Eight Glasses of Water a Day?
Research Reveals No Health Benefits to Guzzling Water All Day Long
The June 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN) published an inquiry into what is known about drinking lots of water and health benefits.
These results are especially important for people interested in natural health because, as we've been saying here at Health & Beyond Online for years...
The study revealed no solid evidence for the most popularly claimed benefits and the researchers found no need for most people to drink the commonly recommended eight glasses of eight ounces (8x8) of water each day.
While it is true that most human beings will die if they go without water for more than several days, little research has looked at how the health of average men and women health is impacted by drinking extra fluids.
Experts, from typical medical doctors to natural health gurus have long claimed that guzzling water all day long clears the body of toxins while keeping organs healthy, holding back weight gain and improving the tone and luster of skin.
So medical doctors Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb of the Renal, Electrolyte, and Hypertension Division at the University of Pennsylvania decided to investigate the true benefits of drinking water by reviewing published clinical studies on the topic.
The two researchers discovered solid evidence that people living in dry, hot climates, as well as athletes, do require increased intakes of water.
Additionally, Negoianu and Goldfarb learned that individuals with certain diseases benefited from increased fluid intake.
But no similar data was found for healthy, average people.
Interestingly enough, there was no evidence at all suggesting that individuals should drink the commonly recommended eight glasses of eight ounces of water each day.
According to Negoianu and Goldfarb, it's unclear where the "8x8" recommendation came from.
Readers of Health & Beyond Online will no doubt point to Iranian medical doctor F. Batmanghelidj's best-selling Your Body's Many Cries for Water as one of the main vehicles to popularize the notion that people needs to consume water all day long to stay healthy
Negoianu and Goldfarb's review of the literature on water drinking included a look at previous studies examining the idea of improved kidney function and removal of bodily toxins coming from increased intake of water.
Although a number of studies revealed an impact on the clearance of various substances by the kidney, including urea and sodium, from drinking water, these studies didn't reveal any beneficial clinical results.
Other studies tested the effect of water and bodily organ function. These studies revealed the variability of how the body retains water. If you gulp water in a hurry, you'll be more likely to excrete the water. If water is sipped slowly, the body retains more of it.
Regardless of increased water intake as well as speed of ingestion, the two researchers found no studies that proved any benefit whatsoever to human organs.
Negoianu and Goldfarb also took a look at the "Drink more water to feel full and curb your appetite" theory. Proponents of this theory believe increased water drinking helps people maintain their weight and even help fight obesity. The research on this idea, however, is inconclusive.
There has yet to be a well-designed clinical trial to examine the relationship between weight maintenance and water intake.
Although popular notions suggest that headaches come from lack of water intake, again, no major studies confirm that hypothesis. One small trial did address the question, however. In that study, participants who increased water consumption did have fewer headaches than those who didn't, but the results were not statistically significant.
Increased water consumption has also been promoted as a practice that will improve skin tone. It's true that skin turgor comes from dehydration, but there are no studies that show any clinical skin tone benefits coming from drinking lots and lots of water.
In conclusion, Goldfarb and Negoianu's review of current studies reveals that there is no clear evidence of benefit to increasing water intake.
At the same time, no clear evidence could be found showing a lack of benefit. "There is simply a lack of evidence in general," they explain.
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