Are the Benefits of Drinking Water Overated ?
Do we really need to drink eight glasses of water a day ? This is something that has been around for quite a long time now, and being as there are quite a few splits between people, as to whether or not you need to drink lots of water a day.
I myself have seen various claims about drinking water in regard to weight loss whether they hold any substance is another matter, all the ones I’ve come across are the following.
- Drink water before a meal this is supposed to fill your stomach with water so you eat less
- Drink ice cold water this is supposed to speed your metabolism up because your body has to warm the water up.
- And just drinking water itself is supposed to help you lose weight.
But that’s not the main reason for writing this post is it’s more a case of what health benefits are there to drinking water all round. No doubt those people who spend a lot of money on bottled water, which is which incidentally is very big business these days are probably going to be quite disappointed by what they may read here.
The Facts
Some scientists have been digging around to see if this theory does in fact hold any water sorry about the pun. For all the people connected with the eight glasses of water theory it has now been proven, that there is no great benefit to drinking the suggested amount of water a day.
Stanley Goldfarb who conducted the research said “there is no benefit from drinking increased amounts of water” who is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania he goes on to say “that there is no solid scientific evidence to prove the theory of drinking lots of water ”
Stanley Goldfarb wanted to get to the bottom of where the eight glasses came from he “says that it is a necessary think there is a problem with drinking the water”, but that you might not need to do it. Looking back through medical archives there didn’t seem to be any evidence and/or studies to back up the claim.
So it seems that this was something that was started and took on a life of its own a bit like an old wives tale you might say, the researchers then went on to to look at some of the myths that are associated with water.
Which are as follows.
- Helps to flush out toxins
within the body the only thing they found with this claim was that it could dilute toxinsbut not
necessarily flush them out of your body. - Water helps your organs function better
This claim found came up with nothing as well - Drinking water before a meal or water as a whole makes you feel full
They say that in studies for some people this worked and some it did not but Goldberg says this area could do with more studies and research. - Helps to make your skin look better One study showed that this there may actually be more blood flow to your skin as a result of drinking water but other than that nothing else conclusive was found.
- Prevents headaches There was only one study that was found with any real relevance to this the people that drank more water reported having less headaches but the statistics didn’t hold much reverence whatsoever.
Conclusion
So it would seem that that the people that do support drinking lots of water maybe just have an overall placebo effect, this doesn’t mean to say that you shouldn’t drink lots of water far from it but you probably don’t need to specifically drink eight glasses of water a day as you probably think that you may need to it is merely more of a personal preference than anything.
I myself used to drink lots of water each day thinking somehow that I was gaining lots of benefit from it but now I am wondering if that is the case.
What are your thoughts on this particular subject matter ? any feedback or comments would be quite interesting to read based upon your own personal experiences of drinking water.
[...] Mark added an interesting post on Are the Benefits of Drinking Water Overated ?Here’s a small excerptI myself have seen various claims about drinking water in regard to weight loss whether they hold any substance is another matter, all the ones I’ve come across are the following. Drink water before a meal this is supposed to fill your … [...]
Have you noticed any changes in yourself/your body since you stopped drinking lots of water?
This article needs re-writing, it’s a mess to read.
Read’s ok to me what part don’t you understand ?
I have just started to drink a lot of water because I recently had a water infection. I sit at desk for 8 1/2 hours drinking nothing but tea & coffee, when Im at home I dont drink anything at all in the day. However I have made myself drink water and I can honestly say that I do feel better for it. My skin looks and feels so much better, I dont have dark rings under my eyes. I have also stopped snacking at night. I dont buy expensive bottled water just make do with council pop but I can say for me it has had a positive effect.
Possibly one of the worst health related articles I have ever read. Some of your claims are completely unfounded and you appear to have ignored the vast, vast amounts of evidence supporting the health benefits of water. I can’t believe I’m even writing this. Drinking water is one of the easiest but most important things you can do!
Hi Richard who said there they where my claims ? it’s based on research how do you argue with that ? and do you yourself know that what you say is true.
You have to deal with facts which is what I do.
As a college proffesor i find your article insulting. To put this simply: drinking lots of water is the best thing you can do to keep yourself healthy.
Hi it’s based on research look at the bottom there is a link it says article source that’s where it came from. All the information was gathered from there.
Your are wrong enough because i get many benifits to drink lot of water for example, easy bowles, gastric pain relif, backach pain relife etc.
sorry to the writer of this article but i don’t quite understand what he is getting at.
yes it isn’t necessary to drink 8 glasses a day but you did mention benefits in most areas.
let me explain the brilliance of water to you and why high amounts can be beneficial. fortunately you ironically provided me with the facts in your article. firstly diluting toxins means they exit the body faster. you have decided this does not mean they ‘flush’ out of the body which to some extent is true but surely getting rid of toxins as fast as possible is flushing. water also aids the livers efficiency further speeding up the rate that toxins exit the body.
water as you have said speeds up blood flow and provides a more efficient immune system because of this. immunity is strongly linked to disease and skin. If one drinks more water they, i would assume be at less risk to disease.
Skin i feel is one major thing affected by large amounts of water. firstly on the point of blood flow increase; this will hydrate the skin quicker and provide a better immune system. the immune system is heavily linked to hormone control and obviously fighting infection. Hormone imbalance is the main reason for acne.
to conclude i feel you have a point that drinking 8 glasses is not necessary but there are undeniably health benifits.
I think some of you are missing the point here, it doesnt discourage drinking water, its simply put drinking excessive amounts of water or eight glasses, doesnt show any improvements compared to drinking the right anount needed to function, i only drink 3-4 glasses a day i feel great!
Ashraf that is the point
scientists said that we should drink 8 glasses of liquid a day,whether its water, milk, tea, coffee juice and so on, but what the water companies did was to manipulate this and change it to 8 glasses of water per day, very clever cos it worked, the sale of bottled water went up and it was fashionable to have a bottle of water in your hand, saying to people ” hey look how healthy i am ”
ok you shouldnt drink a lot of coffee, but doesnt tea detox your body ?