Water boosts energy, gives skin a glow, and helps maintain health, but how much should we drink, and can too much be harmful?
For more, Dietitian Karina Savage joins.
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How much water should we actually drink?
From boosting your energy to giving your skin that natural glow, water works wonders on us but staying hydrated is also one of the easiest ways to stay healthy. But the question is just how much should we really be drinking and does too much water pose a health risk from all we're joined by dietitian who can drink savage, good morning to you, how are you? Good morning, well thank you. Now we know we need to drink water, that's a no brainer but some people are forgetting this aren't they? Yes, especially when it's hot we need to remember that we still need to drink. But the body is 65% water, so we need water every day going into our body, we need it for our blood, we need it for our tears, we need it for our digestion, we need it pretty much for every cell in our body. So it's really important that we're drinking enough water to keep ourselves hydrated but making sure we're not drinking too much. Okay, we always hear eight glasses or two litres, is that right? So the average adult will need to have over two litres a day, so for men it's about 10 cups. So here we have a bit of a representation about the 10 cups of water. So that looks like a lot doesn't it? Yeah, it looks like many tons of mails. So females, eight cups, a 10 year old child needs six, five year old child needs four. Okay, so it really depends on your age. What if you're taking in other liquids? So other liquids really, they can contribute to your fluid needs but at the end of the day we really want to make sure that water is our primary fluid. We don't want to be loading up with lots of sugary soft drinks or juices because that's not really going to be healthy for us. We really want to make sure that most of it comes from water. Everyone's fluid needs are different. If it's really hot and you're out laboring all day and you're sweating a lot, you're going to need more than that two and a half for men but if you're in office working you're going to need a little less. Now a lot of people drink coffee, that can be dehydrating or not? Look it can be if you're drinking large amounts, so if you're drinking more than the equivalent of five shots of coffee a day, then it can be dehydrating but if you're habitually having one or two cups of coffee, three or four cups of tea a day, it actually is fine, it's not going to dehydrate you. Okay, and when you talk about tea, other than herbal tea, if you're just having a standard black tea, does that contribute? No, so if you're drinking normal caffeinated tea, it can still contribute to your daily fluid intake and it's not going to be dehydrating unless you're having really large quantities. Michael was asking earlier if it will give you that glowy complexion. Right, just, I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to touch me. Have you ever done training modules that said you're not allowed to? I'm not allowed to touch you, that's true, you know I've got the letter about that. It will help your skin, it will help your skin, Michael. I'm glad we made that point so visually. It's just a question, no, you can over drink water and you have to be careful of it. So now up on the Dakota track, a lot of the hikers up there went through a couple of seasons of over-hydrated and caused serious health issues. Absolutely, it can be very dangerous if you consume too much water in a shot period of time, so by that I'm talking about three to four litres within an hour, you can overload the kidneys, the kidneys can't process that amount of fluid in that time and you can dilute your blood and that can be very dangerous. So there is a condition called hyponatremia, which can land you in hospital and can be life threatening. What about things like Gatorade, Powerade, those sorts of things? So when, if you were exercising for a couple of hours and sweating lots, that's when those electrolyte replacement drinks can be beneficial, but if it's for under an hour and you're not sweating too much, then water's absolutely fine, but certainly you know if you're sweating a lot. Yeah. And you were saying in the ad break that it's better to have it out of glass or stainless steel, not plastic. Yeah, so plastic does shed and contributes to a microplastic intake and a nanoplastic intake, so it's better if it is in a glass container or an aluminium container. I reckon the trick is to find some of these good containers that have to be as expensive as that. Correct. That hold a fuse. Yeah. You're not going to count that amount of glasses every day. No, no. You're going to lose track of that. I think having a water jug's really good. So this is about a liter and a half. So if you're drinking, you know, one, one and a half of those, you're up to a good start. Could Michael's complexion be improved even further with water? Seriously? If he's drinking his two and a half liters a day, I think he'll be right. He was too worried to ask that himself. So I said that as a friend, I do it. Thank you. I'm so grateful. Yeah, that's okay. I'm going to thank you for putting up with me. No, that's a pleasure. That's my pleasure. [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]