas, this “study” was an electronic literature review, not a true study, and they looked at a very small subset of human water requirements. Yes, it’s relatively hard for a normal, sedentary, desk-bound individual to become dehydrated. But that’s not the whole picture.

Consuming more water helps with weight loss in two ways; 1) many times that you feel hungry you are actually thirsty, so drinking more means you eat less. 2) drinking water helps burn off fat, although I don’t remember the details on that one.

Consuming the target eight glasses of *water* a day (not juice, or coffee/tea) significantly reduces your chances of a heart attack. There are other studies; http://www.realage.com has several links on the subject.

Since he invites comments, I’m going to put together a list of references and send them in 🙂

Comment by Harald — 14 August 2002 @ 2:59 pm
I think you forgot the <ul> tags around your bullets, which would explain why they look a little wonky ;).

Comment by Alex — 14 August 2002 @ 6:24 pm
It is indeed a myth – peddled by manufacturers of mineral water!

Comment by Emma Butler - in the spirit of inquiry — 30 April 2004 @ 9:59 am