The following articles were sent after a conversation I had about the fact that people need 8-10 glasses of water per day. I had read that this wasn’t the case it was a single scientist a long while ago and pretty much every scientist since then that’s studied it has found it to be crap. Below are the references I found. Note, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t drink that much water if you want to, but that if you don’t want to you shouldn’t have to.
After an extensive search in 2002 for the origins of what is commonly referred to as the “8 × 8” guideline and areview of associated health claims, hereports finding no scientific evidence supporting the notion that healthy individuals need to consume large quantities of water. In 2008 Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb reviewed the evidence for the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. They came to a similar conclusion: “There is no clear evidence of benefit from drinking increased amounts of water.”…come from a variety of sources—including coffee, tea, milk, soda, juice, fruits, vegetables and other foods. Instead of recommending how much extra water a person should drink to maintain health, the panel simply concluded that “the vast majority of healthy people adequately meet their daily hydration needs by letting thirst be their guide.”
Scientific American Article
All foods contain water. Even the driest nut or seed has a lot of water in it. Furthermore, when food is digested, it is converted to energy, carbon dioxide and WATER. Most people can get the fluid the body needs from food, and they only need to drink enough water to prevent constipation…A reasonable amount for a healthy human is one cup of water or any other fluid with each meal. If you have a problem with constipation you may not be drinking enough water, but if you are not constipated, you are getting plenty. You’ll also want to replace fluids whenever you sweat a lot, particularly when you exercise or in hot weather. Drink water whenever you feel thirsty, but there’s no health benefit from forcing yourself to drink eight glasses of water a day.
Dr Gabe Mirkin article on water
Frederick Stare, who once recommended, without references, the consumption “around 6 to 8 glasses per 24 hours,” which could be “in the form of coffee, tea, milk, soft drinks, beer, etc.”. The complete lack of evidence supporting the recommendation to drink six to eight glasses of water a day is exhaustivelycatalogued in an invited review by Heinz Valtin in the American Journal of Physiology.
British Medical Journal article
On average, the body uses between 1.7 and 2.6 pints (one-1.5 litres) of water daily and more in high temperatures or when exercising. This is replaced through drinks but a large amount is also contained in food, so it is not necessary to drink an equivalent amount to replace water levels. Too much water can affect the balance of salts in the body causing “water intoxication”, which can be fatal.
The Telegraph article
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.”…an average-sized adult with healthy kidneys sitting in a temperate climate needs no more than one liter of fluid…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.
Snopes.com quoting a Los Angeles Times article