The truth about hydration: _________________________

Before you read this article, can I just check you’ve drunk enough water today? You might want to refill your bottle because, remember, if you wait until you feel thirsty, you may already be dehydrated. No one is sure where this advice came from, but it’s all over the internet. “Nowadays this is not considered sensible,” says Stuart Galloway, an associate professor in physiology, exercise and nutrition at the University of Stirling. “As humans, we have this homeostatic system, so when we need water, we feel thirsty.” Drinking when you are thirsty, he says, maintains your body’s water level within about 1-2% of its ideal state. “For most people, this is absolutely fine. Even for athletes, a loss of around 1% is considered to have negligible impact upon performance. So, although thirst may not kick in until you have lost some body water, this is not necessarily a bad thing.”

As we get older, our sense of thirst can get fuzzier and that is when dehydration can become a threat. It is a similar story for children, too. So perhaps the advice to drink water before you feel thirsty was originally aimed at parents and the elderly but now healthy adults are putting away gallons of water in a quest to be their best selves. There is a dearth of facts when it comes to hydration. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested in researching the benefits of a free resource and dehydration isn’t a pressing public health issue requiring government funding. This leaves a profitable grey area for the drinks industry to exploit.

Adapted from www.theguardian.com

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