What is all this with water?

I read once that, the last thing most of us want to drink when we're thirsty is water; thought it was a daft statement at the time, but I now think it's true. DGS gets migraines if he forgets to drink, and the SO's mother, towards the end of her life was always getting UTI's due to not drinking enough. I've noticed that, when I go to the sauna, I drink very little water if I take some sucky sweets with me....(not sure what that proves, though, other than the fact that I've had to have several fillings recently so I'd be better off drinking)....

I remember reading that 2 litres was the optimum and not the minimum - more than 2 litres can cause the vitamin / mineral dilution than makes people ill or even kills them in extreme cases.

Here is some advice on the amount we need to drink - not all our fluid needs to come from water; tea, coffee and other fluids count too and we get fluid intake from food as well.

www.nutrition.org.uk/healthyliving/hydration/healthy-hydration-guide

I knew a young woman who was psychiatrically disturbed. Apart from other things, she had an obsession with drinking water. When hospitalised she had to be banned from having a bath because she would drink the bath water.
I went to visit her once in hospital and she was being taken to the emergency dept. because she had 'overdosed.' I think it was due to risk of kidney damage, though I never found out for sure.
But overthehill, I don't think cutting down on fluids is good for cystitis.

I have suffered on and off all my life with cystitis.
One thing I've always been led to believe when suffering is to drink plenty if water. The last episode didn't want to go away and I was downing plenty of water.
I stopped to wonder if maybe I wasn't doing myself any favours. I cut down the amount and it cleared up.
I now wonder if by drinking so much I wasn't giving my bladder time to heal as it was constantly being refilled. Also perhaps, nutrients are being washed away.

"misswoosie being properly hydrated and drinking water are not necessarily related"

Well perhaps I should have stated that fluid intake needs to be 2litres then. However it's generally much easier to calculate your fluid intake with any accuracy from the amount of water you drink (although if most of that is tea or coffee then , as I said before , caffeine,like alcohol, is a diuretic and will increase the amount of water you pee out) than from the amount you get from your diet in the way of water containing foods.

I also mentioned ways of checking whether you're well hydrated or not ie urine colour and smell, skin turgor, tongue and mouth moisture etc.

depends which med's for high BP. Some (although they tend not to be used as first line nowadays) work by kidneys taking more water out of the blood going through the kidneys and increase the amount of urine someone passes. So yes, they can make you dry.Fennel- it depends on why someone is in hospital really. The aim is always to keep somebody adequately hydrated because dehydration is a risk factor for confusion, falls, chest infection, urine infection, kidney damage, blood clots and pressure sores. Just like most other things, there are degrees of dehydration but whilst someone who's young and fit can cope with a period of moderate and even severe dehydration older people can't and even mild dehydration can lead to new problems or worsen problems they already have, such as diabetes, impaired kidney functioning,dizziness, angina etc.

Minibaggs gets migraine headaches (the full works with up-chucking and all) if she doesn't drink enough.

Does anyone else find water less thirst quenching than tea?

My father got a very nasty kidney stone from not drinking enough.

Amount of fluid needed (in all forms- water, tea, soup etc) varies hugely depending on temperature and level of activity etc. In hot dry climates you would need far more than 2 liters per day, but will feel thirsty so automatically drink more. Visiting a tropical country on holidays recently we saw notices in toilets with a colour chart to check your urine to see if you were drinking enough.
Apart from young children and elderly, who seem to be prone to dehydration, I agree with OP that most people don’t need to constantly sip from bottles all day.
Though I remember one summer when breastfeeding I realized when going to the loo before bed that I hadn’t gone since morning! Decided maybe I needed to drink more, but I didn’t feel unwell and was producing plenty of milk.

*misswoosie being properly hydrated and drinking water are not necessarily related.

Have a large mug of tea or coffee with your breakfast, which could be cereal and milk plus fruit juice, another drink mid morning, and again at lunchtime after a meal that includes fruit and salad or soup. Then in the evening have a meal including vegetables and food with a sauce and gravy, then another hot drink and you have easily consumed 2 litres of fluids without having even one drink of water.

This is roughly what I consume each day and one day I measured it and my fluid consumption exceeded 2 litres.

Everyone is different and has different life styles. What is enough for some may be too much for others as well as too little for a few. We all need to use common sense.

If we feel thirsty then we have already waited too long before taking a drink. Our bodies are 60% water in general, women less than men. We may not realise how much of that we are losing every day. So instead of paying attention to a set amount in litres just think about drinking and add some more to offset loss.

When I was a science teacher we were under pressure to improve students' performance and we were told to encourage them to drink water regularly. Unfortunately Health and Safety Regulations prohibit consuming any food or drink in a lab; some students got quite indignant when told they couldn't bring their water bottles in!
I too am concerned about the amount of plastic on beaches but it is caused by people not taking their bottles home with them and refilling them from the tap, not the culture of drinking water per se.

Another point which might be relevant - I've heard that some medications for control of blood pressure work by draining some of the fluids from the dig. system into the blood. To make it easier to pump through. Or something like that. So maybe in that case we need more water.
I take those meds and always have dry lips.

Sorry, missw, you did say that fluid from all sources is what counts. I'm now wondering if people who are ill need more fluids than people who aren't. I suspect they might.

When I was at infant's school I went home for dinner (lunch in the south) and we had a break in the morning for a 1/3 pint of milk and two biscuits. In the afternoon we had 1/3 pint of orange juice and two biscuits after our 15 minute nap ( arms folded and head on arms on desk)
This water fad is just that...a fad. I can't remember ever being exhorted by my parents to drink water. I had milk most if the time. Drink when thirsty, eat when hungry, stop when almost full. That's my mantra. Unfortunately, people graze constantly and either have a Costa cup or water bottle glued to their hand most of the time.
It's a nanny state. Are people healthier now than in my day? NO. Between pill poppers, obesity and increasing mental health issues amongst other ailments, I'd say that urging us to drink more water should be the least of PHE's worries.

It's the quantity of water in everything one takes in that counts, misswoosie. Obviously, or my husband would be dead from dehydration. His fluid intake is perfectly adequate. Tea, coffee, soup, fruit, veg, all contain water and all of that water counts for hydration purposes.

Think about other animals. Think about desert animals (camels, rats, snakes) that live in dry conditions that get most of their water from what they eat. Likewise sea animals who get their hydration from the fish they eat because, obviously, they can't get it from sea water.

My DH knows what he's doing regarding hydrating himself adequately, partly from the study of other animals (he's a zoologist) but also from the fact that he's basically healthy. If he needed to drink water as water rather than as soup and other drinks he wouldn't be healthy.

People in hospital needing intravenous drips are usually ill and not able to take in adequate fluid in other ways.

I’m with you misswoosie even if nearly everyone else seems to not want to know

Golden girl makes some excellent points about the lack of loos. I feel increasingly angry as loos I once knew are closed and so many pubs, cafes say customers only. It seems counter-intuitive to suggest people go to cafes if they need to go to the loo and then have to buy a drink which makes them want to go to the loo fifteen minutes later! Also, and I speak from experience, I sometimes go to a cafe, have a drink and find the only loo is out-of-order.

I know people who say they can't go out because of the lack of loos and that seems to me to be a real indictment of our society and basically ageist. I wonder if there is anything that Gransnet could do in the way of a really vigorous campaign. I would be happy to join it.

the required fluid intake (from all sources) is more accurately 30 mls per kg of body weight. The body requires this amount of water to carry out the numerous physiological processes eg kidney function, digestive processes etc. This requirement was around when I did my training in the 1980's. So an 70kg person will need 2.1 litres whereas someone who's 100kg will need 3 litres. These requirements are what hospitals use to calculate how much IV fluid to give patients to maintain adequate hydration. I'm interested to read comments like "my husband never drinks water but is alive and mentally very active" My parents, especially my mother, often throw this type of comment at me when I remind them to drink more. "How have we managed all these years without you telling us to drink water?" and "We're still alive aren't we?" Yes, they've managed and are alive but my mother is very forgetful and gets very mixed up about things and then argues. She also has moderate osteoporosis, mainly due to inactivity and poor diet ie not enough protein and calcium and way too much processed food that's fairly low in nutrients and high in fat, sugar and salt. She also has Irritable bowel and diverticular disease and gastric reflux and washes all her mouthfuls of food down with tea, which interestingly has tannin in which prevents the absorbtion of nutrients. I was always told to chew my food and not to wash it down with drinks and we never had tea during meals when I was at home. She's also had 3 UTI's in the last 3 years, one of which caused an acute confusional state (delirium) where she couldn't remember where she was, what was happening and kept asking the same questions over and over again. Thankfully , my 18 yr old son was there at the time and recognised something wasn't right as my Dad was pretty oblivious to it all. This delirium has had a lasting effect(which is fairly well known effect) and her memory and cognition never fully returned to normal. She had a hip replacement in January and got into the habit of drinking 3 500 ml bottles of water a day. I bought the bottles of water specifically so she and I could monitor her intake. Mentally, despite having had major surgery and a stay in hospital, she was quite good regarding taking pain med's and doing her exercises etc. After about 2 months she reverted to the "plastic glass method" which involves a glass that lives in the kitchen and gets filled up in the morning and then, apparently, water is drunk out of it and each time she has a drink she tops it up. Bearing in mind that Mum spends maybe 6 hours a day sitting in front of the TV I hardly think her fluid intake is adequate. My dad also has the same attitude to drinking and is often "like a man off" in the afternoons and can't follow conversations and looks dehydrated. 3 weeks ago he fell down 3 steps at the front door at 10.30 at night and fractured his hip and tore 3 tendons in his shoulder. Even in hospital now he's very reluctant to drink enough. At the beginning that was partly because his pain was very poorly controlled and he was reluctant to walk to the loo. The ward is absolutely roasting hot but obviously he doesn't feel thirsty as long as he gets his 5 100ml cups of tea a day. He's got a chest infection now and is having problems expectorating because the secretions are so thick because he's dehydrated. They also suspect he may have a DVT (blood clot) in his leg which would certainly be due to a combination of dehydration and immobility. Think on!

I can understand what you mean, the amount quoted seems a lot and of course smaller women don't need so much - BUT I wonder if all this advice is because we know more about the subject now?
I drink a glass each of pineapple juice, prune juice and at least six cups of tea each day, sometimes more. I must say that I always feel better when I do this. MIL has always thought this insane but ended up with a UTI and was eventually diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimers. Due to her conditions she never believed the nurse who told her that not drinking enough is the worst thing you can do. My advice is to stay hydrated.

Will, at a minimum, eight cups of tea throughout the day suffice?

My grandson, aged four and a half is in the reception class. He has to take a bottle of water to school every day which he has free access to. They are also given water to drink with their cooked lunch. In fact water is the only drink he will have, he won’t drink anything else!
Different to my day when it was the small bottles of milk. I had an allergy which meant no milk so I was given the same size bottle of orange juice! Not good for the teeth!

As a Nurse I have always recommended an intake of 1 litre fluids per day, however one day I check on my intake and it was 900ml, learn as you teach!

Someone once told me that if we drink too much water our brains will drown. So I am very wary, although realise this is probably nonsense! I don't like water but do try to drink some every day. I keep a glass topped up in the kitchen and make a point of a couple of mouthfulls every hour or so. Hopefully that is enough, together with my tea, coffee etc.