Water and Your Health

Why is water so important to your health?  Consider these facts: your blood is 83%water, muscles are 75% water, your brain is 74% water, and your bones are 22% water.  The fact is without water human life would not exist.  Drinking healthy water can drastically improve your quality of life.  Many people wonder how much water they should dk on a daily basis.  The answer is not that simple, there are many factors that weigh in determining how much water one should drink.  Your health, where you live and how active you are some of those factors. Here are a couple of approaches in determining the amount of water an average, healthy adult living in a temperate climate.

Replacement approach. The average urine output for adults is 1.5 liters a day. You lose close to an additional liter of water a day through breathing, sweating and bowel movements. Food usually accounts for 20 percent of your total fluid intake, so if you consume 2 liters of water or other beverages a day (a little more than 8 cups) along with your normal diet, you will typically replace the lost fluids.

Dietary recommendations. The Institute of Medicine advises that men consume roughly 3.0 liters (about 13 cups) of total beverages a day and women consume 2.2 liters (about 9 cups) of total beverages a day. (From MayoClinic.com)

Another way to know if you are getting an adequate amount of water is to drink enough water so that you rarely feel thirsty and produce between one and two liters of colorless or slightly yellow urine a day.