DrillFit: Hydration

Water

• 75% of Americans are dehydrated. (This likely applies to half of the world population)
• In 37% of Americans the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.
• Even mild dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism by as much as 3%.
• One glass of water has eliminated midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.
• Lack of water is the number one trigger of daytime fatigue.
• Preliminary research indicates that 8 to 10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
• A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy, short-term memory, trouble with basic math and difficulty focusing on a computer screen or a printed page.
• Drinking five glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45% plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79% and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day?

Bill Bell
DeWitt Army community hospital
Industrial hygiene section, occupational health service
Preventive medicine services

It takes three days to hydrate your body. How does this work? When you drink a glass of water it goes into your stomach and then your large intestines where most of it is absorbed into the blood stream. It is carried through the veins to hydrate tissues and is then carried to the kidneys where it is filtered ending up in your bladder. From there you eliminate the wastes that the water picked up and were filtered in your kidneys. This happens no matter how much or little you drink. Every-day activities eliminate water from your body including breathing.

The more you drink, to a certain point, the better you feel because your tissues are hydrated. If you are then active, you need to drink even more liquids- water being the best.