Caffeinated Beverages COUNT Toward Water Intake **Please rea

NB: I know this isn't NEW news, but in the last few days I have spoken to a lot of people about this, both on MFP and offline. Thought it might be worth to share some irrefutable resources.

I was having trouble wrapping my head around the idea of "more liquids = dehydration" in the context of caffeinated drinks, including coffee and tea. I've heard it around a lot, but never really understood how it all worked, so I went digging.

Eventually, my internet searching led me to a publication by the Institute of Medicine, back in 2005. "Dietary Reference Intakes for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride, and Sulfate." Yeah, it's a mouthful. The entire text is available online for free, and I do encourage you to take a quick search through it if you're interested in information on any of those five components.

The one I was interested in, however, was water, and more specifically, the correlation between water intake and caffeinated drinks. (Also alcohol, but let's not get into that ;P)

As I went through the book systematically to find any references to caffeine, I eventually reached pages 457 and 458. I provide a VERY interesting quote from those pages in reference to caffeinated drinks:

" Ingestion of fluids containing caffeine and alcohol, known to result in diuresis, are not associated with increased incidence of dehydration or body water deficits; thus their consumption can contribute to the total body water needs of individuals." (Referenced from the Institute of Medicine, 2001).

I haven't found any more recent research yet, though I'm still looking; but my understanding from this and other information sourced from this text is that, while caffeinated and alcoholic drinks DO act as diuretics, the RESULT is not an overall DECREASE in the amount of body water; therefore, things like drinking two cups of water to make up for a cup of coffee are in fact myths, and unnecessary.

If you're interested, you can read the entire text at the following link. I doubt anyone will read the whole thing, it is very long and rather dry, but do use it as a reference if you have any questions about those particular aspects of diet and nutrition.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10925&page=R1

And an additional note on the subject:

"In his review, “Caffeine, Body Fluid-Electrolyte Balance, and Exercise Performance,” Lawrence E. Armstrong, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Connecticut disproves the notion that caffeinated beverages rob us of our precious fluids. By reviewing the scientific research on the subject, he concludes that although caffeine, like water, is a mild diuresis (it increases excretion of urine), moderate caffeine consumption does not produce a “fluid-electrolyte imbalance” that can affect health or exercise performance. Furthermore, we retain roughly the same amount of fluid after drinking a caffeinated beverage as we do after drinking water."
Quoted from: http://www.divinecaroline.com/22178/46361-coffee-makes-dehydrated-say-what
The article in question can be found at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/559762 (you may need to create an account)