Q: Is drinking water while standing harmful?

Krishna: There are a few myths circulating on the net - that drinking water while standing can cause...

GIT (Gastrointestinal Tract) damage, kidney damage, arthritis, nerve tension and several other things.

There are highly qualified medical doctors on my science communication advisors panel. I consulted them too while answering this question because even good news papers have published misleading information on this. And these news papers quoted ayurvedic medicine and doctors in their articles.  Ayurveda, as we all know,  is not a confirmed science and cannot be treated as evidence based fact. It is ancient science, not tested according to modern scientific methods, and therefore cannot be treated as   'scientific'. 

Even Unani medicine and other 'desi medical practices' have this myth as basis for 'medical advices'.

People also give several reasons for these health problems. But gravity acts on water in the same way whether you are standing or sitting. It flows down in the same way in your GI tract  and reaches the stomach in the same way whether you are sitting or standing. Water will be absorbed by the body in the same way. What difference does it make? Show me just one genuine reason with scientific evidence, not a silly story,  to substantiate the argument that water behaves differently when you take it in the standing position. 

The movement of organ walls—called peristalsis—propels food and liquid through the GI tract and mixes the contents within each organ. Peristalsis looks like an ocean wave traveling through the muscle as it contracts and relaxes. Hence, the water doesn’t directly ‘fall’ into the stomach to cause harm.

Don't believe these silly stories.  I haven't come across even a single genuine scientific research paper on the harmful effects of drinking water in the standing position. 

So go ahead and drink water in the standing position and forget about health problems people mention. 

Because 'there is no genuine evidence'.

PS: After reading this answer of mine  even some ayurvedic doctors  told me 'even ayurveda doesn't support this myth'! Hmmm!

Q: Do we have to take 8 glasses of water per day? 

Krishna: Consider this: You have a person whose body  weight is 50 kgs. 

Then you have a second person whose body weight is 100 Kgs.

Do they both need only 8 glasses of water?

It’s just not true. There is no science behind it.

Most of the quantity of water we need is contained in prepared foods! Water is present in fruits and vegetables you consume. It’s in juice, it’s in beer, it’s even in milk, tea. 

You don’t have to consume all the water you need through drinks. You also don’t need to worry so much about never feeling thirsty. The human body is finely tuned to signal you to drink long before you are actually dehydrated.

Contrary to many stories you may hear, there’s no real scientific proof that, for otherwise healthy people, drinking extra water has any health benefits. For instance, reviews have failed to find that there’s any evidence that drinking more water keeps skin hydrated and makes it look healthier or wrinkle free. It is true that some retrospective cohort studies have found increased water to be associated with better outcomes, but these are subject to the usual epidemiologic problems, such as an inability to prove causation. Moreover, they defined “high” water consumption at far fewer than eight glasses.

Prospective studies fail to find benefits in kidney function or all-cause mortality when healthy people increase their fluid intake. Randomized controlled trials fail to find benefits as well, with the exception of specific cases — for example, preventing the recurrence of some kinds of kidney stones. Real dehydration, when your body has lost a significant amount of water because of illness, excessive exercise or sweating, or an inability to drink, is a serious issue. But people with clinical dehydration almost always have symptoms of some sort.

There is no formal recommendation for a daily amount of water people need. That amount obviously differs by what people eat, where they live, how big they are and what they are doing.

Period!

Q: What happens if we drink ice-cold water or eat ice creams in summer? Do they cool our bodies?

Q: What cools our bodies during summer, hot or cold drinks?

Krishna: The process of maintaining an optimal body temperature is called thermoregulation, which involves a delicate balance between producing and losing heat.

Humans are warm-blooded or endotherms, which are scientific ways of saying we can control our body temperature independent of the environment. We can do this because our bodies are constantly producing heat as a by-product of internal chemical processes (metabolism).

Metabolism is necessary to keep our bodies functioning correctly. It includes digestive processes involved in breaking down nutrients in food, the absorption and transportation of those nutrients to the cells, and their conversion into building blocks or energy necessary for physical activity.

The heat this generates is beneficial when it’s cold, but when outside temperatures rise, we need to avoid overheating. While it may seem logical that introducing something cold, like ice cream, into the stomach should help reduce temperature, its initial cooling effect is rapidly replaced by heat generated by digestive processes needed to break down the nutrients in ice cream. Digesting calorie-rich food like ice-creams leads to an increase in body temperature.

So ice cream is not the best option for cooling down, but what about cold beverages? The heat transfer between a cold beverage and the digestive system can directly influence temperature. But, this is only momentary and depends on the quantity and caloric content of the ingested liquid.

A small amount of liquid will lose its cooling effect quite quickly as it gets warmed up by the surrounding organs. And large amounts of cold liquids will cause blood flow to slow, making heat transport less effective.

As you can imagine, beverages with a high caloric content, such as soft drinks, will have a similar effect as ice cream and kick start our metabolism shortly after ingestion.

The cooling effects of cold liquids are more likely explained by their rehydration effects. If heat does build up, the body will attempt to lose excess heat by transporting it away from the vital organs to the skin surface where it is transferred directly to our environment through convection and radiation.

For this to occur, the ambient temperature needs to be lower than our own temperature, or the opposite happens and heat will transfer into our body. Just like the heat radiated from the sun on a hot summer day.

Surprisingly, warm beverages might be a good way to keep you cool. Although counter intuitive, drinking a warm beverage causes receptors in your mouth and throat to trigger a sweat response, allowing your body to cool down without having to ingest a large amount of the warm liquid.
Active ingredients in spicy foods have the same effect; they too trigger a sweat response that allows the body to cool down. That’s why these types of foods are popular in warm climates.

So while cold treats can be satisfying and are certainly refreshing, a better way of cooling down is to spice things up, get your sweat on and, most importantly, rehydrate (1)!

Footnotes:

1. https://theconversation.com/health-check-do-ice-cream-and-cold-drin...

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Krishna: While there's a common misconception that drinking too much water can make you gain weight, in fact, the opposite is true. Water can help you lose weight and maintain a healthy weight. Staying properly hydrated helps maintain a healthy metabolic rate, allowing the body to convert food into energy efficiently.

Researchers have tried to find out the effect of drinking excessive water in female overweight participants, in terms of weight loss (1). The decrease in body weight, BMI, sum of skinfold thickness, and appetite score of overweight participants at the end of study period establishes the role of drinking excessive water in weight reduction, body fat reduction, and appetite suppression of participants. Thus, water drinking induced increase in sympathetic activity is an important and unrecognized component of daily energy expenditure. If confirmed in future studies with larger number of subjects, this cost free intervention may be a useful adjunctive treatment in overweight and obese individuals to attain an increase in energy expenditure.

Water is your body's principal chemical component, making up, on average, 60% of your body weight. Every system in your body depends on water. For example, water flushes toxins out of vital organs, carries nutrients to your cells and provides a moist environment for ear, nose and throat tissues. Lack of water can lead to dehydration, a condition that occurs when you don't have enough water in your body to carry out normal functions. Even mild dehydration can drain your energy and make you tired.

By drinking more water per day, you will have a series of weight gains throughout the day as a quart (32 ounces) of water weighs two pounds. But you also lose it through the process of excretion . The easy answer is yes; drinking water affects weight significantly enough to be seen on a scale immediately. Usually, in a 24-hour period, you will cycle through this process of gaining water weight and losing water weight and have either a net loss or stable weight for the day, depending on your consumption and excretion.

Humans sweat, digest, and breathe. All three processes help our bodies to expel water.

Image source: Shutterstock

Adding adequate water to your diet will help you lose weight a few ways.

One, you will not be as hungry when drinking water through the day as your stomach will have something constantly flowing through it.

Two, when your body realizes it is getting enough water, it will allow you to release retained waters from your cells.

Three, research indicates that drinking water can help to burn calories.

Four, water helps to remove wastes efficiently.

Five , drinking plain water alone can reduce overall liquid calorie intake

Six, water is necessary to burn fat

Seven, water helps optimize workouts.

So, water helps in reducing obesity, not in increasing it.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4121911/