Myth-Busting Hydration: Why Drinking More Water Won't Make You Healthier

Experts agree that you don’t need to chug glasses of water throughout the day. Christie Aschwanden looks closer

- Christie Aschwanden

If you’ve spent any time on social media or visited an athletic event lately, you’ve surely been bombarded with encouragements to drink more water. Celebrity influencers lug around gallon-size water bottles as the hot new accessory.

Twitter bots constantly remind us to make more time to hydrate. Some reusable water bottles even come emblazoned with motivational phrases – “Remember your goal”, “Keep drinking”, “Almost finished” – to encourage more drinking throughout the day.

The purported benefits of excess water consumption are seemingly endless, from improved memory and mental health to increased energy to better complexion. “Stay hydrated” has become a new version of the old salutation “Stay well”.

But what, exactly, does “stay hydrated” mean? “When lay people discuss dehydration, they mean loss of any fluids,” said Dr Joel Topf, a nephrologist and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Oakland University in the US.

But that interpretation “has been completely blown out of proportion”, said Kelly Anne Hyndman, a kidney function researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Staying hydrated is definitely important, she said, but the idea that the simple act of drinking more water will make people healthier isn’t true. Nor is it correct that most people are walking around chronically dehydrated or that we should be drinking water all day long.