Are You Getting Enough

 It has been said many times before - make sure that you drink plenty of water, but what exactly is the recommended daily requirement to maintain good health. Apparently, a good rule of thumb is to drink two pints for every fifty pounds (3 ½ stone) of body weight.

The average person should, therefore, be drinking six pints a day; and physically active people should drink even more than that. And if you follow these guidelines, you will have adopted one of the most beneficial habits to improve your health and quality of life. These optimum daily levels were arrived at by what is known as the “replacement approach”. The average urine output for adults is 1.5 litres a day. You also lose an additional litre of water a day through breathing, sweating and bowel movements. Food usually accounts for roughly 20 percent of your total fluid intake, so you if you consume 2 litres of water on a daily basis, you should replace the lost fluids.

As our bodies are mostly water, this ongoing intake is essential. Drink the appropriate amounts, and everything is much more likely to perform at optimal levels. And taken little and often during the course of the day, consuming two litres, doesn’t seem such a daunting task. So what happens if you do not drink enough water? Over the short term you will experience routine fatigue, dry skin, headaches and constipation. In the long term, your body functions will deteriorate more quickly. It really is that simple.

This water intake guide is all very well for the purists who take hydration very seriously, but for the rest of us lesser mortals remember that our water intake can be derived in part from other beverages we drink during the day as well. Let thirst and the colour of your urine be the judge as to your own hydration state – ideally, it should be a light yellow unless you are taking VB12 which turns urine a bright yellow. If you become thirsty, drink some water, your body is letting you know it needs it.

It is also a good idea to be selective about the type of water you drink. Bottled mineral water and filtered water are both excellent choices because domestic drinking water is currently out of vogue. The amount of potentially harmful chemicals contained in the mains supply should be the subject for serious debate. I use the word debate because the presence of chlorine and fluoride in our water supplies causes no concern to most European and the U.S. Governments.

But there is a growing concern emerging from some areas of the scientific community that the two previously mentioned chemicals do in fact present adverse health issues when domestic water is consumed over the long term. Fluoride especially encourages vociferous discussion between scientists. When experts with the same pedigree, with access to the same research data, cannot agree, perhaps it is time to politically revisit the issue.

What really surprised me during my research was the adverse affects of distilled water. Distilled water first became a fad in the 1970’s when it was consumed in large amounts by the ever-growing “health food movement”. Studies do, however, validate the benefits of drinking distilled water to cleanse or detoxify the system but only for short periods of time. Distillation is the process in which water is boiled, evaporated and the vapour condensed. It is free of dissolved minerals and, because of this, has the special property of being able to actively absorb toxic substances from the body and eliminate them. Unfortunately, it also actively absorbs and eliminates all the necessary nutrients and minerals that our bodies need to maintain good health.

Also commercial beverages, such as soft drinks, are all made using distilled water. Studies have consistently shown that heavy consumers of soft drinks lose large amounts of calcium, magnesium and other trace minerals into the urine. The more the mineral loss, the greater the risk for osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and a long list of other degenerative diseases generally associated with premature ageing.

Drinking bottled mineral water would appear to solve many of the issues raised in this article. But for some people, for varying reasons, this is not an option. The next best thing then would be to purchase the type of filter that you fill with water from the tap and keep in the fridge or at room temperature. You can drink the filtered water, make your tea with it and even cook with it. From your health’s point of view it’s a win, win situation.

 And finally, it is also a good idea to drink water at room temperature if possible, as ice-cold water can harm the delicate lining of your stomach.