Lasher
08-16-2002, 04:30 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trying to do the "right" thing by drinking eight full glasses of water a day may do little more than make a person run to the bathroom, a researcher said on Friday.
Newspaper articles, health and beauty magazines all advise drinking at least 8 full glasses of water a day totaling 64 ounces for optimal health -- an approach called "8x8" by proponents.
But Dr. Heinz Valtin of Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire said there is no scientific evidence to back up this advice, which has helped create a huge market for bottled water.
"After 10 months of careful searching I have found no scientific evidence that supports '8x8'," Valtin, who has written textbooks on the subject of human water balance, said in a telephone interview.
Writing in the American Journal of Physiology, Valtin, a kidney specialist, said people forget that the food they eat also contains some water.
The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council has recommended that people take in about one milliliter of water for each calorie of food eaten.
This adds up to two liters, or 74 fluid ounces on an average 2,000-calorie diet. But the National Research Council also noted that much of this is already contained in food.
"I did 43 years of research on that system -- the osmoregulatory system. That system is so precise and so fast that I find it impossible to believe that evolution left us with a chronic water deficit," Valtin said.
And overdoses of water can cause water intoxication that can lead to confusion and even death. Water intoxication is one deadly effect of taking the drug Ecstasy, for instance, because it makes people thirsty beyond their physical needs.
Entire story
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20020809_497.html
Newspaper articles, health and beauty magazines all advise drinking at least 8 full glasses of water a day totaling 64 ounces for optimal health -- an approach called "8x8" by proponents.
But Dr. Heinz Valtin of Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire said there is no scientific evidence to back up this advice, which has helped create a huge market for bottled water.
"After 10 months of careful searching I have found no scientific evidence that supports '8x8'," Valtin, who has written textbooks on the subject of human water balance, said in a telephone interview.
Writing in the American Journal of Physiology, Valtin, a kidney specialist, said people forget that the food they eat also contains some water.
The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council has recommended that people take in about one milliliter of water for each calorie of food eaten.
This adds up to two liters, or 74 fluid ounces on an average 2,000-calorie diet. But the National Research Council also noted that much of this is already contained in food.
"I did 43 years of research on that system -- the osmoregulatory system. That system is so precise and so fast that I find it impossible to believe that evolution left us with a chronic water deficit," Valtin said.
And overdoses of water can cause water intoxication that can lead to confusion and even death. Water intoxication is one deadly effect of taking the drug Ecstasy, for instance, because it makes people thirsty beyond their physical needs.
Entire story
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20020809_497.html