Don't Drink the Water

Did they say liquid H₂O is the sine qua non of life? I don't think we are in Mexico anymore, Toto.....

My Dad told me not to drink the water in Mexico or else I will get the "Tijuana Trots."

Where did people get the idea that guzzling enormous quantities of water is healthful? A few years ago Heinz Valtin, a kidney specialist from Dartmouth Medical School, decided to determine if the common advice to drink eight, eight-ounce glasses of water per day could hold up to scientific scrutiny. After scouring the peer-reviewed literature, Valtin concluded that no scientific studies support the "eight x eight" dictum (for healthy adults living in temperate climates and doing mild exercise). In fact, drinking this much or more "could be harmful, both in precipitating potentially dangerous hyponatremia and exposure to pollutants, and also in making many people feel guilty for not drinking enough," he wrote in his 2002 review for the American Journal of Physiology—Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. And since he published his findings, Valtin says, "not a single scientific report published in a peer-reviewed publication has proven the contrary."

In Germany, however, the Gesundheits Minister stresses that a minimum of 1.5 liters of beer (which is about 4 - 12 oz. cans) pro tag (per day!) is healthy and wise. I think they are on to something................