I can’t help but chuckle at the many articles proclaiming the ultimate showdown: “the best water to drink” or “the best water filter in your home.”
Don’t get me wrong; these articles make readers think about improving their water source, but opinions on water are as varied as the flavours at an ice cream parlour.
The heavyweight champion of the current water league table is hydrogen water! I believe deservedly so. We’ve had hydrogen water in our kitchen for the past 18 months.
But here’s the real kicker: some people argue that the water quality in the Welsh mountains is better than in the English cities. That may be so, but what hardly anyone talks about is the condition of the pipes bringing the water into our homes.
I wrote this piece a few years ago. Wouldn’t change a word of it today…..
Dehydration
I have to add my two cents about drinking water daily. We need plenty of water to hydrate ourselves. We know that. So who was it that pitched the level at 8 glasses? What size glass and by whose standards? As a result of perspiration, does someone living in the tropics need more water than someone living in Iceland? Or an athlete more water than a couch potato? There clearly cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to our daily water requirements.
“…without sufficient water, your body has no way to eliminate toxins and waste, or the histamines that cause allergies. Hydration will improve your skin, plumping it out. Dehydration creates an imbalance of minerals, and disrupts hormone balance.” Elaine Hollingsworth
If you don’t have enough water in your body, your digestion suffers, your kidneys work overtime, your breathing is impaired, your heart finds it difficult to function and your joints suffer. Too much water on the other hand and you run the risk of over-hydration.
Apart from pissing like a race horse, the most common symptoms of water intoxication can be a drop in blood sugar levels as well as:
• Headaches • Poor digestion • Low body temperature/cold extremities
• Low metabolism • Brain fog.
So how much water should you drink? If you get the fluid replacement levels correct, you’re closer to taking real control of your health. To determine this your body will tell you when it’s time to drink.
Take into consideration your body size & weight, the physical activity you engage in, the type of food you eat and the climate you live in.
My advice? Ignore all advice (except this!).
Pay no heed to generalised recommendations and definitely drink when you’re thirsty or in advance of exercise, especially if you’re going on a long hike in the countryside.
You get no Brownie points for nipping into the pub and claiming that beer and wine are 90% water!
It’s also possible that when you think you’re hungry, you could be craving water. Rehydrate by drinking until your urine is no longer dark.
Who first launched the 8 glasses a day initiative?
This is attributed to Fredrick J. Stare, Professor of Nutrition at Harvard University. Coincidentally Professor Stare was a close ally of the Rockefeller Foundation and a ‘friend’ to industry at the time – especially those advocating fluoride and additives to water as well as the tobacco giants and the sugar producers.
Stare had financial ties to the US Cereal Institute and Nabisco and openly attacked anyone criticising the ‘science’ behind food additives and excessive sugars in the diet. Enough said there then!
A comprehensive search through scientific literature reveals absolutely no evidence to support the 8 glasses a day advice. Anywhere. There are plenty of articles regurgitating this advice yet strangely no published research. Even the Mayo Clinic agrees.
In 2011 Dr. Margaret McCartney, wrote a commentary in the British Medical Journal called ‘Waterlogged?’ She argued that the advice to drink 8 glasses of water a day is “thoroughly debunked nonsense” being spread by bottled water companies in order to generate more profit.
McCartney wrote: “Hydration for Health has a vested interest: it is sponsored and was created by French food giant Danone. This company produces Volvic, Evian, and Badoit bottled waters”.
She also referred to the work of Professor Stanley Goldfarb (University of Pennsylvania) that revealed:
“There is no clear evidence of benefit from drinking increased amounts of water. Although we wish we could demolish all of the urban myths found on the internet regarding the benefits of supplemental water ingestion, we concede there is also no clear evidence of lack of benefit. In fact, there is simply a lack of evidence in general.”
In an interesting response Goldfarb was contacted by Danone after his paper was published. McCartney added about Goldfarb in her paper:
“After he wrote his article, he was contacted by Danone, and taken out to dinner by two of its representatives. They didn’t try to dissuade him from his views, yet they did show him a graph intimating that sales fell after the editorial was published.”
For many reasons I prefer tap water to bottled water, however I don’t live in Flint, Michigan or anywhere else in the USA where tap water is becoming scandalously toxic. Remember the film Erin Brockovich (2:27)?
Tap water still needs to be well-filtered as this video shows: FB OskarTBrand: We’re All Drinking Sewage (2:43)
In his book Eat For Heat: A Metabolic Approach to Food and Drink, author Matt Stone goes into great detail about over-diluting our bodies. He explains how we can maintain our internal balance by modifying what we eat and drink. Matt writes: “Do not drink when you are not thirsty – especially fluids that lack salt and sugar like tea, coffee, diet drinks and plain water, adding “No other creature is so removed from its instinctual programming to the point of accidentally over drinking.”
Graeme Dinnen
ResourcesForLife.net
PS. If you’re tired of sipping bottled water that tastes like it was squeezed out of a rubber hose, then it’s time to upgrade your choice to Aquapax!
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill bottled water; we’re talking about water that’s contained in recyclable paper cartons, not plastic prisons.
Aquapax a refreshingly pure spring water, devoid of the impurities you find in the plastic bottled water, and available to us in the UK, Ireland, parts of Europe and the Middle East.
So whether you’re scaling mountains, going on weekend hikes, spreading out late summer picnic blankets, throwing epic events, or just lounging at home, Aquapax is so much better for your body.
