Everything Good Is Bad for You

The Weekly Standard does a hit piece on water.

Comments

[His Majesty]

Ha, I'm definitely e-mailing this story to a friend of mine who drinks about 3+ bottles of water a day.

[budgie]

Wow...Good article. No clumsy digs at anyone. I didn't know the WS ever rose above political hackery.

[gary]

Leftist hatred never takes a pit stop, does it, Budgie? I can't imagine how righties ever survived forty years of Democrat Congresses without becoming embittered losers in the process. They must be one tuff breed.

[dhex]

water bottles are portable. that's a big plus.

i always feel better when i drink plenty of water, especially during the ungodly summers here.

[CodeMonkeySteve]

Everything Good Is Bad for You

That's not the half of it ... water kills!

A similar study conducted by U.S. researchers Patrick K. McCluskey and Matthew Kulick also found that nearly 90 percent of the citizens participating in their study were willing to sign a petition to support an outright ban on the use of Dihydrogen Monoxide in the United States.

[budgie]

Good point Gary. Let's excise the political and just say hackery. Do you really think that the WS is clearly "right" anymore. Or are they just shills? Oh yeah. And I forgot the whole whining victim thing...forty years in the desert and such. I'll try to be more sensitive in the future.

[Les]

Gary,

Why must someone be a "leftist" to have little respect for most of the articles and essays in The Weekly Standard?

[MyNameIsAsh]

Nothing realy new in that article. Of course if you actually exercise you are going to need to drink more. I run a bit and usually drink about 100 ounces a day.

[Eddy]

On a poorly timed trip to Cambodia I found I could drink about 3 liters during the day and not urinate at all until having a beer late in the evening. I think this clearly shows that beer must be a diuretic. And that logic chain should clearly show my qualifications for appointment to SCOTUS.

[The Real Bill]

TWS, like most political mags, contains hackery and good articles.

[madpad]

good article but it's old new by now.

NPR did a whole thing for weeks on this over a year ago.

[Mith]

This is, however, one of those things where there are numerous studies showing great health benefits from drinking lots of water and at the same times lots of studies showing no health benefits of drinking lots of water. It all depends on who you want to listen to.

I'm still waiting for the breakthrough study showing that water is actually a leading cause of cancer. I mean, everything else is. It will be funny to see Congress debate how to protect the children from it.

[Madog]

I like having dilute urine.

[spur]

why does water hate america

[kevrob]

Besides alcohol, tea is a diuretic. When I've finished up a session at the pub, I always try to rehydrate before knocking off for the night. A pot of tea or some coffee next morning gets the heart started.

A few decades ago the "don't drink water while you exercise" meme led to dead teenagers during August two-a-day practices for high school football. Drinking water was supposed to make you cramp up. That nonsense was put aside after a few funerals. I guess that means one should drink some, but not too much. If you need to cool off you could always pour the water bucket over your head!

Kevin

[WSDave]

"Of course this includes all the fluid in coffee, lattes, soda, or anything else that is liquid and consumed each day. "

Um, I have to disagree. There are many chemicals in coffee, lattes, and soda (among other drinks) that the body considers poison, and it will pull water from other areas of the body to clean the poison out of the system as fast as possible. The net resault is that you end up with less water in your body before the latte than after.

[WSDave]

Strike that. You end up with less water AFTER the latte then before. But you guys know what I meant.

[Miriam]

Marketing always trumps science. I doubt the folks who sell the bottled water are worried

[slacrates]

WSDave,

If I drink 24 oz of soda you're telling me it takes more than 24 oz of water to "clean out the poison" (whatever that means)? Hardly convincing.

[Eddy]

While caffeine is a mild diuretic, it takes about four cups of coffee or six cups of tea per day to reach a dose that has any deleterious effect. Also regular consumption does lead to a tolerance of the effects of caffeine. More here.

[Syd]

"Given these two sources of water loss, most people in temperate climates would need to consume about one and one half quarts of fluid per day to replace the obligate losses of water from the body. Since most glasses contain about 12 oz. of fluid, about 5 glasses of fluid each day is sufficient to maintain a stable water content of the body. Of course this includes all the fluid in coffee, lattes, soda, or anything else that is liquid and consumed each day."

Not just liquids. You get water from a lot of foods as well.

[Jim Walsh]

I feel better when I drink a fair amount of water. It definitely makes things go more, er, smoothly. That's all the evidence I need.

[malcolm]

After that "latte" paragraph, you gotta seriously debate the level of this guy's knowledge on the subject, despite the fancy letters after his name. Furthermore, i question the miraculous efficiency of the water regulating system he portrays. Fact is, when the body senses it doesn't have enough, it starts to hoard it. it's called water retention, and as we all know, though harmless in smallish amounts, it ain't pretty.

That's why you never see the lithe and limber ones without whatever the hip bottle of the month is. To paraphrase some old fart rocker, "the Doctor don't know, but the little girls understand..."

[Melissa]

Stick to your guns malcolm. Those doctors don't know shit. It's the guys selling the fancy bottled water we should listen to. I'll take anecdotal evidence over science any day. I just saw a really svelt, good-looking guy, and he had a bottle of water. That's good enough for me.

[smacky]

If I drink 24 oz of soda you're telling me it takes more than 24 oz of water to "clean out the poison" (whatever that means)? Hardly convincing.

Yes.It may be hardly convincing, but it's true, baby!

In regards to thin, young women/svelte young guys drinking water: it's a known fact that drinking water will help fill you up and help satiate hunger. Once upon a time when I was intensely working out all the time, after I would have an intense workout, I was barely desirous of dinner or much food at all after I drank a couple of glasses/bottles of water. Water curbs hunger. It's better and cheaper than diet pills. Drinking coffee, tea, and soda will not hydrate you. Don't believe this fallacy. Water is always the best thing to drink. There is definately a reason why you always see thin people drinking water and fat people drinking diet soda. (since I have no cred on H&R anyway, I will now quote Paris Hilton: "Diet pop is for fat people.") She speaks the truth in this instance.

[Jon H]

"In regards to thin, young women/svelte young guys drinking water: it's a known fact that drinking water will help fill you up and help satiate hunger"

Huh. Tends to make me hungry.

Don't be foolish. Paris Hilton's thin because of cocaine, not water.

[malcolm]

OK Melissa, after the contemplation brought on by a couple of glasses of wine, another liquid, i might add, that thought it contains much water, will dehydrate you, I am sure that this guy is full of it (and now I'm not talking about water)

"Experts agree..."

[Melissa]

Experts change their opinions these days faster than Bush's eyes dart from teleprompter to teleprompter. Information overload creates the ideal level of confusion for quacks to ply their trade. But never give up the wine no matter what.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Jesus Christ, every goddamn dog in the world knows when it needs water. Why has this become such a problem for the human race? We must be in big trouble if we have to consult experts on when to suck down some water.

[madpad]

Bottled water is simply something who's time has come.

About the time that Evian bottles started appearing, the Gulf war was brewing. The press, led by CNN, was talking up the notion that the desert heat was the real enemy of our troops.

"People need 14 gallons of water a day or they'll DIE!" and some such was being reported relentlesly. Naturally bottled water manufacturers took full advantage of this. Perhapos the biggest hit to bottled water was when Terry Schiavo took almost 2 weeks to die without it.

But the root of success of bottled water IMHO) is far more mundane. Truth is, tap water tastes like shit. Even filtered water tastes like a swimming pool. AND Most people are now scared of there own water supply.

Ground water contamination (real and imagined), elevated levels of birth control hormones and other issues have all been in the news over the past 20 years and bottled water has seized upon each issue as a marketing opportunity.

Add to that the subset of folks who have always been worried that flouride was a sterility campaign by an evil government cabal, those genuinely worried that terrorist could hit our water supply and regular victims of natural disaster (Florida-hurricanes, for example) and you've got a "perfect storm" of reasons on which the bottled water industry can capitalize.

But it all - everything - starts with shitty tasting city water.

[Eddy]

The fact that Evian backward spells naive is all the proof I need to be convinced that it's just a marketing gimmick.

Paris Hilton: "Diet pop is for fat people."
Self-fulfilling prophecy? Then again she also pitched 'Eat humongo-burgers so you can wash cars' or some such thing.

[Melissa]

On the other hand, if all the gullible consumers who fall for all the marketing gimmicks suddenly became rational, the economy would probably collapse, and then where would we be? The role of stupidity in sustaining the high levels of consumption needed to keep the economy moving may be more important than we realize.