Drinking Enough Water?

You probably have heard that you should drink eight, eight ounce glasses of water per day. You may also heard to divide your body weight in pounds by two and that is the number of ounces of water that you should drink per day. Where did these numbers come from and what are they based on? These numbers are just educated guesses. They have been around for many years, but they don’t seem to be based on any scientific studies.

Throughout each day, your body loses water through your urine, your bowel movements, your breath, your mucus membranes and your sweat. You sweat even when you are not exerting yourself or you are in a hot environment. You also use water to break down and to digest your food. The result is that you have to constantly replenish this lost water.

If you drink alcohol, soft drinks or coffee they will act as diuretics that can dehydrate you. The key is to drink pure water, but just how much water do you need each day? Eight, eight ounce glasses of water a day may be too much for some people and too little for others.

Your water requirement can also vary from day to day, depending on a number of factors, such as your activity level and weather conditions.

How Do You Read Your Body’s Water Needs?

Fortunately, your body is equipped with a mechanism that tells you when you need to replenish your water supply. It is a feedback mechanism called thirst.

Once your body has lost between one to two percent of its total water content, it will signal its needs by making you feel thirsty. Using thirst as a guide to how much water you need to drink is a good way to ensure your individual needs are met.

By the time your thirst mechanism kicks in, you may already be a bit dehydrated. Most studies show that about 2/3 of us are dehydrated and need to drink more water.

This is particularly true for the elderly. It’s also wise to learn some of the other, more subtle, signals your body sends, indicating you need to drink more water.

Symptoms of dehydration Includes:

• Fatigue and/or mood swings
• Hunger even though you’ve recently eaten
• Back or joint aches
• Dull, dry skin and/or pronounced wrinkles
• Infrequent urination or dark, concentrated urine. Urine should be light in color.
• Constipation

There are also a number of commonly overlooked symptoms that may suggest you’re suffering from more or less chronic dehydration.

Symptoms of Chronic Dehydration Include:

• Digestive disturbances such as heartburn and constipation
• Confusion and/or anxiety
• Urinary tract infections
• Premature aging
• High cholesterol

Dehydration Is a Common Problem Among the Elderly:

According to recent research, one in five seniors do not get enough water on a daily basis. Among those who do not have a caretaker, that number is even higher, one in four. Seniors with dementia are six times more likely to be dehydrated.

Dehydration also tends to be more common among people taking more medication.

Drink Pure Filtered Water:

I prefer reverse osmosis filtered water. The more unfiltered water you drink, the more pollutants you’re consuming. Most tap water contains harmful contaminants. Water bottled in plastic can pose serious health risks from chemicals such as bisphenol-A and bisphenol-S (BPA/BPS), as well as phthalates. These chemicals can leach from the plastic itself into the contents of the bottle. BPA and BPS are estrogen-mimicking chemicals linked to reproductive defects, learning and behavioral problems, immune dysfunction, prostate cancer as well as breast cancer. Phthalates are also endocrine disruptors, and have been linked to a wide range of developmental and reproductive effects, as well as liver cancer.

One independent test performed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in 2011, revealed 38 low-level contaminants in bottled water. Each of the 10 tested brands contained an average of eight chemicals. These included; disinfection byproducts (DBPs), caffeine, Tylenol, nitrate, industrial chemicals, arsenic, and bacteria were all detected.

Read More