Are you drinking more water than necessary? Scientists at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland have found that the recommended norm of two liters of water per day may be excessive. Scottish scientists note that about half of the daily fluid intake comes from food, so it is not necessary to drink as much pure water. Based on extensive research, they now recommend drinking 1.5-1.8 liters per day.
Professor John Spikman, one of the authors of the study, said in an interview with the BBC: “The initial measurement of a daily requirement of two liters is the result of a small error. The amount of water we should drink is the difference between our total daily requirement and what we get from food”. “Liquid from food has been measured by asking people how much they eat. However, people usually say they eat less than they actually do, so there is a miscalculation and the amount of water that needs to be consumed is overestimated,” says Spikman.
However, a new study has calculated the water cycle in the human body more accurately using stable isotope technology. The study involved 5604 people from 23 countries, ranging in age from eight days to 96 years.
A major study was conducted by scientists at the University of Aberdeen. Participants in the experiment drank a glass of water in which some of the hydrogen molecules had been replaced with the stable isotope deuterium. Deuterium is found in the human body and is completely harmless. The rate at which the deuterium subsequently left the participants’ bodies was used to measure the rate of water turnover in their bodies. This rate is different for everyone, and therefore the exact daily water norm is different for each person. For example, people who live in hot and humid climates, high mountains, athletes, pregnant and lactating women replenish water more quickly.
The most important factor determining the rate of water loss from the body is the amount of energy expended. It is highest in men between the ages of 20 and 35, with an average of 4.2 liters of water leaving the body per day. With age, this volume decreases and by the age of 90, it drops to about 2.5 liters in men. In the case of women between the ages of 20 and 40, we are talking about 3.3 liters of water per day, but by the age of 90, the daily volume of liquid excreted from the body drops to 2.5 liters.
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But just because your body loses 4.2 liters of water a day doesn’t mean you need to drink the same amount, says Professor Spikman. “In fact, you need to drink 3.6 liters. Since food usually contains enough liquid, we get most of the water we need just by eating,” he says. “The most important thing this study shows is that the commonly accepted notion of the norm of eight glasses of water a day is probably exaggerated for most people in most situations. Our data do not confirm that there can be one standard for everyone,” she said.
According to him, excessive water consumption can be harmful. But not so much to health as to the environment. “Clean drinking water is not free,” says Spikmen. “If people drink an average of one litre more than they need, multiply that by 40 million adult Britons and it turns out that we are unnecessarily consuming and then excreting 20 million litres in the form of urine. It does not go unnoticed,” he says.