well it appears that drinking eight glasses of water a day is not good for you after all – and could be harmful, Glasgow-based GP Margaret McCartney says the NHS Choices website’s advice that people should drink six to eight glasses a day is ‘not only nonsense, but thoroughly debunked nonsense’, she adds that the benefits of the drink are often exaggerated by ‘organisations with vested interests’ such as bottled water brands, writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr McCartney also points out that research shows drinking when not thirsty can impair concentration, rather than boost it, and separate evidence suggests that chemicals used for disinfection found in bottled water could be bad for your health, drinking excessive amounts can also lead to loss of sleep as people have to get up in the night to go to the toilet, and other studies show it can even cause kidney damage, instead of preventing it,
worryingly, Dr McCartney also warns that taking on too much water can lead to a rare but potentially fatal condition called hyponatraemia, which sees the body’s salt levels drop and can lead to swelling of the brain, in 2003 actor Anthony Andrews, who starred in the ITV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, was hit by the illness after drinking too much water during rehearsals for a West End role, about 2.06billion litres of bottled water was drunk in Britain last year, compared with 1.42billion litres in 2000, now there's a thought, think of all of the plastic and glass that is needed for all of that bottled water, never mind the carbon footprint of moving it all around!
well the evidence is in for me, no more bottled water, help the worlds carbon footprint, stay away from that dangerous water stuff and stick to medicinal red wine!
2 comments:
Stan,
That's another interesting article about water. My work is quite phyisical where I am sweating most of the day. If I don't drink enough water I get a dehydration headache but I sometimes get this when I do drink enough. It was Dad who told me that the blokes in the extremely hot power station, where he worked as a young man, used to add salt to their water and that kept their fluid and salt levels normal. You've just said the same thing in your blog.
Something you never mentioned was fluoride in water. It's more toxic than arsenic but people think that the small doses have no effect but they have a cumulative effect. Some scientists were tricked into testing Calcium Fluoride which had minimal effects on teeth when it's Sodium Fluoride that is put in water and is actually harmful for teeth. I won't tell you the real reason it's put in water because you'll never believe me but it's easy enough to find out on the internet.
Anyway Stan, are you coming over to England this summer ?
All the best - Alan
Dear Alan, I remember the great debate about whither our water should be chlorinated or not, the chlorinators won, also I remember my Dad saying when in the Second World War in the desert he hated taking his salt tablets, as for the UK we would like to come to the UK but lack of funds means we will have to wait till 2012, but there is always a beer in the fridge if you want to come here! best regards, Stan and Diana.
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