Water...It’s Hard to Drink Enough
The debate over how much water to drink each day keeps swishing back and forth. Here is my take.
Water is the key to a healthy life. When I grew up, we never drank it except after sports. My parents thought it ruined your appetite. And one of them was a doctor.
A wave of enthusiasm for “eight tall glasses of water a day” started in the 1980s. The thinking behind it—that most of us are relatively dehydrated—was accurate. We start our day with coffee, which increases urination. We eat foods loaded with sodium. We rarely notice our thirst except when exercising. And as we age, our thirst detection declines. (This is why so many older people have dry tongues and parched skin while not asking for a drink.) We compound our dehydration by exercising with limited hydration afterwards or—even worse—alcoholic drinks that cause us to piss away our remaining water. Then we fall into fitful sleep, with our mouths wide open, and dry out more as the night goes by.
In the 2000s the “eight glasses a day” recommendation was challenged, by nutrition and beverage companies, as lacking sufficient data. Yet while science goes up and down, common sense prevails.
Each of us uses our brain as our highest steady metabolic engine. Our brains work better with more hydration; so much so that when we are dehydrated our body shunts blood to the brain to accommodate. Our muscles work better when they have full blood flow, our kidneys work to wash out our ingested toxins, and our hearts stay at lower beat levels when there is a full blood supply.
Most of the time, when people reach for a drink, the beverage is unhealthy. Readily available alternatives like soda and coffee drinks are loaded with fat and/or sugar, and most of what is available in convenience stores does more to increase the consumer’s weight than slake their thirst. If you drink a glass of water before each meal, less food is consumed; if you do so before each alcoholic drink, less alcohol is consumed. If you drink water throughout the day, less sugar is ingested.
Water remains the spirit of life. The more you drink (within reason), the better— and longer—you live.