Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

I noticed today in the Korea Times the oriental "medicine" columnist advanced (in a detox article) that myth we need to drink 8 glasses of water a day.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-08/dms-al080802.php
http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

One thing people don't realize, we get a substantial amount of the water our body needs from the solid foods we eat. Unless you're eating hard tack all day, food is largely water: fruits, vegetables, meat. They all have water. Our body is more than capable of using the water from the solid foods we consume.

The water issue seems to be akin to the question of, say, vitamin c. Clearly we need vitamin c. How much? There is well established scientific research behind the "Recommended Daily Allowances" for vitamins. They're not numbers someone simply pulled out of Men's Health Magazine. They're not guesses.

Also, she suggests you might need more. Of course, we've seen recently in that DJ Wii stunt that drinking too much water can kill you. If your electrolytes become diluted, your nerves stop being able to transmit electrical signals. Suggesting we need to drink more than 8 glasses should have been tempered with the warning that like all medicines more is not always better. It's a rather common mistake for people to assume that if the proper dosage of a medicine their doctor is giving them works, then taking even more will have increased benefits.

[CasperTheFriendlyGhost]

Can't conceive? Maybe you need more Bita-C 500...

http://www.deliciouslivingmag.com/healthnotes/healthnotes.cfm?ContentID=1040005

[poet13]

"Of course, we've seen recently in that DJ Wii stunt that drinking too much water can kill you."

Huh? Post a link.

[Gatsby]

Mindmetoo is right on the mark. The eight glasses a day rule is an example of how far doctors and health writers can go without turning on their brain. A little thought, as mindmetoo pointed out, would reveal the many flaws with this maxim.

Let't try another one: Do people who live in Alaska have to drink the same amount of water as people living in Florida? Having personal experience in this matter, I can assure you that you don't.

Do people who sit inside all day at a desk have to drink the same amount of water as people who are running a marathon in Arizona? How about if you are a roofer in Florida? How about if you are a 330 pound roofer, vs a 130 pound roofer?

Clearly, temperature, humidity and activity affect how much you perspire, and how much you have to drink.

Medical conditions, such as taking prescription drugs or diabetes, may also affect your need for water. Frequent urination is a possible sign of diabetes.

Obviously, if you are thirsty, you should drink water, eh? But I talked to some guys working in a boat yard who said they could drink all day and never almost never need to take a piss, which is not good.

If you are running a marathon, the trick is to drink before you get thirsty, so you need to know your body. But some marathoners have gotten into trouble from drinking too much. The key issue, as I understand it, is maintaining the balance in your blood of sodium and postassium, the two chemicals that regulate blood pressure, and the osmotic flow of nutrients into cells, and the removal of waste from the cells. Dilute the sodium and potassium, and your blood pressure can fall dangerously.

Sodium (salt) tablets are no longer recommended for dealing with heat. The body does a relatively good job of conserving sodium, and if you are suffering from heat stress, salt tablets can push your blood sodium levels too high, according to doctors today. Calcium and magnesium are the minerals needed for transmitting nerve impulses, and if the levels fall too low you can get an irregular heart beat.

The electrolyte issue, in general, is a bit overblown. You've got people drinking sports drinks who are sitting on the beach or playing a two hour baseball game. Most people don't need to worry about it, and don't need all the sugar. Want electrolytes? What you need most is potassium. Drink a 6 ounce can of apricot nectar or just about any fruit juice - apple, grape, grapefruit are all good sources of potassium - or have a banana. Or have a non-alcoholic beer. If you are playing a hard game of basketball in the hot sun, sports drinks might be in order, though.

I talked to some marathoners and doctors in Florida for an article on this subject, and found that the statistics showed that only about seven people in Florida died from heat that year. People are unduly paranoid. But then acclimatization may be a factor, too. And then there's Syracuse's gift to the world: air conditioning.

But you can get into trouble from not drinking enough water. The docs there said that they have to treat athletes occasionally with temporary dialysis. What happens is they are breaking down muscle cells at the same time that there is not enough water flowing through their kidneys, so the kidneys get blocked and they can't urinate. The dialysis helps clear them out before they are damaged.

The doctors recommend that you drink enough water to keep your kidneys flowing. In Florida during the summer it is so hot that you can drink lots of water but just sweat it all out without going to the bathroom for eight hours or whatever. And you may not even know you are sweating if it is hot and dry. If you are running or bicycling, even in moderate temperatures, you urinate a lot less. I tested this by bicycling 25 miles to the beach in 100 degree heat, and survived. I didn't sweat, unless I stopped riding, and I didn't need to urinate, unless I drank a lot of water.

A variety of drugs can aggrevate heat-related problems. But one of the worst are the NSAIDs such as Advil, which can contribute to temporary kidney failure for athletes like marathoners.

So the first rule is to drink enough water to need to go to the bathroom at normal intervals.

The second rule is to make sure your urine doesn't get dark. If it is orange, that is a danger sign and you need to drink more water. If it is darker, reddish brown or brown, that's from the pigments of dying cells clogging your kidneys. This is called rhabdomyolysis. These symptoms can occur whether you're dealing with heat or e-coli food poisoning. Then you need to go to an ER for possible dialysis.

On the other hand, you can drink too much water, as mindmetoo pointed out, and sometimes 8 glasses a day may be more than you need. You may end up all night pissing it away.

BTW, is there something lacking in the credibility of Men's Health Magazine? I believe they do pretty good fact checking. But some of those Rodale publications do tend to oversimplify things.

[Wrench]

I'll trust the 8 glasses of water a day ANY day before some Foocking Crackpot Oriental Medicine Billsh1t mumbojumbo doctor.

[the_beaver]

[mindmetoo]

[Bramble]

What are the chances of anyone here dying from too much water? Most of us don't eat nearly enough fresh fruit or vegetables, and we constantly poison our bodies with sugar, caffeine, salt, excess protein, etc. I think it's OK for most of us to err on the side of a little too much water.

[Bramble]

[poet13]

Well, dammit, y'all have me concerned and stuff. Ya see, I started a two month no alcohol self check the other day, and instead I drink lots of barley tea. I mean LOTS. About four liters every night. I sit in front of my computer typing, and instead of drinking beer, I drink tea.
I thought that drinking lots of water would help flush out some of the bad I have done to my kidneys over the past few months, but I'm hearing that I could actually be hurting myself.
Is this true?

[HapKi]

The ole "Hold your Wee for a Wii" drinking contest. The radio station stunt happened in California, and the woman came in second. Relatives of the ,um, victim, ended up suing the DJ's, radio station, anyone they could. Listening to them talk on Larry King you'd think she (the victim) was tied down and tortured. Litigation happy, if you ask me.

I get pi$$ed off just thinking about it, but glad the story finally leaked out.

[yingwenlaoshi]

I didn't read any of the posts on this thread yet, but if I drank that much water, I'd be pIssin' all day and all night.

Some people need more water than others. If you drink coffee, juice, soda, etc. then that counts as part of your water intake. And food, too.

[Gatsby]

Here's the deal, poet13, drinking alcohol doesn't damage the kidneys, it damages the liver.

Drinking too much water doesn't damage the kidney's either. At least I don't think it does, in any ordinary quantity. There are always nut jobs who carry things to extremes, like drinking two gallons of carrot juice a day for 10 years, and turning orange and dying.

If you stop drinking, alcohol, that is, the liver does a pretty good job of repairing itself. You can help it along, if you have been doing some serious long term drinking and have cirrhosis. Dr. Burt Berkson recommends alpha lipoic acid with selenium, milk thistle and vitamin E as antioxidants and to promote healing without scarring, plus B50 complex vitamin tablets. This is in his book The Alpha Lipoic Acid Breakthrough.

Now here's the really interesting part: He says his alpha lipoic acid breakthrough regimen will also repair damage from mushroom poisoning and hepatitis, A, B or C. However, he uses intravenous alpha lipoic acid, rather than the powder sold OTC.

Sound like a far out quack? He is a consultant to the CDC poison control center for mushroom poisoning and acetaminophen overdoses, which also can fatally damage the liver. And he has a permit from the FDA for experimental use of alpha lipoic acid. Plus it was a researcher at the NIH who told him about alpha lipoic acid in the first place.

And alpha lipoic acid can increase your energy level, if you are over 30. And it is great for diabetes. It is getting a reputation as the most powerful antioxidant around.

And it is a natural chemical produced by the body, but we produce less of it once we pass 30 and age.

At any rate, if you want to flush "bad stuff" out, what I use is aloe juice. I don't know what exactly it does, but it acts as though it gets some of the toxins out of your body, cause you can feel a bit stuffy or whatever a few hours later, and then your head and body feel clearer.

However, do not use dried aloe powder. That stuff is very different, bitter and a vicious laxative. I once dropped in on a commune near Thunder Bay and the religious leader made everyone there take dried aloe every day. (I remember she was from Branford, CT., not Canada.) Weird. I left the next day. But I guess it's not as bad as koolaid.

On a related note, I ran into a fellow who claimed to have lost something like 100 to 200 pounds drinking something like 8 ounces of aloe juice a day and a gallon or two of water -- I don't remember the details now. And he said he could eat all the ice cream and food he wanted while doing this. He showed me his arm, which had the skin flaps left from when he was overweight.

I didn't follow this up, I'm afraid. One person suggested that perhaps the aloe was interfering with his digestion by damaging the digestive tract. He looked healthy though.

[endofthewor1d]

[mindmetoo]