Do we really need 8 - 8oz of water every day?

grimsin

8 is probably the extreme bare minimum you should consume. divide your body weight in half, that's how many fluid oz you should drink every day if not more.

"new studies say you don't need that much water" ROFLMAO then don't drink it, hehehe

06fusion4us

I put down at least 64oz per day. On days I am working outside or in the gym, that increases.

AbbsyBabbsy

If I drink more than 40oz I lose hours of sleep from getting up to go to the bathroom. It can take me an hour or more to fall back asleep. Sleep trumps arbitrary water intake. And I agree humans would have died out eons ago if we really need 64oz of water a day.

Brandon74

Yes we do. I don't see it as difficult to drink 64oz of plain water a day. I usually go over that by way more

yarwell

OK I must be the oddball here. I drink about 2-3 glasses a day. Can't imagine drinking a whole gallon.

Me too, I'm old enough to remember when people didn't walk around clutching bottles of water like they were in the Gulf War. Marketing victims the lot of them.

Our health advice in the UK is to take in about 1300 ml of fluids and the rest you get from food, that's probably about 48 ozs.

There was a TV programme recently which put a medical specialist into hysterics by asking him if it was necessary to drink so much. He said dehydration is a normal metabolic state and not a disease.

yarwell

"Defining Dehydration
A challenge of this study was selecting indicators of hydration status in healthy males. As defined in a commonly used introductory nutrition textbook, dehydration is the condition in which body water output exceeds water intake [11]. Such a definition takes into consideration all sources of water intake (beverages, food and metabolic) as well as all losses (urine, feces, sweat and the like) Hence, this definition of dehydration is impossible to assess in conditions other than a metabolic ward.

In a report on evaluation and management of dehydration in older adults issued by the American Medical Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs, the authors stated that no absolute definition of dehydration exists. The authors went on to say that a useful definition is the rapid weight loss of greater than 3% of body weight [12]. When using percent decrease in body weight for the clinical assessment of fluid deficit in children, mild dehydration is defined as equal to or less than 5% [13]. Percent body weight is commonly used in athletics and research exploring effect, prevention and treatment of dehydration under physiological and environmental stress. For example, dehydration of more than 2% of body weight is known to impair exercise performance [14–16]. While researchers and clinicians utilize a variety of variables to determine dehydration, body weight is the most practical index."

http://www.jacn.org/content/19/5/591.full

GorillaEsq

OK I must be the oddball here. I drink about 2-3 glasses a day. Can't imagine drinking a whole gallon.

Me too, I'm old enough to remember when people didn't walk around clutching bottles of water like they were in the Gulf War. Marketing victims the lot of them.

I agree with notion that the marketing campaigns regarding bottled water are absolutely ridiculous. Asinine, the lot of 'em. However, that same statement could be made regarding the marketing of virtually every product on the planet.

As previously stated, I drink 1.5 gallons a day (pursuant my never ceasing desire to shorten my neck and find my inner gorilla).

I buy gallon jugs of Walmart brand spring water (from Walmart obviously), for 88 cents per jug. It's not "trendy" by any stretch of the imagination. However it's cheap, and effective.

And the only reason I buy spring water at all, is due entirely to the fact that our tap water tastes like gopher p!ss.

BeckySue1977

Wow, so many different oppinions expressed here!

I tend to be in the "listen to your body" camp on this one.
It truly is amazing what our bodies can do and what they can tell us. When people crave certain foods, most chalk it up as the body sending a message that there is a deficit in a certain nutrient, but we don't generally go into a panic to consume it. Isn't water the same thing? If you are mildly thirsty, it is probably not cause for panic. Drink water till you aren't thirsty anymore and go about your day.

Maybe part of the problem here is that most of us have forgotten how to listen to our bodies? When we eat a diet that is nutritious and doesn't contain a lot of fats, sugars, and overly processed foods, our body generally functions much more efficiently and we feel generally good. After a greasy burger we feel lethargic and blah. Messages our body is sending us.
Water is the same. If you are so focused on drinking "enough" water, then you are not listening to your body's signals telling you when you have truly had enough or when you need more.

I say forget about the "science" behind it and listen to your body.

rubyjune27

Same as some previous posters. Drink when thirsty. Experts in this field point out that no athlete has ever died due to dehydration but, there are athletes who have been very ill and died from over hydration . Too much fluid is harmful.