Water – How much should you drink?

By Dr. Oakley

 

Most people fail to realize that our body’s are mostly water, even our bones are 30% water! We lose water all day long by breathing, unconscious sweating (while not exercising), and of course also in our urine and feces. If we are under stress, ill, in hot weather conditions, or actually exercise we can lose even more water.

Our daily water losses need to be replaced. Only about 20% of our water needs come from foods, therefore, most of our water needs are met by simply drinking water. The problem is knowing how much water to drink.

For curiosity sake we did a study in the clinic simply assessing how much water our patients drank. Surprisingly, some people don’t drink water at all! Others drink only a glass or two a day where of the 100 consecutive patients surveyed, on average about 5-8oz. glasses of water were drank per day.¹

We next compared that to the recommendation to drink 8-8oz. glasses of water a day: 8-5=3 glasses short. Comparing the 5 glasses a day to the recommendation to drink half your body weight in ounces, we determined that on average, our sample of 100 patients drank 6 glasses short of meeting their water intake goal!

So whether going by the 8 glasses a day rule or the half your body weight goal, on average, most people are 3-6 glasses short of drinking the ideal amount of water per day!

Bottom Line:

Drink more water! Have a minimum goal of drinking 8 glasses a day, and the ideal goal of drinking half your body weight in ounces per day – each and every day!

 

References

1. Oakley, P.A. and Baird, M.L. (2015) Do patients drink enough water? Actual pure water intake compared to the theoretical daily rules of drinking 8-8 ounce glasses and drinking half your body weight in ounces. Journal of Water Resource and Protection; In Review.