[Diabetes-talk] The Eight Glasses of Water Myth

Mon Apr 15 04:22:31 UTC 2013

What about the diuretic affect caffeine has on the body though, as do
some artificial sweeteners? This would dehydrate you, so it seems a
little suspect that drinks like tea and coffee would be okay.

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: Diabetes-talk [mailto:diabetes-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Joy Stigile
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2013 4:36 PM
To: Diabetes Talk for the Blind
Subject: Re: [Diabetes-talk] The Eight Glasses of Water Myth

Hi!

When I drink less than 8 cups of water a day I get thirsty, tired and 
hungry.  I do not drink juice or soda
much, water and coffee are my main liquids during the day.

I guess I am part of the original study group.

Joy
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "Diabetes Talk for the Blind" <diabetes-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2013 12:57 PM
Subject: [Diabetes-talk] The Eight Glasses of Water Myth

> I'm sure we've all read and heard the old saw that one must drink 
> eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy and this is doubly true 
> for diabetics. In fact, in a good book published by the American 
> Diabetes Association, Sex and Diabetes: For Him and For Her, this 
> instruction was given weight. We've also been told that drinking large

> quantities of coffee or tea dehydrates us.
>
>
>
> However, it ain't so. Normally, I just give links to Snopes stories 
> but I hear this one often enough that I'm pasting the entry, penned 
> April 10, below.
>
>
>
> Happy reading.
>
>
>
> Mike Freeman
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> snopes.com: Eight Glasses: Water vs. Coke
>
> snopes.com
>
> j
>
> Medical
>
>>
>
> Medical Myths
>
>
>
>
>
> Water Works
>
> Claim: The average person needs to drink eight glasses of water per 
> day to avoid being "chronically dehydrated."
>
>
>
> FALSE
>
> Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2001]
>
>
>
> 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.
>
>
>
> In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often 
> mistaken for hunger.
>
>
>
> Even mild dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 30%.
>
>
>
> One glass of water shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of 
> the dieters studied in a U-Washington study.
>
>
>
> Lack of water is the number one trigger of daytime fatigue.
>
>
>
> Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could 
> significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
>
>
>
> A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, 
> trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer 
> screen or on a printed
>
> page.
>
>
>
> Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer 
> by
> 45%,
> plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50%
less
> likely
>
> to develop bladder cancer.
>
>
>
> Are you drinking a healthy amount of water each day?
>
> Variations: Some versions of this item are titled "Water vs. Coke" and
> tack
> claims about the supposedly deleterious effects of Coca-Cola (which we

> have
>
> covered in a separate
>
> article)
>
> onto the end of this piece.
>
>
>
> Origins: "You need to drink eight glasses of water per day to be 
> healthy"
> is
> one of our more widely-known basic health tips.  But do we really need
>
> to drink that much water on a daily basis?
>
>
>
> In general, to remain healthy we need to take in enough water to 
> replace
> the
> amount we lose daily through excretion, perspiration, and other bodily
> functions,
>
> but that amount can vary widely from person to person, based upon a
> variety
> of factors such as age, physical condition, activity level, and
climate.
> The
>
> "8 glasses of water per day" is a rule of thumb, not an absolute 
> minimum, and not all of our water intake need come in the form of 
> drinking water.
>
>
>
> The origins of the 8-10 glasses per day figure remain elusive.  As a 
> Los Angeles Times article on the subject reported:
>
> Consider that first commandment of good health: Drink at least eight
> 8-ounce
> glasses of water a day. This unquestioned rule is itself a question
mark.
>
> Most nutritionists have no idea where it comes from. "I can't even 
> tell
> you
> that," says Barbara Rolls, a nutrition researcher at Pennsylvania
State
> University,
>
> "and I've written a book on water."
>
>
>
> Some say the number was derived from fluid intake measurements taken
> decades
> ago among hospital patients on IVs; others say it's less a measure of
what
>
> people need than a convenient reference point, especially for those 
> who
> are
> prone to dehydration, such as many elderly people.
>
> Back in 1945 the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research 
> Council stated that adults should take in about 2.5 liters of water 
> per day (which is
>
> roughly the equivalent of eight glasses of water), but it also noted 
> most
> of
> that intake level was already satisfied through the consumption of
food
> without
>
> the need for the additional drinking of water.  And as other 
> nutritionists of the time noted, any shortfall in water intake could 
> be made up through the
>
> consumption of beverages such as coffee, tea, milk, or soft drinks; 
> one
> need
> not specifically drink water only in the form of water.
>
>
>
> As Drs. Aaron E. Carroll and Rachel C. Vreeman reported in an article 
> on this topic:
>
> There's nothing wrong with liking water, but there is no scientific 
> proof stating that you need to drink anywhere near eight glasses a 
> day.  One doctor
>
> who has made this his research focus, Dr. Heinz Valtin, searched 
> through many electronic databases and also consulted with 
> nutritionists and colleagues
>
> who specialize in water balance in the body.  In all of his research, 
> and
> in
> all of the research we conducted to double-check his work, no
scientific
> evidence
>
> could be found to suggest that you need to drink eight glasses of 
> water a day. In fact, scientific studies suggest that you already get 
> enough liquid from
>
> what you're drinking and eating on a daily basis. We are not all 
> walking around in a state of dehydration.
>
> Other medical experts have also disdained the notion that one need 
> drink
> at
> least eight glasses of water per day to remain adequately hydrated:
>
> Kidney specialists do agree on one thing, however: that the 8-by-8 
> rule is
> a
> gross overestimate of any required minimum. To replace daily losses of
> water,
>
> an average-sized adult with healthy kidneys sitting in a temperate 
> climate needs no more than one liter of fluid, according to Jurgen 
> Schnermann, a kidney
>
> physiologist at the National Institutes of Health.
>
>
>
> One liter is the equivalent of about four 8-ounce glasses. According 
> to
> most
> estimates, that's roughly the amount of water most Americans get in
solid
>
> food.  In short, though doctors don't recommend it, many of us could 
> cover our bare-minimum daily water needs without drinking anything 
> during the day.
>
>
>
> Certainly there are beneficial health effects attendant with being 
> adequately hydrated, and some studies have seemingly demonstrated 
> correlations between
>
> such variables as increased water intake and a decreased risk of colon

> cancer. But are 75% of Americans really "chronically dehydrated," as 
> claimed in
>
> the anonymous e-mail quoted in our example?  Many of the notions (and 
> dubious "facts") presented in that e-mail seem to have been taken from

> the book
>
> Your Body's Many Cries for Water,
>
> by Fereydoon Batmanghelidj. Dr. Batmanghelidj, an Iranian-born 
> physician
> who
> now lives in the U.S., maintains that people "need to learn they're
not
> sick,
>
> only thirsty," and that simply drinking more water "cures many 
> diseases
> like
> arthritis, angina, migraines, hypertension and asthma." However, he 
> arrived
>
> at his conclusions through reading, not research, and he claims that 
> his ideas represent a "paradigm shift" that required him to 
> self-publish his book
>
> lest his findings "be suppressed.''
>
>
>
> Other doctors certainly take issue with his figures:
>
> [S]ome nutritionists insist that half the country is walking around 
> dehydrated. We drink too much coffee, tea and sodas containing 
> caffeine, which prompts
>
> the body to lose water, they say; and when we are dehydrated, we don't
> know
> enough to drink.
>
>
>
> Can it be so? Should healthy adults really be stalking the water 
> cooler to protect themselves from creeping dehydration?
>
>
>
> Not at all, doctors say. "The notion that there is widespread 
> dehydration has no basis in medical fact," says Dr. Robert Alpern, 
> dean of the medical school
>
> at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
>
>
>
> Doctors from a wide range of specialties agree: By all evidence, we 
> are a well-hydrated nation. Furthermore, they say, the current 
> infatuation with water
>
> as an all-purpose health potion - tonic for the skin, key to weight 
> loss - is a blend of fashion and fiction and very little science.
>
> Additionally, the idea that one must specifically drink water because 
> the diuretic effects of caffeinated drinks such as coffee, tea, and 
> soda actually
>
> produce a net loss of fluid is erroneous:
>
> Regular coffee and tea drinkers become accustomed to caffeine and lose

> little, if any, fluid. In a study published in the October issue of 
> the Journal
>
> of the American College of Nutrition, researchers at the Center for 
> Human Nutrition in Omaha measured how different combinations of water,

> coffee and caffeinated
>
> sodas affected the hydration status of 18 healthy adults who drink 
> caffeinated beverages routinely.
>
>
>
> "We found no significant differences at all," says nutritionist Ann 
> Grandjean, the study's lead author. "The purpose of the study was to 
> find out if caffeine
>
> is dehydrating in healthy people who are drinking normal amounts of 
> it. It is not."
>
>
>
> The same goes for tea, juice, milk and caffeinated sodas: One glass
> provides
> about the same amount of hydrating fluid as a glass of water. The only
> common
>
> drinks that produce a net loss of fluids are those containing alcohol 
> -
> and
> usually it takes more than one of those to cause noticeable
dehydration,
> doctors
>
> say.
>
> The best general advice is to rely upon your normal senses.  If you 
> feel thirsty, drink; if you don't feel thirsty, don't drink unless you

> want to. The
>
> human body already does a good job of regulating water balance on its 
> own, and you therefore need not force yourself to drink when you are 
> not thirsty
>
> for fear of being dehydrated.  The exhortation that we all need to 
> satisfy an arbitrarily rigid rule about how much water we must drink 
> every day was aptly
>
> skewered in a letter by a Los Angeles Times reader:
>
> Although not trained in medicine or nutrition, I intuitively knew that

> the advice to drink eight glasses of water per day was nonsense. The 
> advice fully
>
> meets three important criteria for being an American health urban 
> legend: excess, public virtue, and the search for a cheap "magic 
> bullet."
>
> Last updated: 10 April 2013
>
>
>
> Urban Legends Reference Pages C 1995-2013 by Barbara and David P.
> Mikkelson.
>
>
> This material may not be reproduced without permission.
>
> snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of 
> snopes.com.
>
>
>
> Sources:
>
> definition list of 9 items
>
> Batmanghelidj, Fereydoon. Your Body's Many Cries for Water.
>
> Global Health Solutions, 1995.    ISBN 0-962-99423-5.
>
>
>
> Carey, Benedict.   "Hard to Swallow."
>
> Los Angeles Times. 20 November 2001   (Health; p. 1).
>
>
>
> Carroll, Aaron E and Rachel C. Vreeman. Don't Swallow Your Gum!
>
> New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2009.   ISBN 0-312-53387-X   (pp. 
> 130-133).
>
>
>
> Foreman, Judy.   "The Water Fad Has People Soaking It Up."
>
> The Boston Globe. 11 May 1998   (p. C1).
>
>
>
> Hoolihan, Charlie.    "Body Needs Plenty of Water to Work."
>
> The [New Orleans] Times-Picayune. 31 May 1998.
>
>
>
> CNN.com. "Americans Need to Shake Salt Habit."
>
> 11 February 2004.
>
>
>
> Los Angeles Times. "All That Water Advice Just Doesn't Wash."
>
> 15 January 2001   (Health; p. 7).
>
>
>
> Los Angeles Times. "Readers Take Issue with Article About Water 
> Consumption."
>
> 25 January 2000   (Health; p. 5).
>
>
>
> The Toronto Star. "Distilling Water Facts from Water Fiction."
>
> 21 March 1999.
>
> list end
>
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