The water myth

Listen well, my moist-faced friend: if you believe that the endless consumption of water will cultivate and preserve your soft, dew-like complexion, if you believe that two litres of water a day is an eternal truth, if you believe that too much is never enough, if indeed the precious Evian is delicately poised at your lips even now, stop, calm down, breathe, go to your safe place, because what I am about to tell you threatens to destroy your worldview.

The notion that you must consume two litres of fluid water a day is a myth, unsubstantiated by actual scientific proof, the product of lay persons latching onto the fact that we pass roughly two litres of water a day in the forms of sweat, urine and stool, thus perpetuating the belief that these two litres must be replaced in the form of pure water.

“There is no evidence to support this,” Kidney Health Australia experts say. “The best way of knowing how much to drink is to drink enough to satisfy your thirst.” Dermatologist Dr Belinda Welch agrees: “It is not necessary to be continually drinking water if you are not thirsty.” She maintains that “around a litre a day” should normally suffice. “If you are passing a lot of urine, you are probably drinking too much.”

But surely if water hydrates my skin, more will only moisten it, no? No. Firstly, a normally hydrated person will not develop better hydrated skin by drinking more water ad infinitum. There will be no significant change beyond what is achieved by a basic level of hydration. Secondly, there is a little thing called “water intoxication”. It means you die. I happen to know a certain person, a friend of a friend, who is rather enthusiastic about his gym-based activities, whom over the course of a dinner party I discovered drinks so much water every day that he is unable to sleep through the night, due to his chronic need to urinate. (Incidentally, this was pretty much all he had to talk about. Great party.) I advised him against this demented sleeping pattern, mentioning amongst other things the long-term hazards to the brain which his behaviour poses. He replied: “Water is more important.” Such is the cult of water. The lay media has drilled the dictum “drink more water” into society’s collective brain so frequently and with such vigour that this person actually believes he is vital. Yet he and the many others who share his worldview are actually engaging in behaviour that is dangerous and possibly fatal. The balance of the body’s electrolytes can be so disturbed by excessive water consumption that the heart can be brutalised, and the brain can in fact uncontrollably swell, thus attempting to crack open the skull, which it can’t, and will therefore terminate. (It happened last year in the US when a woman was forced to “hold her wee” for a radio competition. She died crying in her car.)

This is only the beginning. The water myth runs deeper still. The common understanding is that these two litres of water must be consumed in the form of pure water. Yet water exists in so many forms other than pure water. Milk? 84 percent water. Watermelon? 85 percent water. Diet Coke? 99 percent water.

But wait, I can’t drink a caffeinated beverage. That will dehydrate me, no? No. Again, the lay media has obsessively claimed that every cup of coffee and tea carries a burden of guilt, acting as a diuretic (a substance that tends to increase the discharge of urine), and thus must be followed by an additional glass of pure water, lest one dehydrate and prune. “A short-term diuretic does not equal dehydration,” says US Professor Larry Armstrong, the first scientist to conduct laboratory investigations in caffeine consumption and hydration status. “Think about how much caffeine Americans consume. If the myth is true, why aren’t hospitals filled with severely dehydrated people?” All fluids count, and Kidney Health Australia agrees: “From the kidney viewpoint, all fluids, including those containing caffeine, should count towards the daily fluid total.” Indeed, Armstrong’s research has proven that caffeinated fluids “contribute to the daily human water requirement in a manner that is similar to pure water”.

There is an associated myth that high water consumption facilitates bowel movements, which has been echoed to me personally by colonic hydration therapists. There is reason to doubt even this. A recent study at the University of Texas medical school has shown that additional fluid intake will increase urine flow, but found no “significant change in stool output”.

Of course, the eternal benefit of water over everything else that exists is that it contains zero calories, which is of course rather convenient, but since drinking it in superabundance will not improve the skin any more so than consuming less generous quantities, what will then successfully moisten one’s face? It is first critical to appreciate that the exterior layer of your skin is dead. It therefore cannot be saturated by water consumed internally. It simply will not reach it. (Although recent studies published in Allure have shown that omega-3 fish oil tablets can soothe particularly dry skin, and thus sounds rather worthy of investigation.) Your outermost facial skin is largely the product of your external world — the wind, the sun, the air conditioner that modulates the temperature of the workspace or classroom into which you have snuck this magazine — and thus must be moisturised in an external fashion. And indeed, as we in Australia are even now being bitch-slapped by the dehydrating hand of winter, the external world threatens one’s dewy face more so than usual.

Skin experts advise that hot showers, one of winter’s sweetest luxuries, pervert the skin and suck its moisture, and should thus be militantly short, lest the shower rob you of your moisture. Skin should be scrubbed when dry, according to Marcia Kilgore, founder of Bliss Spa New York, a sentiment shared widely amongst the beauty community — indeed, those of you who are exfoliated professionally (in day spas, for example) will be well acquainted with the exquisite agony of dry scrubbing; I recommend this personally. Beauty experts also counsel the use of moisturising cleansers — yours should contain glycerin or petrolatum. And moisturiser, as you are no doubt already aware, should be applied to damp skin — water encourages the absorption of the lotion.

So there you have it. Water. Drink it less neurotically. You may keep your Evian on hand, my moist-faced friend, just don’t obsess. Chin chin!

home