I think for runners they have some kind of formula. I think you can just go by your thirst level though: like I always say, your body has a really primo chemistry set built into it, and whole circuits dedicated to keeping your water level correct. I think most of the people who have issues with too much water are likely forcing themselves to either drink more than they want, or they are sticking to a very low-salt diet because they feel it is "healthy".
Anyway, with animals, you are supposed to provide a salt lick, and a water trough, and let the animal decide how much it wants. I think this works with people too, if they pay attention to what they really want vs. what people are telling them they want.
Too much salt can be a problem, but the opposite is true also, and low-salt diets can lead to problems (see below).
As for Indians drinking water: I don't know the stats for all cultures, but it's fairly common to read something like "They don't drink water if they can help it, but rather drink [tea, cider, kvass, fill in the blank]". I think the osmotic pressure of plain water is a little lower than what the human body wants, which is why Gatorade was invented. The question of WHY that would be so though, intrigues me. I'm guessing that standing water in many places in the world really isn't "pure water" like we get from the tap. If it's swampy water it has a lot of tannins in it (like tea!), and if it's lake water it probably has salts in it.
Interestingly, my chickens, if they are running loose and have a choice, prefer water from a dirty bucket that has algae growing in it, to pure water in a clean bucket.
There is also something with Northern Europeans: a rather large portion of the population has one cystic fibrosis gene. That gene regulates salt usage: having one gene is thought to make you less likely to die from cholera, but it also makes you excrete salt more than you would otherwise. I kind of wonder if some portion of the population isn't partially adapted to drinking salt water, since the British Isles were, in the past, mainly sea-based foodwise.
Salt and heart disease:
The study, published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, doesn't confirm that a low-salt diet itself is bad for the heart. But it does say that people who eat the least salt suffer from the highest rates of death from cardiac disease.
"Our findings suggest that one cannot simply assume, without evidence, that lower salt diets 'can't hurt,' " Cohen said.
Cohen and his colleagues looked at a federal health survey of about 8,700 Americans between 1988 and 1994. All were over 30, and none were on special low-salt diets.
Even after the researchers adjusted their statistics to account for the effect of cardiac risk factors like smoking and diabetes, the 25 percent of the population who ate the least salt were 80 percent more likely to die of cardiac disease than the 25 percent who ate the most salt.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4996363&page=1
On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 12:07 PM, tamaratornado
<tamaratornado@yahoo.com> wrote:
Thank you Heather.
I was wondering how much water is "too much".
When I was in Egypt, 110° F, I intuitively started drinking water with lemon and salt. It was delicious to me, especiallly in the heat. I craved it.
Now I am home, (USA) doing the fast five and I have been drinking a lot of plain water, but maybe I should do my salty lemon water more.
When I get hungry I drink more, waiting for my window to open....
- T
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