Current Hydration Guidelines Are Outdated

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Without water, life would not be possible. It forms the basis for the fluids in our bodies, such as saliva and blood. It also helps regulate body temperature through sweating, which is essential for survival. According to the Water Science School, water moves throughout the body by dissolving and transporting essential nutrients, minerals, and other substances that keep the body running.

The most obvious way to hydrate your body is to drink water throughout the day, but how do you do it properly? You’ve probably heard the saying that eight glasses of water a day is enough to hydrate your body. As it turns out, this advice needs updating.

Messages on fluid requirements need to be updated

In a study published in Nutrients, researchers sought to evaluate the food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) from different countries, with the ultimate goal of promoting water consumption over sugary drinks. But that’s not all – they also included countries that have implemented a tax on sugary drinks. The researchers further explain:

“While significant progress has been made in the introduction and implementation of taxes on sugary drinks worldwide, policymakers should take complementary measures to ensure access to free and safe drinking water for healthy hydration.

There is no study that documents healthy hydration recommendations for countries or jurisdictions that have enacted national or subnational laws taxing or imposing duties on sugary drinks that are consistent with other measures.”

For their study, they selected countries belonging to the six regions of the world defined by the World Health Organization – Africa, the Americas, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Next, they narrowed the list to countries that promoted taxing sugary drinks while encouraging water consumption from 2000 to 2023.

If a country eliminated a tax on sugary drinks or had a nonspecific tax that applied the same amount to water and soda, it was excluded from the study. Once this framework was established, the researchers used the following questions to guide their analysis:

How many and which countries in the six WHO regions have enacted and/or updated their legislation taxing or collecting taxes on sugary drinks between 2000 and 2023?
What are the most recent published versions of the FBDG national technical and graphic documents for countries with sugary drinks tax legislation?
Which countries have issued healthy hydration recommendations to promote water consumption and reduce, replace or avoid sugary beverage consumption, and how do the text and visual messages of the healthy beverage recommendations in the national FBDGs compare and contrast?
What is the value of the Healthy Hydration Recommendation (HHR) for countries with FBDG documents and sugary drinks tax legislation, and how do the values compare across the six WHO regions?

The researchers used the four research questions as a guide and employed various analytical tools to conduct the analysis. They narrowed their results to 93 countries that taxed sugary drinks to discourage populations from consuming these beverages. They also reviewed each country’s messaging, as this is an important component in promoting drinking water as the default hydration option.

Ranking of the countries with the best dietary guidelines

Of the 93 countries selected, 53 have implemented FBDGs. After a more in-depth analysis, the researchers found that 48 countries used messages promoting drinking water and avoiding sugary drinks. According to a ranking system, Bolivia, Brunei and Peru had the highest HHR among the test population. According to the study authors:

“While water and/or sugary drinks were addressed in most of the FBDGs examined, only three healthy beverage recommendations (i.e. Bolivia, Brunei, and Peru) included comprehensive guidelines that holistically emphasize what, where, why, how, amount/frequency, and visual representation to promote both water and avoid sugary drinks.

These results are consistent with the findings that FBDGs need to provide specific information (i.e. what, where, why, how, amount/frequency and visual representation) to promote aspects of healthy and sustainable diets, including the promotion of water as a default healthy beverage.”

You may be wondering why it’s important to analyze the messages of health authorities? Because they have the power to influence public health, for better or for worse. As a 2021 study noted, “collaboration between health, social services, and other sectors is widely promoted as a way to improve population health.”

In this context, researchers from the Nutrients study say that updating government policies to achieve coherence will improve sustainability, food security and water security. Unfortunately, of the 93 countries studied, only nine have specific policies on taxing sugary drinks that go directly into public health programs. In conclusion, they encourage other countries to follow suit. According to Vivica Karrk, one of the study’s co-authors:

“When governments develop policies, they should ensure that national dietary guidelines are consistent with and support a national tax on sugary drinks.

Our study has important implications for United Nations agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, to support countries in developing culturally appropriate, evidence-based dietary guidelines that promote healthy hydration and normalize clean, safe and free water as the beverage of choice.”

Do you only drink eight glasses of water a day?

In the Nutrients study, the United States just scored an average when it comes to hydration policy in terms of taxes imposed on sugary drinks. One possible reason for this is the long-standing recommendation to drink eight glasses of water a day.

This maxim is often repeated as the basis for good hydration, but that’s not really the right approach. Everyone has unique circumstances and forcing a blanket recommendation doesn’t help anyone. But where does this basis come from?

According to Dr. Christopher Labos of McGill University, the medical myth of drinking eight glasses a day originates from the US Food and Nutrition Board in 1945, which recommends 2.5 liters of water daily. What makes this recommendation inaccurate is that it has no scientific basis.

While so-called health experts still maintain this claim, there are others who fight back. Back in 2015, pediatrician Dr. Aaron E. Carroll published an article in the New York Times titled No, You Don’t Need to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day to debunk this myth.

If you don’t need to drink eight glasses of water a day, how do you know if you’re getting enough fluids? The answer is: listen to your body. Use your thirst to determine how much water you need to drink to stay hydrated. Another tip is to check the color of your urine – a pale straw or light yellow color indicates adequate hydration, while dark yellow or amber urine indicates dehydration.

Hydration is more than just drinking water

While adequate hydration is essential for optimal health, it’s not the only factor that comes into play. You also need to pay attention to your electrolyte balance to keep cells hydrated. These are minerals like sodium, magnesium, potassium and calcium, which have an electrical charge and play a role in important functions like blood pressure, cellular waste removal and muscle function.

When you drink water to replace fluids, there is a chance that electrolyte balance could shift, which is what occurs when you drink too much water. In Jay Feldman’s podcast, registered nurse and independent researcher Mike Fave explains how electrolytes work with water to keep cells hydrated:

“The interaction of water with the electrolytes and proteins [in the cell membrane] gives the water structure and creates a gel state [structured water, or EZ water, which stores energy and strengthens mitochondria],” explains Fave.

“So you need not only water, but also electrolytes and proteins. And then you need energy to maintain the right concentration gradients or the right ratio of electrolytes inside and outside the cell.

According to the plasma membrane theory, an adequate amount of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), produced mainly by oxidative phosphorylation, is needed to operate the membrane-based pumps that control the gradients inside and outside the cell.

According to the gel state theory or gel water theory, adequate energy production by the cell is required to maintain a certain charge on the protein structure and water in general so that they interact appropriately and maintain the correct shape.

In both theories, a disruption in energy production leads to swelling of the cell because the cell was unable to maintain the proper gradients between the electrolytes from the inside to the outside, or in the gel state theory, simply the proper electrolyte interaction with the water and structure.

So now we have a much more complete picture that you need electrolytes to maintain proper tissue and cellular hydration. First of all, you need water, but you also need electrolytes, the right proteins and amino acids, and proper cellular energy metabolism. If you’re dehydrated, just pumping water into the system is not going to solve the problem.

There are a whole host of other requirements, and when you start taking in an excessive amount of water beyond what the body actually needs, the process of excreting that water is a bit wasteful for some of those other requirements.”

Too much water can disrupt electrolyte balance

There’s a reason it’s important to listen to your thirst or check the color of your urine to gauge hydration – too much water dilutes the salt in the body, simulating a sodium deficiency. It causes the same stress response that leads to loss of potassium and magnesium, the same swelling of cells, inhibition of cellular energy production, and ultimately dehydration.

This leads me to my next point – don’t fall into the trap of thinking that higher salt intake will raise your blood pressure. In fact, salt goes hand in hand with hydration. Drinking water with adequate salt will help your body maintain adequate blood volume, which in turn improves circulation.

When you consume less salt than normal, your body adapts to this stress by inhibiting the excretion of sodium in urine by the kidneys. By retaining sodium, your blood volume increases. The downside, however, is that your blood vessels constrict, which increases blood pressure.

How to balance your water and salt intake

In Feldman’s podcast, he points out that while conventional recommendations say to limit salt intake to 1,500 or 2,000 milligrams or less, research has shown that this range is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality compared to higher ranges of 4,000 to 6,000 mg:

“The point is that we would be much better off if we ate much more salt than is recommended,” says Feldman.

“And as far as thirst goes, that’s where we come in to the best food and beverage options for balancing fluid levels.”

So what are the best options to keep you hydrated while maintaining electrolyte balance? Fave offers several natural options, such as mineral water, tea macerate (loose leaf) with raw honey, freshly squeezed fruit juice, coconut water, grass-fed milk, fruit and vegetable smoothies, steamed vegetables and ripe fruits. If you only drink pure water, make sure it is properly filtered to remove common contaminants such as fluoride, chlorine and disinfection byproducts.

If you are sweating heavily due to intense physical work or other circumstances, remember that you also need to replenish electrolytes while drinking large amounts of water. If you don’t have any of the above drinks with you, consider carrying a small pinch of Himalayan salt that you can dissolve in your water.

Other options such as Mediterranean Sea salt and Celtic Sea salt are also suitable. Avoid heavily processed table salt as it contains anti-caking agents and unwanted contaminants such as microplastics. If you don’t like the taste of lightly salted water, add a small amount of lemon or lime juice to improve the flavor.

Author: Dr. Joseph Mercola

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November 11, 2024