Why you don't need to drink 8 cups of water a day

[Mosby]

We’ve all heard the age-old advice to drink eight cups of water a day. But if you fall short, don’t worry: That advice is probably wrong anyway.

That’s according to new research, published in the journal Science, which found that for most healthy adults, drinking eight cups of water a day is completely unnecessary. The advice is misguided in part because it doesn’t take into account all the water that we get from our food and from other beverages like coffee and tea. The research found that our water needs vary from one person to next and depend on factors like your age, sex, size, physical activity levels and the climate that you live in.

The authors of the study say that for healthy adults, there is no real benefit to drinking eight cups of water a day. Nor is it dangerous: Your body will just excrete the extra water you consume in your urine.

....
The advice to drink eight cups of water a day stems from a 1945 recommendation from the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, which encouraged adults to consume about 64 ounces of water daily. The recommendation referred to a person’s total daily intake of water, including from all their foods and beverages, but it was widely misinterpreted to mean that people should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water every day.

Some experts have argued that the widely held belief was not rooted in science. One study of 883 elderly adults for example found that there was no evidence of dehydration among the 227 people in the study who routinely drank less than six glasses of water daily.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/06/eight-cups-daily-water-intake/

[GenXer47]

1. what do they say about 108 ounces of beer?

I never get sick.

[at140]

3. I drink ONE bottle of water every day

Now an octogenaranian, I have not been sick of even a cold in 15 years
I dont need 8 glasses of water. I get plenty fluids from fruits, veggies, and 2 cups of coffee every day.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. I actually had a convo with a woman I was dating ... many years ago

Her: You need to drink more water!
Me: I drink a LOT of homemade, unsweetened iced tea every day
Her: That's not the same, you need to drink PLAIN water!
Me: You don't know what the fuck you're talking about ... who told you that, Dr. Gwyneth Paltrow?

We weren't together for very long.

Point being, I've always thought this idea was bullshit, promulgated by Evian and such.

[Peregrine Took]

6. Egads! Your second comment certainly ratcheted the conversation into the stratosphere! n/t

[GenXer47]

7. the funniest thing is she had a great point

Tea is a diuretic, so in the long haul you'll end up dehydrated.
I imagine there were other reasons to end the relationship.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

13. Oh, she had no freaking idea of something like that

All she knew was 'only the plain water you drink counts in any way' because it was some shit she read online.

And it's not a great point anyway.

Bottom-line is ... drink liquid when you're thirsty, your body knows how to signal you that it's time for fluids.

It's a very, very basic bodily function.

Forcing yourself to drink plain water, just because ... is bullshit.

And there are MANY kinds of 'tea' so what you're suggesting is not even necessarily true.

[Peregrine Took]

4. My Traditional Chinese Medicine MD has always said it depends on the color of your urine.

Well hydrated urine is the color of wheat - like a pale yellow.

[Bev54]

12. I was always told colourless is the best.

As soon as I see colour I drink water. I have taught my young grandchildren the same.

[dweller]

5. I only drink filtered water

Filtered through ground coffee beans, that is
☕️



✌🏻

[cilla4progress]

8. I routinely drink 60

ozs a day and it helps me keep feeling healthy and clean.

I get terrible muscle cramps (esp. if I exercise) if I don't. Magnesium helps a lot with those.

I agree about the urine (sorry for TMI): I aim for color- and odorless!

Guess it's individual!

[3catwoman3]

10. Your statement, "I aim for color," reminds me...

...of a story my late father told about signs in the men's bathrooms at the Allstate office building where he worked -

We aim to please.
You aim too, please.

[Timewas]

9. OK

I quite often do not drink even one glass of plain water as such a lot of days, lot of coffee and a small glass with meds. No problems with dehydration at all..

I have seen people who were going to be gone from their homes for maybe a couple of hours take 3 or four bottles with them.. absolute insanity.

[Mosby]

11. I'm kinda like that.

But I do drink plain water now with meals.

[luv2fly]

15. Same here

I sometimes get a chuckle out of the people in the office who can't seem to attend a meeting without their giant bottle of water next to them. Perhaps they think they are going to burst into flames?

[Timewas]

16. Silly stuff

Several that I know are like that. One women I know pulled out of her driveway to go to a shopping mall 3 miles away,drove half a mile and realized she forgot her water so went back home to get it...

[Shermann]

14. I drink when I'm thirsty

I'm entirely confident that I have evolved to experience thirst proportional to the optimal amount of water my body needs. If drinking more would improve my well-being, evolution would have easily addressed this.

Darwin FTW!

[Warpy]

17. I live in the desert and when the heat hits triple digits I can drink 3 liters a day

without having to march to the bathroom all night. I sweat it out, keeping comfortable and not noticing the sweat because it evaporates as soon as it forms. This climate is just that arid, iced drink glasses remaining dry on the outside.

in winter, it's only a little over a liter unless I want to march all night.

People in northern and western Europe before the introduction of tea and coffee averaged 8 mugs of ale a day. The ale was weak, enough to get them lightly buzzed but not hammered, and its elimination by temperance crusaders caused rural malnutrition, but that's likely another place that "8 glasses of water a day" fiction came from.