Over the years in practicing Physical Therapy I have always been amazed at how different everyone is consuming water during their session. A lot of our senior patients think “water rusts their insides” or something because few if any ever get a drink. Most of our athletes can’t get enough, and then there is the rest of the patient population that falls in between depending on the day. When talking to patients during their physical therapy session I’ve learned that many of them don’t understand just how vital water is to the human body functioning properly.
Did you know what percentage of water is in the human body? According to the USGS (United States Geological Survey) it is 60%. They also cite a study that demonstrated our blood is 92% water, Lungs were 83% water, our muscles and kidneys are 79%, our brain and heart are 73% water, our skin is 64%, and our bones are comprised of 31% water. With so much of our bodies made of water it’s no surprise that a human can live for weeks without eating food but can only survive a few days without water.
As important as water is to us it is even more vital when we workout, whether in physical therapy or out of the clinic, especially in the summer months. We recently made a post on avoiding dehydration as well as a post on some ways to maximize your summer workouts which indirectly reflected on some tips to save body water. However, did you know that an estimated 75% of Americans are not drinking enough water daily! If you still need convincing as to why you should raise a cup (or three) of water then this loosely made meta-analysis based top 10 health Benefits of water is for you!
- Decreases/prevents hangovers: The morning after a night of too much drinking one can question their recent intelligence as well as strike promises of abstinence for the future with themselves. What you should really be doing is downing glass after glass of water. Alcohol dehydrates the body and the more you drink the more dehydrated you will become. By drinking more water you will be replacing those fluids lost to alcohol, which will make you feel better. However, water works better when used proactively to prevent the dehydration. Best case scenario is to alternate between glasses of water and alcohol to keep the ill-effects at bay or at the very least down a good amount of water prior to going to bed.
- Healthy Skin: Skin is an organ like all our others and as such relies on water to maintain homeostasis. As noted above skin is 64% water anyway so not drinking enough water can negatively impact your skin as well. How to know if your skin is not getting enough water? If it is dry, flaking, or tight typically indicates loss of water but skin that is dry is also less resilient and more prone to wrinkling. Try drinking 8 glasses of water a day to improve your skin health as studies have demonstrated that people doing so have reported healthier, ‘glowing’ skin. Give it a try for 2 weeks and see if you can spot a difference.8
Balances Fluids/electrolytes/toxins: Everyday we will lose just over a half gallon of water between going to the bathroom and sweating. Exercising, vomiting, and diarrhea are ways that we will use greater amounts of water. If we don’t replace those lost fluids we will put ourselves into dehydration which can lead to various medical/health issues. Drinking more will balance the water in our body and maintain our proper fluid level. Additionally, water is vital in transporting the various electrolytes (such as sodium, potassium, chloride, and others) throughout our body without which our bodies would not be able to regulate other functions like blood pressure. Finally, water is essential in helping to flush toxins out of our bodies. Without enough water toxins can statically build up in our body by our colon drying out, causing constipation, and our kidneys will stop excreting toxins. When toxin levels are allowed to rise performance, both in daily life and in exercising, will decrease. Drinking enough water will aid the flushing of toxins by softening stool and continue the filtering process of our kidneys.- Protects Joints/cartilage: Cartilage is 85% comprised of water and synovial fluid is virtually all water with a number of proteins and enzymes. Water contributes significantly to the function of both as cartilage lines all but a few of our joints and helps provide a layer of protection for each joint where as synovial fluid helps lubricate the joint. Some studies have shown that having less synovial fluid in the joint can lead towards changes in the proteins/enzymes of the synovial fluid which will therefore start or increase joint inflammation.
- Increases Energy: Low levels of dehydration have been linked to increased fatigue, irritability, sluggishness, and confusion. Some studies have indicated that drinking 2 cups of water when those times occur have a greater chance of improving those complaints than a cup of coffee. How much water? The old adage was 8 cups (8 oz) of water a day but there is now increasing evidence to let your body indicate when to drink water. Like times when you are feeling tired, irritable, sluggish, or hungry. There can be plenty of water found in foods and low levels of dehydration can trigger the stomach into asking for some more of those higher water level foods which will manifest in hunger pains.
- Kidney Health: Our Kidneys are primarily responsible for filtering our blood of impurities, excessive water, and waste products out in our urine. Additionally, they are vital in balancing our pH, salt, and potassium levels as well as producing hormones that regulate blood pressure and red blood cell production. If you’re not getting enough water intake the kidney’s will hold onto as much fluid as possible or normal bodily function which can increase the concentration levels of our salts, potassium, impurities, and waste products. Higher levels of any of these can throw off our normal resting pH and can result in negative changes to our blood pressure and hormone regulation. However, some research has shown that drinking moderate amounts of water (3 liters or 12 8 oz glasses/day) improves urine volume which has been an indicator of kidney health as increased urine volume has been linked to a decreased chance of chronic kidney disease.
- Improves Focus: As noted previously our brain is approximately 73% water and that water helps with the production of the neurotransmitters and hormones necessary for our brain to carry out our daily tasks. In fact, some studies have indicated that if you are 1% dehydrated you can have a 5% decrease in brain function and at 2% dehydration you can suffer short term memory issues, difficulty focusing, and have problems completing math computations. Additionally, there has been anecdotal evidence that people with brain challenges (ADD, Autism, Alzheimer’s, anxiety attacks, depression) drink almost no water a day which according to Dr. Corinne Allen, founder of the Advanced Learning and Development Institute, can enhance brain dysfunction. She recommends drinking 12-16 oz of water first thing in the Am after waking to start the day off right but feels that a goal people should strive for is to drink half their body weight in ounces of water (For example a 180lb person should strive to drink 90 ounces (or almost 3 liters) of water a day). Thankfully , she recommends that people slowly achieve this goal over the course of 3-6 months.
- Prevents Fatigue: One of the first signs of dehydration is fatigue. Here again studies have shown that a loss of 1-2% of body weight in water can increase dehydration levels to the point of creating lethargy, fatigue, and decrease performance. Even slight dehydration can create a decrease in blood volume which can increase your fatigue by reducing blood flow to the brain and other organs. However, there is some research out that indicates even that mid morning or post lunch tiredness could be attributed to not enough water. In these situations people who had enough sleep and were eating a ‘proper’ diet but were still suffering from day time tiredness could report a decrease in both frequency and intensity of fatigue by drinking more water.
- Aids Digestion: Water is the basic component of saliva, which is the body’s first technique in breaking down food. When chewing, enzymes in saliva begin to break down food into the minerals and nutrients that are easier to digest and easier to swallow. Additionally, water is necessary to break down soluble fiber which assists in making well formed soft healthy stool that is easy to pass while preventing constipation. Something to note: Almost every article regarding water and digestion we’ve read also mentioned adding greater amounts of fruits and vegetables in the diet. Both of which are natural sources of water.
- Aids in Weight Loss: There are actually a few ways that water will actually help in dropping pounds. The first is that people who drank water 30 minutes prior to eating felt more full and consumed roughly 75 calories less per meal than those that did not. At one meal 75 calories might not seem like much but over the course of the year thats 82,125 calories saved just from a simple glass of water 30 minutes prior to every meal. Second research has shown that a 1% drop in hydration levels has been enough to slow metabolism in certain individuals. Similarly, it has been demonstrated that drinking cold water will actually increase/boost a person’s metabolism. One study determined that 10 minutes after drinking 17 ounces of water both men and women recorded a 30% boost in metabolism for 30-40 minutes. The authors of the study estimated that drinking 1.5 liters of water/day would increase the caloric expenditure by 17,400 calories over a 1 year period. Third, drinking more water for most typically occurs at the expense of drinking other beverages. For most Americans that means getting rid of high caloric drinks like soda, juice, sugar with coffee and cream, and the like. However, if you think water has no taste add a lemon! A. it adds flavor and B. it contains pectin which can reduce food cravings. Finally, as advanced as our bodies are sometimes they send us mixed signals. For example, unless we are dehydrated our body typically alerts us to being thirsty by…….giving us hunger pains. Since most people associate hunger pain with being hungry they will tend to overeat throughout the day. But, a better practice would be to drink a glass of water and then wait 30 minutes. If your hunger pain has not been relieved then eat (preferably fruits and veggies high in water content) but if the hunger pains leave you just saved yourself a bunch of unnecessary calories.
Most people don’t really question the health benefits of water but inevitably while patients are in Physical Therapy there is a question regarding how to know if you are drinking enough water. The easiest indicator we have to determine our hydration level is our urine. When you are well hydrated your pee should be almost clear with a tinge of yellow in it and there should be little to no smell. However, when you go to the bathroom if your pee is a dark yellow and if it smells heavily of urine than chances are that you are dehydrated. In fact, in the absence of a vitamin pill the darker the color or the smellier it is the more dehydrated you are. At 1% dehydration our pee will be yellow, at 5% dehydration levels our pee will be chardonnay colored, and over 5% dehydration our pee could look orange in color.
Finally, with all the great health benefits of water and the good that comes with being well hydrated some may think that, with water, you can’t get enough of a good thing. Well actually…you can. Infrequently people have drank so much water that they have put themselves into hyponatremia, a state of abnormally low sodium in your body.
Sodium is an important electrolyte responsible for a number of basic functions including heart pumping. In normal healthy adults sodium blood levels are 136-to-145 milliequivalents/liter and anything under 135 miliequivalents/liter is considered hyponatremia. Typically endurance athletes and the elderly are the most susceptible to this condition; endurance athletes as the tend to over hydrate in an effort to replenish fluids lost in long races and the elderly as they tend to not be as efficient in maintaining their electrolyte balances. However, for most of us it will be very challenging to enter into this state, especially with the moderate increase in our water consumption that has been attributed to the many health benefits of water!
If you live in Chester NJ or Bridgewater NJ and are interested in learning more about physical therapy at BeneFIT and how we can help you recover from an injury or have any questions about how to get back into your summer workouts feel free to reach out.
