There’s a story making the rounds on websites, some newspapers, and wire services like UPI saying that the EU has banned any statement (such as on bottled water) that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration.”
We’ve been so accustomed to seeing stupidity from government lately, that this seemed plausible. But it isn’t.
Here’s a link link to the actual ruling:
There’s also a statement from EFSA clarifying the issue, they write:
Among those claims was a claim related to the role of water in the prevention of dehydration filed earlier this year by two German scientists. At the time, the claim had to be rejected by EFSA because it was filed under the wrong legal provision (Article 14 of Regulation 1924/2006/EC instead of Article 13). In short, Article 14 deals with diseases and illnesses whereas dehydration was not regarded by EFSA as a disease.
I’ve checked out these two pages and the rejection based on it being filed in the wrong context seems accurate. Thanks to Maurizio Morabito for pointing out the EFSA link.
A lot of people got taken in by the incorrect Newspaper and wire reports, and they continue to spread. Here’s Alec Rawls original story below.
Update: I’ve added Alec’s further comments below, claims and counterclaims leave this issue unresolved. – Anthony
Thanks to Anthony for including the EFSA response at the beginning of my post. Comparing the their “clarifications” with the actual ruling, however, I have to say that the Express reporting seems to be accurate, while the EFSA’s clarifications grossly misrepresent their ruling.
The clarification asserts that EFSA issued a pro-forma rejection of the proposed health claim on the grounds that dehydration is not recognized as a disease, leaving the implication that since no actual health claim was made, there would be no prohibition on making it. The ruling itself however, quite clearly does accept that dehydration IS a disease. Their actual grounds for rejecting the proposed claim was a bizarre assessment that the claim does not address a risk factor for the disease, but only a measure of the disease, and hence is not a valid claim about reduction of a risk factor.
This is incredibly stupid. Failure to drink enough water is not a risk factor for dehydration? Just to try to make this distinction is nonsensical enough, but then they get it wrong to boot, on the most trivially simple matter: can drinking water help prevent dehydration? Here are the key parts of the ruling:(1) Pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 health claims made on foods are prohibited unless they are authorised by the Commission in accordance with that Regulation and included in a list of permitted claims.
(6) … the applicant proposed water loss in tissues or reduced water content in tissues as risk factors of dehydration. On the basis of the data presented, the Authority concluded in its opinion received by the Commission and the Member States on 16 February 2011 that the proposed risk factors are measures of water depletion and thus are measures of the disease. Accordingly, as a risk factor in the development of a disease is not shown to be reduced, the claim does not comply with the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 and it should not be authorised.
They do declare the claim unauthorized, meaning disallowed, which would not be the case if they had ruled that it was not actually a health claim. So everything in the clarification is just a fraud. It seems they got embarassed when people noticed how stupid their ruling was and concocted a completely dishonest excuse.
Saturday not-so-funny: Europeans can now be imprisoned (2 yrs!) for claiming that water protects against dehydration
Guest post by Alec Rawls
“It took the 21 scientists on the panel three years of analysis into the link between water and dehydration to come to their extraordinary conclusion,” reports the UK Express. To be precise, the European Union has barred vendors from claiming that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration.” Apparently there are some skeptics:
Perhaps a dictionary would have helped. Dehydration, from “hydor,” the Greek word for water, means to lose water, or suffer water deprivation.
“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are, highly paid, highly pensioned officials trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true,” says Conservative MEP Roger Helmer.
Wait a minute. How does an anti-science flat-earther like Helmer rate mainstream ink? Leave science to the scientists!
I am not sure if there are an sadistics on this in the literature, but it stands to reason that some of this nonsense, and its generators, might get wiped out by an ice age. Fortunately one is due now.
But it must be true, there is a reported consensus, or did someone write what the scientists really meant? You know, something politically correct that needed a battalion of bureaucrats to enforce it no matter how stupid.
I thought this was a spoof, as I have a hard time believeing that anyone is this delussional.
I was WRONG.
And Europe wonders why it has problems?
My Goodness me. Anthony, have they really banned water vendors claiming enough water prevents dehydration. Of course it does! We can live without food for a while, but not water.
Why not? They already imprison people for offending Muslimes, don’t they?
Why should anybody be surprised at the EU not knowing what water is?
They are of a differing species, no longer are they homo sapiens, wise and knowing man, no they have evolved into homo superbus, arrogant man.
They walk amongst you, well they do on this side of the pond. But take care, you are not safe the Atlantic is no protection they will develop the ability to walk upon that stuff that cannot hydrate you. You have been warned!
Water is extremely dangerous.
http://www.dhmo.org
I think you’re being set up. There are some conditions where water will not protect against dehydration, either because it cannot be absorbed fast enough or because the water is eliminated too quickly. In those cases, intravenous saline solution is required. Make sure you get an accurate translation of the ruling. For example, “water prevents dehydration in most cases” might be alright under this ruling. In which case, this is the truth, and, nothing is lost. So, what is the actual ruling?
Maybe all those same ‘scientists’ who came up with this crap would like to test their results by not consuming liquids for a month.
They’re mad, and we’re madder for allowing it.
I’d suggest it’s too late for people over 30-35 years to fix this. But your kids can!
Please. please don’t let them fall under this irrational spell. Encourage thought, argument based on factual and actual outcomes. For their own sake!
This must be the stupidest post on WUWT. Do take it down at once!
And anybody believing a word from the Daily Express (apart from the day, month, year, perhaps) should be forced to listen to a complete reading of the Al Gore Omnibus. Twice.
The journalistic story is completely made up and the first clue should have been a lack of a link to the actual ruling (COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 1170/2011 of 16 November 2011 refusing to authorise certain health claims made on foods and referring to the reduction of disease risk). I recommend also visiting a page clarifying what it was all about:
At the very least, it’s a consequence of rule by lawyers. Far too many. However, there is some reason behind the decision. If you are dehydrated already, drinking water is a treatment, but it isn’t an instantaneous cure. You can drink water and still get dehydrated. If you expect to avoid possible heat stroke in harsh conditions just by drinking water, you are fooling yourself. That might be the only justification for the ruling. Do people actually expect to be perfectly protected? And why should the authorites threaten a 2-year prison sentence?
Extending the water – dehydration logic: Why do they let anyone outside in the Eurozone? It could be dangerous. Why don’t zippers come with warning labels? By the logic of the European regulators, toilets should be banned in Europe because Europeans could drown in one if they put their head in the water for too long. Sounds like the old wives’ tale domesticated turkeys drown if they look up while it’s raining, except the regulators apparently believe Europeans are a dumb as those birds. Perhaps more accurately, Eurozone authorities want Europeans to do as they are told and avoid thinking for themselves.
[ ” “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration.” ]
[ Bolding mine ]
Can the EU prove that regular consumption of significant amounts of water cannot reduce the risk of development of dehydration?
“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart………..”
…………And the inmates are running the asylum
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
“Stupid is as stupid does.”
“You can’t fix stupid.” – Forrest Gump
Methinks this story has been promoted by the French wine industry.
Well, I kinda liked the bent banana’s and cukes rule better, but they missed the nuclear boat on the bananas. They could have banned them because it’s a well known fact that straight bananas are much less radioactive than bent bananas. And, of course, bent cucumbers have a higher probability of causing seed inhalation and death by choking. 😉
But, of course as every bureaucrats must know, Dihydrogen Oxide can’t possible prevent dehydration. It’s a toxin!
Also, remember that an excessive consumption of water can result in death.
Therefore, to be consistent in the application of the precautionary principle, the sale of water should be banned.
Common sense says that such an idea is looney, but this is the EU … anything’s possible there except sense, especially of the common variety. Now, if you want to speak of nonsense …
It took 21 scientists 3 years to come up with that?!?
I suppose in another 4-5 years they’ll find that water is not wet.
This really ticks me off.
About three months ago I became seriously dehydrated because I forgot my 2 liter bottles of H2O and drank soda instead. I literally could not stand even though I consumed the same amount of “fluids” I normally do but it did not prevent dehydration. This is the first time in fifteen years of working outside in North Carolina that I had this happen and it was only about three hours @ 90F and not the 98-100F for 8 hours I often work.
These idiots need to come to the south in the USA and try telling people that water does not prevent dehydration. They would get laughed out of the room.
The press got something wrong? There’s a first.
They need reasons to justify their bloated EU budget. They read Atlas Shrugged and didn’t understand it as a warning; they used is as a blueprint.
About time somebody did something about that evil scourge dihydrogen monoxide.
I found the original docs here
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/supporting/doc/172e.pdf
And the regs they are talking about
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:404:0009:0025:EN:PDF
Good Lord, what is with these people? Seriously, I have no clue how these people think anymore.
I’ve been telling people about this for years – it’s not CO2 we need to worry about, it’s the dreaded dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO).
For example, the following effects from DHMO have been recorded:
Dihydrogen monoxide:
– is the major component of acid rain.
– contributes to the “greenhouse effect”.
– may cause severe burns.
– is fatal if inhaled.
– contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
– accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
– may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
– has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:
as an industrial solvent and coolant.
in nuclear power plants.
in the production of Styrofoam.
as a fire retardant.
in many forms of cruel animal research.
in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
as an additive in certain “junk-foods” and other food products.
It’s all true – I saw it on the internet at DHMO.org.
So it’s no wonder that the EU calls this stuff unhealthy. There’s so much DHMO on the planet, we’re practically swimming in the stuff!
/sarc
Actually, after contemplating this rule for a bit, it seems that the only way to obtain water once it goes into effect, is to harvest watermelons (pun intended).
Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) says:
November 19, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Thank You! 🙂
henrythethird says:
November 19, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Ha ha ha ha 🙂
The Telegraph reports:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/EU-bans-claim-that-water-can-prevent-dehydration.html
Well you learn something every day, eh? I thought water was H20 Two molecules of Hydrogen and one of Oxygen. It comes from the sky or from underground aquifers, bores and wells. The latter can contain contaminants of course including bacteria. In severe cases of blood loss or dehydration, one does require a intravenous saline plus glucose. As I said Anthony, you learn something every day. Actually, I was told by a Chinese doctor, to drink 2 liters of H20 a day and take a pinch of rock or sea salt on my food. (Not table salt). Not coffee or soft drinks, although cordials mixed in it were acceptable. It cleans out the lymphatic system and the skin. Some years ago, one of the famous brands of bottled water, I think it was Perrier, but don’t quote me on that, was found to have something in it that was not considered too healthy. Personally although I do have a rain water tank, I won’t drink it. Mainly because long standing water tanks can be collect bacteria that can be quite harmful. (Bird droppings getting into the tank from the roof for example). And we did have a new 205 foot deep bore on our property, and it tasted terrible. You would have to dieing from thirst to consume it. It was heavily tainted with iron and limestone. Somewhere between the taste of caster oil and epsom salts. Now I feel thirsty, so long for now.
Aha…….after careful deliberation I know the root cause of this ruling.
There was no water offered to these 21 fellows who were/are so smart. After 16 hours of intense deliberation……(becoming dehydrated because to prove they are correct, they didn’t drink water)…….they decided that drinking water would NOT fix their condition.
And ya know? I don’t know if there is enough water in the world to fix stupid.
And that’s the reason I consume large quanties of beer. By the case it’s cheaper than individual bottles of water at the local 7-11 and it has nutritional value that keeps me fat in case of famine. On occasion it does give me headaches, though.
One of the problems that we have, and a serious one at that, is our public discourse has become very uncivil. As always, you should ask yourself: WWJD? Consider the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Substitute ‘Muslim’ for ‘Samaritan’ and you will have your answer.
LOL. Maybe as some people have said before, one can get to a nation by putting something in their water supply. Anyone suggest what they might have put in the Eurozone’s water? I remember one bottled water firm, were had up for fraud, they were selling miracle water, and it was found they were getting it from the tap. Anyone seen that hilarious film ‘Water’ with Michael Caine and Billy Connolly. They found something better than oil on this far flung British dominion in the South Seas. A water that had a laxative effect. Sold millions.
Well in some places Jesse, consuming beer is better than consuming their tap water. (Unless you boil the b out of it). True. LOL. I interviewed our local water resources official once, and people were complaining that floride and chlorine was being added to their water supply. He told me,
our water is healthy. Most of the worst human afflictions and health problems are water borne.
That’s why I prefer treated water to rain water.
Thanks to Anthony for including the EFSA response at the beginning of my post. Comparing the their “clarifications” with the actual ruling, however, I have to say that the Express reporting seems to be accurate, while the EFSA’s clarifications grossly misrepresent their ruling.
The clarification asserts that EFSA issued a pro-forma rejection of the proposed health claim on the grounds that dehydration is not recognized as a disease, leaving the implication that since no actual health claim was made, there would be no prohibition on making it. The ruling itself however, quite clearly does accept that dehydration IS a disease. Their actual grounds for rejecting the proposed claim was a bizarre assessment that the claim does not address a risk factor for the disease, but only a measure of the disease, and hence is not a valid claim about reduction of a risk factor.
This is incredibly stupid. Failure to drink enough water is not a risk factor for dehydration? Just to try to make this distinction is nonsensical enough, but then they get it wrong to boot, on the most trivially simple matter: can drinking water help prevent dehydration? Here are the key parts of the ruling:(1) Pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 health claims made on foods are prohibited unless they are authorised by the Commission in accordance with that Regulation and included in a list of permitted claims.
They do declare the claim unauthorized, meaning disallowed, which would not be the case if they had ruled that it was not actually a health claim. So everything in the clarification is just a fraud. It seems they got embarassed when people noticed how stupid their ruling was and concocted a completely dishonest excuse.
Good one Alec. If it is bleedin’ hot or one is running long distances, H20 plus some other additives help keep you body’s metabolism stable. Without the body consuming itself to keep going. Anyway, this EU is consuming itself by collapsing while not advertising how stupid they are on so called climate change, carbon credits, and clean energy. Plague on both their houses, eh?
I have read too many regulations around food and especially health claims and this is actually a sensible rule. If you wish to make any health related claim on a product, you have to be able to back it up with sufficient proofs. You can advertise all you like, but a health claim (defined whichever way they want) has to to have proof.
Now, it might sound simple to prove that your bottled water “cures” dehydration, but having been involved in a few too many of these cases, I can assure you that such proofs (to the satisfaction of regulatory agencies) are not trivial. Furthermore, while it might also sound silly to prevent such a claim on a bottle of water, at which stage do you allow claims because they are “obvious”? There is no such thing as “obvious” and therefore if you want to make a claim you have to back it up with the data as required.
Dear comment monitor: did you see that I screwed up the blockquote html in my previous comment? By mistake I put a backslash on the opening tag for the excerpt from the EFSA ruling. Can you possibly fix that for me?
The excerpt begins with the (1) and ends before the last three sentences, which are my commentary: “They do declare the claim unauthorized, meaning disallowed, which would not be the case if they had ruled that it was not actually a health claim. So everything in the clarification is just a fraud. It seems they got embarassed when people noticed how stupid their ruling was and concocted a completely dishonest excuse.”
Henry III provides a very biassed view of what he calls “DHMO” or “dihydrogen monoxide”. To begin with this name is extremely misleading, calling to mind the toxic gas carbon monoxide, while misrepresenting its chemical structure. In reality the neutral name “hydrogen hydroxide” is to be preferred.
As to his claims, while most are true they greatly distort the facts. Hydrogen hydroxide is the major part of acid rain, but serves to dilute the acidification somewhat (although pure hydrogen hydroxide, with a pH of 7, can never completely eliminate acidification on its own). In its gaseous form, it is indeed the major greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, but without it cloudformation and therefore the rain that irrigates our crops would be completely impossible; it is in that regard a double-edged sword.
In order to cause severe burns, hydrogen hydroxide needs to be heated; at room temperature it is no more dangerouse than milk or vegetable oil and very probably less dangerous when consumed in ordinary quantaties. In fact, due to its lower boiling point and our skins natural tendency to let it fall off it is ordinarily less dangerous than heated oil.
His claim that it is “fatal if inhaled” is perhaps the worst of the lot. In its gaseous form, most people inhale it daily to no ill effect; it is, much like carbon dioxide, ignored by our lungs. Inhaling pure gaseous hydrogen hydroxide might make it difficult to obtain the necessary quantities of oxygen, but there are already regulations mandating minimum quantities of oxygen and other necessary gases in working conditions, and there is no known natural environment on Earth consisting of pure gaseous hydrogen hydroxide.
In its liquid form, it is fatal to “inhale”; but any liquid is, include benign household liquids such as vegetable oil (perhaps the most common liquid contaning no hydrogen hydroxide in most people’s kitchens). It is not the liquid hydrogen hydroxide per se that is the problem, but the absence of gaseous oxygen. We all know we need to breathe air, not solids or liquids, so this is a furphy.
As for his other claims, they’re also quite bizarre. For instance, oxygen is the element which actually causes corrosion, yet no-one would claim we should ban oxygen from the atmosphere; the very notion is ludicrous.
WUWT should know better than to publish such cherry-picked nonsense. If it is to retain any credibility, it must delete it at once.
commieRob: Point taken, however, many claims on food and drinks do have to be taken with a pinch of salt. (Pun). False advertising is one and this is what that announcement was all about. Dehydration can be acute or chronic, for example if you suffer gastric problems such as Cholera, you die from dehydration in the end, unless you replace the fluids lost. It has to be done intravenously, not by mouth. (You may not be able to keep even water down by mouth?) I think this announcement is a bit of a knee jerk. A child with uncontrolled diabetes, type 1, will have a tremendous unusual thirst, because his/her kidneys work overtime to expel the increased glucose in their blood stream, and the body is literally starving to death because of the lack of insulin. The causation factor of dehydration can’t be cured sometimes by just drinking water, however, it can avoid it in hot weather when you sweat and breath out too much fluids in comparison with your intake. Maybe in someways, the manufacturers, should just state, ‘make sure you drink water in very hot weather or after excessive exercise to avoid dehydration’. And not make it a cure all for all cases of dehydration, that might need urgent medical attention.
Please be careful here, friends. Sure, the overwhelming consensus of scholarly opinion is that water is not harmful, indeed that it is necessary. The science is settled on that point. The argument is over.
But is it really? Remember, we’ve all battled against “overwhelming consensus”, “the science is settled”, and “the argument is over”. Yet as I read your comments, you’re all using those very same arguments, the arguments you have previously claimed were not scientific. Where has your proper scientific skepticism fled?
A small but courageous minority have long inveighed against the dangers, even the lethality of water. The first such researcher I know of is from the 1930s, the great Dr. William C. Dukenfield. After his great discovery he never drank water again, yet lived on to a happy old age.
Many of us have followed where he has led. Go ahead: Google him. But prepare to be enlightened.
And must I say it? Shame on you all for using the same arguments against these valiant, stalwart few that have been for so many years used against you. Do we never learn?
Another convoluted aspect of this story: what is being presented as an EFSA clarification was posted and apparently composed, not by EFSA, but by a group called EFBW (the European Federation for Bottled Water):
http://www.efbw.eu/news.php?ID=41
Meanwhile the EFSA website seems to be silent on the controversy:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/press.htm
Did EFBW post the clarification at the behest of EFSA, or just to brown-nose their regulators? Given the glaring falsity of the clarification, this is an important question. If EFSA was the ultimate source of the dishonest rebuttal, that’s pretty serious bad behavior for a government entity, and probably violates EU laws (never mind being just plain sparky for a truth-in-advertising watchdog).
If the dishonest rebuttal was EFBW’s own brown-nosing operation, then it’s just private bad behavior. Well, if EFSA dosen’t correct EFBW’s account, that will make them complicit. I’d say this bears following.
DHMO creates the most prevalent and potent of all greenhouse gases. It can be fatal on overdose and contributes to a large proportion of accidental deaths. Strict government controls are clearly necessary and this dangerous substance should clearly not be used except under medical supervision.
Can you imagine what could happen if a small child gets his or her hands on this lethal chemical?
I am therefore sponsoring bold legislation to make DHMO a controlled substance available only by prescription. The manufacture, synthesis, extraction, collection, distribution, sale, or possession of unlicensed quantities in excess of 1 milligram of DHMO will carry serious criminal penalties.
I accept that we may see a slight uptick in the number of dehydration cases admitted to our emergency rooms but that would be a small price to pay to rid our streets of this exceedingly harmful chemical compound.
A new European Agency will be funded to regulate DHMO distribution and track the consumption of all such material. Citizens will be required to attend special DHMO testing centers weekly where blood or urine samples will be screened for traces of unlicensed DHMO.
bushbunny says:
November 19, 2011 at 8:24 pm
This is incorrect. The primary treatment for cholera is oral rehydration using a mixture of boiled or distilled water, salts, potassium, and sugar. Intravenous solutions are for severe cases of dehydration, usually because of delayed treatment or severe cases of vomiting. Gatorade works well too if you add a couple of teaspoons of sugar to it.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cholera/DS00579/DSECTION=treatments%2Dand%2Ddrugs
How dare companies use spin to advertise products.The only entity allowed to do that is the government.
All the big claims made about wind and solar,no restrictions on what the manufacterers of these products can claim.
Richards in Vancouver at 9:24 pm . .
W C Dukenfields – I looked him up , and sure was enlightened . . .! 🙂
He must be oustanding in his FIELDS . . especially when using his initials W. C. !
Scott D. My son as an infant got some terrible gastric upset passing blood. I had to give him fluid by the teaspoon, no bottled milk, and lemonade with sugar in it to disperse the bubbles. If he drank it too quickly he’d vomit it up. Worrying time, sunken eyes, etc. He wasn’t on solid food for
10 days. Probably contributed to him developing diabetes 15 months later. The cholera treatment was told to me, by a nurse a Captain in the QA’s. Mind you, this was 45 years ago in Malaysia. Because Cholera generally comes from contaminated water and food. But they have to get to hospital quick. And treatment is by intravenous eventually if they can’t hold down fluids.
Actually, everyone seems to have got the story quite wrong. First, the Europeans are promoting the drinking of water in large amounts on health grounds:
This is terrible advice. There is no reason whatever to think that for the normal adult male in normal European temperatures and at moderate levels of physical activity should rink 2.5 liters of water a day. The result would be hyponatremia.
This recommendation is nothing more than a sell out to the bottled water lobby, which in turn is largely owned by soft drink conglomerates.
It is in fact entirely reasonable to ban advertising or promotional material which claims that excessive consumption of water is healthy or is necessary to preserve health or prevent an imaginary condition called ‘dehydration’. Of course there is such a thing as dehydration – it occurs in people genuinely deprived of adequate water or those with illnesses such as cholera which lead to excessive fluid loss and inability to replace orally.
But the idea that we are all in Western Europe, summer and winter alike, threatened with this condition if we do not drink 2+ liters a day, day in and day out, is complete hysteria and superstition, and to promote bottled water with such claims is fraudulent.
I will close by pointing out something serious which has occurred as a result of this insane myth. What do people die of when running marathons in hot weather? Dehydration, you probably think. Wrong. They die of drinking too much water. The reason is they get into hyponatremia, a condition in which the body’s salts are too diluted, because of having drunk too much water without salts in it.
The water drinking mania is an example of the hysterical health fads, often the results of marketing campaigns by Big Food or Big Drink, which have no basis in science or commonsense or experience. Fortunately almost no-one but a few total obsessives really tries to keep drinking this much water.
The correct prescription is simple: when you are hungry, eat. When you are tired, sleep. When you are thirsty, drink. And no, you do not need to drink several liters a day to avoid getting thirsty, and no, when you feel thirsty it is not too late. Any more than you should quickly go down to MacDonalds before you feel hungry in case you fall into a dreaded condition called malnutrition. Which is a real medical condition, and the result of not eating enough of the right things, but not something anyone in Western Europe needs to guard against by eating when not hungry.
Okay. I prefer to drink beer anyway.
Richard in Vancouver@9.24pm
“….A small but courageous minority have long inveighed against the dangers, even the lethality of water. The first such researcher I know of is from the 1930s, the great Dr. William C. Dukenfield. After his great discovery he never drank water again, yet lived on to a happy old age. …”
Is this the great Doktor?
Very amusing……
[when asked why he never drank water] I’m afraid it will become habit-forming.
I never drink water because of the disgusting things fish do in it.
Once during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.
The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001211/bio
This whole thing is just plain weird. Bureaucracy is like sausage. You can eat it as long as you don’t know what’s in it or how it’s made.
I did find a more detailed paper from the EFSA about this
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/doc/1982.pdf
They seem to say that dehydration isn’t a disease, merely a “condition of body water depletion”. Other vitamin deficiencies are considered diseases, like goiter, pellagra, scurvy, and rickets. I still don’t get their reasoning on this issue.
I cannot believe WUWT has allowed Herman van Rompuy to repeat Henry III’s noxious claims about hydrogen hydroxide, which he insultingly refers to as “DMHO”. Perhaps he does this because “hydrogen hydroxide” is such a long term, so I will abbreviate it as “HOH”. I repeat that it is vitally necessary that we have HOH in our atmosphere due to its crucial role in cloud-formation and thus rain. Without it we would have absolutely no food available. Furthermore its role as a greenhouse gas indepedently justifies its existence in our atmosphere because it prevents our nighttimes from being too cold to survive. Unlike carbon dioxide, the levels of hydrogen hydroxide in our atmosphere vary on a purely natural basis so there is absolutely no cause for concern (or serious possibility of altering it)
Any substance can be fatal in overdose; that is essentially the meaning of the term “overdose”. An overdose of HOH is extremely difficult to obtain. It is usually quite safe for an adult male to consume many litres per day, and it is passed naturally in both sweat and urine, so even if a superlus is consumed it can usually be dealt with straightforwardly. In fact, every case of adult hydrogen hydroxide overdose I’m familiar with involved consumption of over ten litres (i.e. over ten quarts), an amount of any substance that is difficult to consume by accident.
And Mr Van Rompuy’s plan to criminalise hydrogen hydroxide, even if it were good policy, is simply impossible to enforce. Aside from being the most prevalent of greenhouse gases, it also makes up the majority (by mass) of the oceans, and it’s crucial for the dissolution of oxygen necessary for marine animal life to flourish; without it, the oxygen would remain in the air where fish are unable to source it. What does he suggest we do? Replace the hyrogen hydroxide in the oceans with hydronium and protium?—they are only other substances which (together) are capable of preforming this vital task and are plausibly available in the huge quantities needed.
As I say, any attempts to ban or criminalise hydrogen hydroxide are as absurd as plans to ban or criminalise oxygen.
commieBob says: November 19, 2011 at 7:22 pm re the Good Samaritan
Remember Margaret Thatcher? Remember her 1980 comment “No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well. “
There are some conditions where water will not protect against dehydration, either because it cannot be absorbed fast enough or because the water is eliminated too quickly.
The Millennium Development Goals
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
had nothing to say on DHMO but did include child health. And presumably access to clean water, sanitation and nutrition. Education would be handy also, not withstanding the control of rulers & theri gatekeepers and what we these days appreciate as freedom of speech, property & media, liberty & true democracy and also safety [of the child].
All UN Right of the Child issues.
In Australia, a consortium including ‘indigenous elders’ addressed sovereignty & water some decades ago, and continue to do so other other schema. eg
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3515126
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/~/media/publications/adaptation/Climate-change-risks-to-indigenous-communities-full-report.pdf
Anyway, away from verbal diarrhoea and onto the real…….
Diarrhoea, as I understand, being observed & treated, has the greatest prevalence in mortality & morbidity within the 0-5 year olds. Though elderly?, but many folk do not live to the 70-90 yr age bracket in some developing countries & geographical areas, so this can not be measured.
The below extract from an article is a reasonable overview of the scientfic discovery of ORT (Oral Rehydration Therapy)
‘…The simplicity of ORT (Oral Rehydration Therapy) contrasts starkly with the story of its discovery which overflows with abrasive personalities, professional jealousies, and scientific breakthroughs, as well as with an unusual degree of scientific cooperation. An analysis of the pertinent scientific papers alone fails to convey adequately the story of ORT and suggests that its development was a smooth, linear progression of innovations. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the prejudice of the medical establishment and its reverence for advanced technology can post pone life-saving discoveries.
http://rehydrate.org/ors/pdf/history-of-ort.pdf
David Sanders (paediatrician, Sth Africa) has long worked in the area of child health. Along with David Werner, who published the original and brilliant book Donde No Hay Doctor (Where There Is No Doctor) these two have been publishing, teaching & working towards improvements in health for many many years. Access to internet and such technologies has made some of their hard copy book
common sense less less difficult to access, however the issue of education (that is primary grade reading & writing) has lagged somewhat dismally behind their efforts over the years (Werner began his Sierra Madre, Mexico community development project in 1967).
Werner offers in The Politics of Primary Health Care & Child Survival
” ….embarressed to say that the above line of reasoning was more or less the one that my fellow health workers and I took 28 years ago in Project Piaxtla, Mexico, when we first began promoting what was later to become known as oral rehydartion therapy. Finding mothers reluctant to simply give their sick child a drink made of common household ingredients, we decided to trick them: ‘You want medicine, we’ll give you medicine!’. We began to package measured quantities of sugar, salt and baking soda into little plastic bags. We even added a pinch of strawberry Kool-Aid to colour it red, so it would look medicinal. And we promoted it as the Piaxtla Wonder Drug” 1997 p57
My overall impression of the work done by many community development ideologues
since the 60s, based on my work in the camps of Northern and Central Australian and knowledge of Timor & PNG, is summed up in this video, a publicly available snap of people, not leaders, being allowed to tell their own stories. We have yet to see this opportunity given to the people in the nth of Australia. it is still the ‘leaders’ and the media that speak on behalf of most.
Glimpses of real North Korean life behind the facade
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8711895.stm
There’s a story today in the Mail on Sunday about the BBC’s Harrabin accepting £15k from the UEA (where else?). This might or might not be true. But it’s a newspaper and a British one so rather than joining the likely debasement I recommend finding some kind of corroborating evidence.
@michel: It’s TOTAL intake, including coffe, tea, juice, beer, wine, food(!) etc – everything that contains water.
I’d like to see the names of the 21 “Scientists” [ ???? ] who took 3 years to come to the conclusion that led to this EU promulgation banning the advertising of water as a method of controlling dehydration.
Those 21 “scientists” and the recommendation they obviously gave to the EU bureaucrats has greatly reinforced my belief that there is no connection between getting an academic degree. particularly a high academic degree and the levels of intelligence and common sense of the degree applicant or holder..
In fact there seems to be an inverse relationship as the higher the academic qualifications, the greater the academic arrogance and therefore the lower the real and actual intelligence and common sense applied to a problem.
This is the undemocratic organization that we have been bullied into from a ‘Yes’ vote in 76 to join the Common Market a trading block that if left alone to remain ‘as is’ would now be the biggest and richest trading block in the world. As it is we have imposed politicians running bankrupt countries and the German Chancellor telling our PM that any referendum in the UK against the EU will be refused by Germany. Interference in the internal politics of another country an act of WAR and what started WW1
In outback Australia we have the odd few tourists that die from drinking too much water, in the mistaken belief that that a couple of gallons a day is needed because of the heat.
This H2o stuff needs to be taken with caution. A couple of gallons of beer a day in the outback seems to have no ill effect, this would be because of the nourishing ingredients and is referred to as a liquid lunch.
The effects also eliminate much of the heat stress, water is however valuable for making coffee and tea which contain the anti oxidants that kill the effects of the alcohol and allow the vitamins in the beer to keep you healthy and hydrated.
A kangaroo steak on the barbi with a little salad after sundown another beer or three and a perfect day in paradise ends with no problem with the dreaded H2O.
Well, I’ve had a jolly good laugh on an otherwise miserable Sunday morning. I’ve ended up not knowing which comments are serious, which are sarcastic and which are honest “leg-pulling”.
Being English, I know that one of the EU’s major priorities is to keep their people** in non-jobs and to provide plenty of potential work for lawyers, which eventually we all pay for.
(**There are 30,000 EU civil servants on top of whom there are the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament – all with their Presidents and supporting staff – total madness.)
henrythethird says:
November 19, 2011 at 6:10 pm
I’ve been telling people about this for years – it’s not CO2 we need to worry about, it’s the dreaded dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO)
———————–
Henry, with the amount of DHMO floating around the planet one would think a good Manhattan type project could be coordinated to come up with some safe use of this major pollutant.
Oh where, oh where are our scientists. Please come to our rescue, you must save us.
from the EFSA.
The Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 defines reduction of disease risk claims as claims which state that the consumption of a food “significantly reduces a risk factor in the development of a human disease”. Thus, for reduction of disease risk claims, the beneficial physiological effect (which the Regulation requires to be shown for the claim to be permitted) results from the reduction of a risk factor for the development of a human disease.
The Panel notes that dehydration was identified as the disease by the applicant. Dehydration is a condition of body water depletion.
…
The food that is the subject of the health claim is water.
The Panel considers that the food, water, which is the subject of the health claim, is sufficiently characterised.
…
The Panel notes that dehydration was identified as the disease by the applicant. Dehydration is a condition of body water depletion. Upon request for clarification on the risk factor, the applicant proposed “water loss in tissues” or “reduced water content in tissues” as risk factors, the reduction of which was proposed to lead to a reduction of the risk of development of dehydration.
…
The Panel considers that the proposed claim does not comply with the requirements for a disease risk reduction claim pursuant to Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006.
What the EFSA are saying is that dehydration is not a disease. THEREFORE water cannot be used to alleviate the DISEASE called dehydration because it is not a disease. This is a fail on the applicants part.
All claims for disease prevention MUST be handled the same way. Otherwise snake oil will make a comeback
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/doc/1982.pdf
Welcome to the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of the European Union! You’re next chaps & chapesses! Obama’s highly paid highly trained crack personal guard, the E.P.A. will see to it! 🙂
This is a typical example of a group of over-educated pseudo-intellectuals discussing and over-analyzing a single point. Eventually they convince themselves that “black = white” without ever realizing what a logical knot they’ve twisted themselves into. I’m actually not surprised it took three years. Building a logical pretzel like that isn’t easy!
When the unwashed masses start laughing at their pronouncement, they get all incensed, and insist the rest of us just can’t understand the exquisitely reasoned and nuanced intellectual point they’ve just proved.
Until they get themselves killed at the next zebra crossing.
Surely, this ruling will get laughed out of existence.
“A kangaroo steak on the barbi … ”
And before anyone criticizes wayne Job’s choice of meat, keep in mind that, unlike cows and sheep, kangaroos emit no methane, the most potent of greenhouse gases. Accordingly, wayne Job is actually saving the planet with this suggestion of substituting kangaroo for beef. (The logistics of a “cattle” drive of bounding kangaroos is another matter entirely …)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7551125.stm
barryjo is probably right about the French wine industry. I don’t know the EU for sure, but in the US allregulations and laws are designed to give an advantage to one corporation or one oligopolistic combine of corporations, and to make competition by smaller companies impossible.
Health and science are often given as pretexts, but laws exist solely to enrich the rich and starve the poor.
After sleeping on it I realized this issue has a much wide implication that many miss. This whole “ruling body” of the EU is all about implementing Codex. That is the United Nations CODEX ALIMENTARIUS, “Part of FAO and WHO food and veterinary standards activities.” http://www.codexalimentarius.net/
The internet skuttlebutt going around for the last couple of years is that Germany introduced standards to Codex for the MAXIMUM allowed for vitamins et al [“safe upper limits”] that are at or BELOW the current MINIMUM. Doctors would then be required to write prescriptions for more expensive products that we now get over the counter. (great for pharma’s bottom line) As we all know once the elite get an idea like this it is like the un-dead and keeps resurfacing in different forms.
FROM Wiki
As can be seen in our discussion here at WUWT “Natural and Herbal dietary supplements” are still targeted.
A discussion can be found here:
As far as I am concerned * “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.” is sufficient warning and we should leave it to the discretion of the ADULT to make a decision.
Most chilling is the fact the new “Food Safety Modernization Act” included a specific section binding the USA into following the directives of WTO (World Trade Organization)
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE in 2025 anyone??? Acquired through a FOIA request. (CIA) http://www.foia.cia.gov/2025/2025_Global_Governance.pdf
In an article in the The Global Journal Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO, discussed how the Eropean Union is a template for an intermediate step along the way towards Global Governance in “Of What Use is Global Governance? 7/1/2010” http://theglobaljournal.net/article/view/56/
The World Trade Organization could be compared to the early European Union Trade Organization which has since morphed from a trade agreement into a governing body that is slowly reducing the nations of the EU to the sovereign status of the states in the USA.
More recent news from Pascal Lamy:
Need Truly Global Monetary System by Pascal Lamy: “Differently put, we need to do for international monetary relations what we already did for trade: move from the world of Hobbes towards the world of Kant.” http://theglobaljournal.net/article/view/256/
General Assembly Debates Stronger UN Role in Global Governance “…A proposal by the Director-General of the WTO (World Trade Organization), Pascal Lamy, to give the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) the same status as the Security Council received considerable support. In recent years there has been growing international support for strengthening ECOSOC’s role regarding global economic governance….” http://46.137.111.205/article/view/137/
Pascal Lamy is certainly some one to keep an eye on.
Kant, Hegel & Marx: “…Kantian philosophy was the basis on which the structure of Marxism was built – particularly as it was developed by Hegel….” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_on_Karl_Marx
This Dry Water EC Monty Pythonry follows on its other recent pronouncement that honey producers will have to list pollen content on the label and what amount is from GM plants.
Another view:
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/EU-Forbids-Claim-That-Water-Prevents-Dehydration
The Telegraph (UK) article that Smokey linked to has the offending statement (bold added):
Which lead to:
Thus the description of the condition (reduced body water content) was made a symptom of the disease (dehydration). Can a person have dehydration yet have a normal or elevated body water content? Were any of these “scientists” practicing medical professionals?
Smokey
Please read the referenced doc.
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/doc/1982.pdf
The idiots who sent the request to the EU wanted to claim water prevented the disease of dehydration.
Dehydration is NOT a disease. The EU said that it was rejected because it was inappropriate to say it cured a disease.
There is a process to handle such requests. Each request must be lawfully examined. Otherwise some idiot would complain and the costs would be greater.
I’m sure you are blinkered enough to believe that 18 months of intense investigation ensued from the stupid request. It probably caused a couple of minutes laughing before the next submission was considered.
From some anonymous creature calling itself “the beast of traal” on November 20, 2011 at 8:57 am:
Alec Rawls already provided the link to the ruling and gave the relevant bits, which was incorporated into an Update to the post. Bold added:
The EU ruling says dehydration is a disease. Thus the EU says you are wrong.
Beast of traal:
The ruling does, indeed, accept dehydration as a disease.
The EU commission is right. Some German scientists are trying to stampede ignorant consumers into treating a bogus dehydration illness with excessive water consumption. If you allow this to go through, you can advertise that 3 litres of water a day prevents some hypothetical, bogus “dehydration”. Better yet, don’t specify; just encourage people to drink more of your brand of water… because company X cares about your health. 😉 You can see how this bogus claim might allow a company to stampede people into buying more water. It’s pure alarmism. The commission blocked this sort of claim.
Some of you might remember the bogus “tired blood” which could supposedly be treated by Geritol vitamins. HINT: Geritol lost a court case in the US and had to cease & desist. Also in the US, you have Activia brand yogurt promoting the idea that consuming their yogurt leads to uniformly better intestinal health (an unsupportable claim). Eventually, they’re going to be forced to stop making these claims.
The people who are complaining against this ruling, and that includes Anthony Watts unfortuantely, can’t figure out what the commission was doing. If you parse the language from section (5), “Regular consumption of significant amounts of water” is the recommended treatment. This is obviously leading to an alarmist ‘you don’t have enough water in your system’ claim. When the commission says to the claimants, “please clarify”, the claimants come back in (6) and try the old “reduced water content in tissues” argument. Seriously, Chap-stik also treats reduced water content is tissue and exercise *produces* reduced water content in tissues. Is exercise a risk factor for this disease? The issue isn’t whether water consumption regulates fluid content of tissues, but whether “regular water consumption of significant amounts” does. I say, based on my understanding of physiology, that “significant amounts” of water are unnecessary for most people.
Now, the EFSA responders are the evil EU bureaucrats you’re looking for. They didn’t understand the ruling themselves and tried to deflect criticism with a smokescreen.
For a website that opposes climate alarmism, you guys need to do a better job recognizing alarmism in other fields.
“For a website that opposes climate alarmism, you guys need to do a better job recognizing alarmism in other fields.”
Scepticism is a habit of the mind and it is noticeable that in so many articles here there is a distinct lack of that habit. Aside from this thread (based on a by-the-book EU scare story) there was the also recent Google-story, in which a supposed conspiracy by Google against WUWT was fluffed up based on little but hot air. In another thread few people checked on what Singer was saying about BEST now, with what he said about BEST initially – and to top we’ve the current brilliant argument against climate science: some climatologists have big beards!
WUWT is charging full-speed towards a future where it is, at best, a sort of ‘American Thinker’-lite. Shame, as one upon a time it was interesting even when it was wrong.
JDN says:
“There are some conditions where water will not protect against dehydration, either because it cannot be absorbed fast enough or because the water is eliminated too quickly. In those cases, intravenous saline solution is required.”
And what is the main ingredient of that solution?
@tty
Ya got me, it’s water…. However, ‘drinking water’ is food & ‘intravenous water’ is medicine. This ruling concerned claims by food producers. And it was a claim that would allow water manufacturers to start a health scare about your health being negatively affected if you don’t drink enough water. Thus, I think they did the right thing. I also think that it has subsequently been misinterpreted. But, they might reverse themselves just to look like good guys. Who knows? Their initial explanation for the decision was horrible.
i get some considerable amusement when I read some of comments that claim Anthony Watts is wrong in posting such and such an article and wrong in his interpretation he gives in that post and that he should change his post in such a way so to as reflect the beliefs of his accuser.
Disagree by all means and state that but to claim that Anthony should not be running such and such a post and that he should change it, with the not so well hidden assumption that he should change the post to reflect his accuser’s beliefs, is merely a demand that indicates a deal of self important arrogance on the accuser’s part.
Go and start your own blogs if you so strongly disagree with Anthony and believe he is wrong in the interpretation he puts on posts and then see how much traffic you get with your own undoubted and correct interpretation of events and EU dictates.
JDN says:
November 20, 2011 at 9:56 am
The EU commission is right. Some German scientists are trying to stampede ignorant consumers into treating a bogus dehydration illness with excessive water consumption. If you allow this to go through, you can advertise that 3 litres of water a day prevents some hypothetical, bogus “dehydration”. Better yet, don’t specify; just encourage people to drink more of your brand of water… because company X cares about your health. 😉 You can see how this bogus claim might allow a company to stampede people into buying more water. It’s pure alarmism. The commission blocked this sort of claim……
_______________________________________
First straight from our GOVERNMENT – USDA
Consumers – Water and Fluid needs: http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=4&tax_level=3&tax_subject=358&topic_id=1611&level3_id=5982&level4_id=0&level5_id=0&placement_default=0
It lists several articles.
Here is the first article:
To me this is the critical point:
Over the course of a few hours, body water deficits can occur. However, thirst mechanisms come into play over the ensuing 24 hours to trigger replacement of fluids lost (Johnson, 1964)
And that is why those of us in the USA especially in the south, are having problems with this ruling. Heck everyone I know carries extra water in their vehicles most of the year.
Further more I drink 2 to 4 liters EXTRA or more if I am working outside on a hot day. I literally have to force myself to drink that much and I still lose two to three pounds or more. (2% or so of my body weight) If I wait the “24 hours to trigger replacement of fluids lost” I am going to get darn sick as I have done when I am not careful about consuming enough water.
In my state it is traditional (and there may be a law too) to supply large water coolers for farm and construction labor. You see the big orange coolers fixed to the side of pickup trucks all over the state. http://www.trailerracks.com/images/products/XE106_5.jpg
Salt is not a problem anymore in the USA because everything has too blasted much salt in it to begin with.
the beast of traal says:
“Smokey… I’m sure you are blinkered enough to believe that 18 months of intense investigation ensued from the stupid request. It probably caused a couple of minutes laughing before the next submission was considered.”
I simply posted two links from different sources, with no commentary whatever. Readers benefit from seeing different points of view, no? So go argue with the folks who wrote the articles I linked to, if it means so much to you.
And sorry, I didn’t read the link you posted. This is your ox being gored, not mine. If you want to defend unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who want to rule every aspect of your existence, go right ahead.
Actually one poster is right. Recently there was something on TV in a CA program, about people dieing and getting sick on the trek along the PNG track, that is famous during the last war, when the locals helped Australian troops escape from the Japanese. Seems they were drinking too much water in the increased heat and humidity. But I can’t remember exactly what caused it?
Anyone remember from Oz? I might look on the net.
I’m actually quite suprised that certain types of fruit have yet to be banned by the EU. After all, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. And no matter how many I consumed as a child, carrots did not reduce the necessity to use a flashlight in the dark.
I’m not sure if they understand the concept of dehydration itself. If you don’t hydrate (ie:drink), you die. Death is a significant and potentially incurable condition (science is not settled, future developments etc). Dehydration is a symptom that is avoidable by guess what EU scientists, hydrating. 85% of our brain is made up of water, I guess it’s considerably less for EU boffins.
Were the 21 scientists involved in suppressing the bleeding obvious also involved in AGW “research” and members of the WWF?
Just askin’.
DDP, I do agree with you (I love the comment about Death and the science is not settled, future developments, etc). But now the Duke of Edinburgh has stated that windmills are useless, and with the announcement 14,000 lay idle in the USA including Hawaii, I suspect his ideology will be put down as senile dementia, after all he is 90.
@Gail Combs
I think your proposal is different from what was submitted to the commission. You are proposing that drinking water, not “regularly” as the German professors proposed, but when it is hot and/or you are performing vigorous activity will prevent actual & expected dehydration, not some hypothetical dehydration. I don’t believe the EU ruling covers what you are saying. Maybe I should ask them if it does?
@ROM
You may want to look up arrogance. Who are you to tell me I can’t post here if I disagree with Anthony? I’m contributing to this discussion by telling him he’s read the ruling incorrectly and that he should be more careful. I think he takes pride in the fact that people are free to disagree with him.
JDN says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:25 pm
@Gail Combs
I think your proposal is different from what was submitted to the commission. You are proposing that drinking water, not “regularly” as the German professors proposed, but when it is hot and/or you are performing vigorous activity will prevent actual & expected dehydration, not some hypothetical dehydration. I don’t believe the EU ruling covers what you are saying. Maybe I should ask them if it does?
____________________________________
You are still looking at a minimum fluid consumption to keep your kidneys/bladder happy and prevent kidney stones. Sweet tea is a favorite beverage in the US south and substituting too much tea for water is thought to promote kidney stones. (My vet when I offered tea or water)
Mayo Clinic
Cleveland Clinic
Again those who live in the southern states of the USA are potentially more aware of this because we are “More at Risk”
Dr. Green: In the United States the south is considered a stone belt due to the increased temperature and humidity and resultant dehydration state. http://www.urologyinstitute.com/html/kidney_stones.html
And yes, like everything else too much water is very bad for you. Some idiot women in Florida, trying to treat cancer I think, killed her self by drinking to much distilled water (very pure) She really screwed up her electrolyte balance. NaCl & KCl are also important in a hot clime.
However I certainly see nothing wrong with the old USDA recommendation of 4 glasses of water a day (about a liter to a liter and a half) I certainly wish parents would give their kids water instead of soda here in the USA . Maybe then we would not have the diabetes/obesity problem we now have.
There is a practical way to test the EU’s hypothesis–remove all aid tables from endurance related sporting events and ban athletes from ingesting any liquids–especially water. Then calculate the data–some of which will be in body bags.
NyqOnly says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:48 am
“WUWT is charging full-speed towards a future where it is, at best, a sort of ‘American Thinker’-lite. Shame, as one upon a time it was interesting even when it was wrong.”
says a concern troll who has been commenting here for two and a half days.
It’s getting to the point where even Mad Magazine could not come up with anything more crazy and stupid!!!
What next, the EU suggests that people drink water made from non-polarized molecules. ;-))
Poached from a commenter elsewhere: