We've all heard that humans should get "eight glasses of water a day" and most of us have also heard that there's no basis for that claim. But I, at least, haven't had a good resource in my filing cabinet to support the contradiction.
Here's a Washington Post article from late last year (gift link) that summarizes recent research published in Science on the topic. The amount of liquid needed each day isn't just from water. It's also inclusive of the foods we eat, and varies for each person by age, sex, size, physical activity, and how hot it is where you are. And tea and coffee count as liquids, too.
Specifically, the researchers found that people aged 20 to 50 "turned over" the most water each day. The larger and more fat-free a person was, the more water they turned over. And of course, being outside where it's hot, especially while doing physical labor, means even more water turnover.
The final advice from the researchers is to drink when you're thirsty. And caffeinated drinks are hydrating if they're limited to 400mg of caffeine* per day.
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* When trying to limit caffeine to 400mg, it's not small coffees that are a problem, unless you drink more than four or five of them. But a large iced coffee at Dunkin, for instance, has 396mg. Even a single 14-ounce brewed coffee at Dunkin has 210mg: with two of those, you've gone just over the daily limit. The complicated world of Starbucks' coffee sizes and varieties extends well over 400mg in a single drink. A 12-ounce can of Diet Coke, for comparison, has 46mg.
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