I've always thought this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24464774
read the study and you will see it covers a whacking enormous sample of 10 well trained cyclists doing a circa 40 min time trial when already dehydrated.
now is that enough to overturn all other studies?
more bollox science reporting - nothing new there.
Alcohol also adds to water intake
Job done........
I think the point was that none of the other studies comprehensively concluded we actually need 8 glasses of water a day or we'd die or get lurgy. We've survived 12000 years without plastic bottles. Now, suddenly, the makers of, gosh, mineral water products say we have to drink more.Originally Posted by Josh B
I do carry a bottle of water in my bag when commuting. I also tend to keep one in the car. Largely because the plastic bottle is a handy container.
Very rare that they get opened though.
Professor Tim Noakes (professor of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town) has done loads of research in this field and concluded the same thing. He has a book called "Waterlogged" about this very subject. He's studied many elite athletes running marathons/ultras (Haile Gebrselassie for example) over a number of years.
It's only since sports drinks companies have been around that there's been advice to pre-drink before you're thirsty during exercise/races. Before Gatorade was founded in 1965, it was rare for marathon runners to drink (other than a few sips of water) during races.
The studies conducted by sports drink / water companies?
One element of common sense would dictate that if one needs liquid because of thirst then water contains fewer 'extras' like sugar, caffeine and various proteins and even possible long-term toxins than other things we choose to enjoy with our digestive biscuits.
However, all the veg I eat is mostly water. It's filtered through my kidneys just as a glass of H2O is.
Buyteko, the Russian breathing scientist stated that we only EVER need to drink when we're thirsty. He said the same of eating when we're hungry and sleeping when we're tired. My Buteyko trainer said that the 2L per day is nonsense.
I say, buy more bottled water, make some rip-off company rich AND pollute the planet while you're at it. Idiots we are to fall for it.
the LRDG and SAS in WW2 always ran on empty with regards water in the desert.
I always held the belief that personal sized retail water bottles became a mainstream trend in the early 90s as a direct result of the 80s dance/rave scene, but Im sure many had absolutely no concept of the slightly subversive origins... I could be wrong on all counts.
A totally unnecessary fad. When I was growing up we didn't drink water all day long. At school there was a manky fountain that nobody used. Now it's practically child abuse if kids aren't sent with a water bottle.
Every workplace seems to have a water cooler (often when there's perfectly drinkable tap water anyway). People quaff from bottles at their desks all day long as if they're running a marathon in the Sahara.
From the abstract: Conclusion When well-trained cyclists performed a 25 km cycling time trial under ecologically valid conditions and were blinded to their hydration status, performance, physiological and perceptual variables were not different between trials. These data do not support the residing basis behind many of the current hydration guidelines.
That doesn't seem to be very outrageous and it's not the only study referenced by the "bollox" [your word] BBC item. Can you point me to the other studies to which you refer (and which, I assume, you prefer), please? I'd like to be able to compare their methodology to this one before making my own judgment.
Thanks...
It is very common for the media to misrepresent studies by failing to contextualise them - which is what this report has done. That was the primary point I was making. Its pretty old news that the 8 a day thing is random rather than backed by good science so that bit of the report is old news and uncontroversial.
The study itself is fascinating in that it does go against current thinking on hydration particularly the notion that a relatively small amount of dehydration has a markedly detrimental impact on athletic performance. But its a very small sample and as with any study based on such a small sample that contradicts the accepted norm the obvious point is that more research is required. Now that is basic scientific method and I have no idea why you are getting a triffle snippy.
If it is truly important to you I am happy to look up the references - its not the kind of thing I memorise or have looked at recently but can dig it out.
Thanks for the offer, but I won't ask you to do that. I think I can gather enough information for my purposes from elsewhere.
OK, I am familiar with scientific method and don't think that saying "These data do not support the residing basis behind many of the current hydration guidelines" runs counter to it.
Was I "snippy"? If I was, I apologise. My intention was simply to compare your own conclusion "more bollox science reporting - nothing new there" to the BBC's reporting. The latter is obviously not designed to be overly scientific, but to attract an audience to their program. In fact it's advertising, but probably somewhat less biased than some we see from the sports drink manufacturers.
OK, so that is how you arrived at your conclusion. But I don't agree that the report misrepresented the study. After all it says: "So far nothing unusual, but the difference between this and almost every other study that's ever been done on hydration was that...". Isn't that enough for a piece of media reporting? Their article does at least give a reference to the article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which is more than can be said for most reports aired on BBC TV or radio.
I think the BBC have managed to dangle their hook in front of both of us...it's just that they've provoked different reactions. I've got the program set to record. Will you be watching it?
Read Evian backward. Enough said.
Good point but those babies on the advert are cute though so I'll keep buying it :)
i drink when i'm thirsty end of story...
First of all, obviously being dehydrated is a Bad Thing. It also isn't going to kill you (at least not after a few hours). Shocking news. Of course this study doesn't look at things like brain function, although one would suppose that if say, reaction time were affected then measured performance would suffer. I'm pretty sure others have already found that short-term dehydration does have some measurable effects, but I don't have any citations to hand. Just because this (quite narrow) test doesn't show any, doesn't mean they don't exist and it doesn't negate other experiments that have found them.
However none of this is news because no scientist has ever recommended that people drink X cups of water per day. The requirement is to drink about 2 litres of fluid per day. Fluid, (mostly water-based) not necessarily pure water.
That has of course been subverted by bottled water and sports drinks manufacturers into the "you must drink 8-10 glasses of water per day" myth, perpetuated by lots of marketing (note also that a "glass" here means 200ml, which is smaller than the average glass, but no-one ever mentions that either). In fact tea, coffee, beer, etc., are all fine as well. Caffeine and alcohol may be diuretics, but they are pretty mild, so the amount of fluid makes the effect negligible.
Also, drinking that much water also has the effect of lowering your electrolyte concentration which can be very bad for your brain and central nervous system functions, something the marketers of sports drinks have caught on to. Again though, that's unlikely to be significant unless you are malnourished or have just run a marathon or something. Most westerners have excessively high sodium levels anyway as a result of our diet, so electrolytes are not typically a problem.
Personally I buy bottled water, just because I like water, but I don't like the taste of unfiltered tap water, even though I live in an area with good water quality. Cheap spring water is no more expensive than buying filters, but it doesn't contain the same amounts of chlorine and fluoride. The only downside is that it's not especially eco-friendly.
This may be a strange topic for a Friday morning but.... Look at the color of your urine next time you go for a wee.
The darker it is the more dehydrated you are.
After all of the above, this issue got little attention in the programme. I didn't learn much from the broadcast and I think that the section on sleep needed more depth. Oh well...!
Yeh, I wasn't paying much attention but the number of variables didn't seem very well controlled for the sleep bit.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say the darker the pee the less one has drunk? There's a difference between that and dehydration.
I drink tea and Evian. The only two drinks I like
Drink a lot of water nowadays,tap water mostly. (Gout) Wife "only" drinks the bottle stuff. "tastes better" she says
Although she drinks more tap water than she knows when I keep filling up the old bottles on the QT..
I never cease to be amazed at the 'water bottle' phenomena in this country. Despite having high quality drinking water on tap, many people have been persuaded to buy bottled stuff. It really is like selling sand to the Arabs. Agreed, drinking water tastes better in some areas than others, but in the majority of cases it's perfectly acceptable.
The obsession with carrying a water bottle around has become a fad. I see folks out running with the ubiquitous (obligatory?) water bottle, despite the fact that they've probably run for less than 45 mins! It's become a comforter, a bit like a baby's titty-bottle.
I ran for many years and survived perfectly well without carrying a water bottle. A good drink before and after sufficed. I agree that it's sensible if running long distances on hot days....but not in the middle of winter whilst doing a 2 mile jog!
Good luck to the folks who sell the stuff.....like I said, it's like selling sand to the Arabs.
Paul
Curry/ cake/pork scratchings and pint after pint of beer or lager is good for you too.
Init.
Prof Noakes reckons the colour is linked to the amount of anti-diuretic hormone circulating, not the level of dehydration. Though the two are often closely linked.
Cyclists in intravenous performance enhancing experiment shocker.
They should ban this H2O stuff for the next TDF.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
OK I haven't done much in A & E for many a long year, but I cant ever recall one case of hyponatraemia..... perhaps you medics and A & E specialists do?
I've suffered the result of becoming dehydrated (several times, stupidly) and it's not to be recommended. Out in the tropics I'll nowadays easily consume 5L per working day and if I'm not peeing at least once an hour I'll increase the fluid intake.
I see a lot of tourists becoming unwell due to lack of fluid intake but invariably they'll blame the local food/drinks/ice etc,.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
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