How Much Water Should a Person Drink a Day? The 8 Glass Rule is a Myth

You have probably heard it a hundred times. How much water should a person drink a day? Just follow the 8x8 glass rule. Eight eight ounce glasses everyday. That is what everyone is saying. It is hard to believe but, it is a myth.

A lot of experts do not know where this originated, which has been arbitrarily handed down from one generation to another. The number was probably based on the amount of water or fluids intake measurements taken years ago from patients on IVs. When patients take fluids from dextrose bottles, the amount of water absorbed by the body is more than the amount of water from the glass.

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So people presumed that the water from the IV bottles is the right amount of fluids the body needs. It has become a convenient basis especially for those prone to dehydration like children, active people who exercise daily and the elderly, and not really a measure of what people should drink.

So, how much water should a person drink a day? Experts say that an average person loses about 10 eight ounce glasses of water a day but replenishes it with about two glasses from the food they take. That leaves only 6 glasses to make up the difference. Kidney experts say that the eight by eight rule is overly estimated. An average sized person with healthy kidneys needs to replace the amount of water he loses in his body with no more than one liter of fluid (four eight ounce glasses) each day.

Drinking too much water is as harmful as taking no water at all. Over hydration can cause nausea, weakness, dizziness, trembling of the limbs, cramps or lose consciousness. Some doctors do not recommend drinking more than 12 eight ounce glasses. Just follow the golden rule. Do everything moderately.

If you think you can make up for you lost water by drinking carbonated drinks, tea, coffee or juice, watch out. Most of them are diuretics and do not help maintain the amount of fluids in your body. Diuretics cause us to urinate the fluids we have taken in. For every cup of coffee that we drink, we need to replace it with two cups of safe and clean water to offset the dehydrating effects of caffeine.

Thus, your best bet is water. Safe and clean filtered water. Even bottled water is not the optimum answer for hydration. While bottled water companies spend billions of dollars in advertising to project their brand of water as pure or safe, such water is often little more than repackaged tap water.

The danger lies in the plastic bottles wherein a contaminant known as phthalate, is a chemical that can cause cancer, organ malfunction, defects in the reproductive system, disrupt hormones in the body, physical abnormalities in children and many more. The U.S. National Toxicology Program says that phthalate is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.

If you are curious about how much water should a person drink a day, I say you should be more concerned with the quality of water that you take into your body. The safest solution is installing a good brand of water filtration system in your home. The amount of money you will save will be one thousand percent less than the money you spend on bottled water.

John Askelon is launching an information drive to make people aware about the dangers of tap and bottled water. Visit his site below.

How Much Water Should a Person Drink a Day? The 8 Glass Rule is a Myth

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