Mr Somani said all adults should aim to drink between two to three litres of water a day, while former stone patients should maintain a daily intake upwards of three litres to avoid recurrence.
I thought this bollocks had been thoroughly debunked a long time ago. You can die from drinking too much water – indeed, people following the stupid and dangerous advice peddled by charlatans such as Somani have done just that.
The idea that there is a specified amount you should drink is nonsense – and, frankly, the though of consuming three litres of any liquid horrifies me. I simply do not and cannot drink that much and don’t intend to. This does not mean that I am dehydrated. I do what any reasonable and sensible person would do – I drink what my body needs. How do I know this? Well, it’s simple. I drink when I am thirsty. If your urine is straw coloured, then you are sufficiently hydrated.
I’ll leave the (almost) final word to Leggy:
Incidentally, what drives someone to rise through the ranks of the medical profession to become a specialist in piss?
Somani is certainly taking it. Do not – absolutely do not – follow his dangerous advice. If you are thirsty, your body it telling you it needs liquid. Otherwise, you don’t have a problem. Simply flushing litres of water through your system will fuck up your electrolytes, dilute the salts in your blood, cause your brain to swell and in the worst cases, kill you.
Millions of years of evolution have not gone to waste. Body fluids are regulated by the kidneys, partly too by large bowel.
Too much fluid and you urinate a lot… stop fluid intake. Too little fluid intake and you feel thirst… increase fluid intake. Simple enough.
The body gets water from food too, so it is not reliant on actual consumption in fluid form.
Another important body fluid regulator is salt. Too little and fluid retention and nausea, vomiting, fatigue and other nasties, too much and you get thirsty and urinate more.
So: it is impossible to have too little fluid or too much salt intake in normal health except as a deliberate act of self-denial of the former and eating it by the table spoonful of the latter.
The body regulates itself and finds its balance (different in each individual) if only ‘expert’ busybodies would leave us alone.
“Too much fluid and you urinate a lot… stop fluid intake. Too little fluid intake and you feel thirst… increase fluid intake. Simple enough.”
Well, at 63 I can say that that is a rough approximation of the rules I have followed all of my life so far.
And I’m still alive.
3 liters per day is hysterically laughably low!
I will repeat my comment at Leggies place here, for the record;
XX Three litres? Every day? XX
I drink 10 to 15 liters per day in the winter, and WHEN we get a summer 15 to 20 liters is not unusual.
(Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. Look it up, if you feel like it 🙂 ) XX
My personal record was six liters in an hour WHILST UNDER MEDICAL SUPERVISION! (June 1976)