...because the shape of the water bottle isn't uniform either. Part of my new year's resolution is to drink 4 liters of water per day, so I spend a lot of time looking at those lines. Edit: 4 liters is a lot, but appropriate for my size and activity level. Without conscious consideration I don't drink enough water. It looks blue because the bottle is blue.

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[–] 66 points 10 months ago (11 children)

Recommend caution with 4 litres OP. I did that for about a month once, gave myself water poisoning - hurt to pee, kidneys ached, constantly low on electrolytes. Stopped and it recovered in a day, but was not pleasant.

Keep in mind all liquids count towards your water intake, even diuretics like coffee.

Either way, good on ya for drinking more water:)

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    Coffee is not a diuretic. It does not dehydrate you, but it does irritate your bladder making you want to pee.

    Alcohol on the other hand does pull water out of your bloodstream and makes you pee it out.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago* (8 children)

    Your comment intrigued me, so I looked more into it, as I've never heard of this differentiation based on bladder irritation vs. pulling water from bloodstream. Perhaps a technical definition?

    My understanding is that caffeine itself is a mild diuretic, but doesn't dehydrate you when brewed as drip coffee because there's more water than diuretic effect. I assume espresso would have more of a diuretic effect due to the relative caffeine concentration. I used the Britanncia definition and this article: https://www.aicr.org/news/will-coffee-make-me-dehydrated/.

    No contention on the alcohol commentary. Happy to be wrong, just contrasted strongly with my understanding :)

    Edit: I didn't like the lack of references so I'll add a mayoclonic article https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/caffeinated-drinks/faq-20057965

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    https://www.rd.com/article/is-coffee-a-diuretic/

    A lot hinges on the definition of diuretic. Does it mean, "makes you pee more often/more volume?" (In which case water is a diuretic) or does it mean it dehydrates you? (In which case water is not a diuretic).

    That is my understanding of it anyway.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Oooh I love readers digest.

    I agree it is based on the definition, and honestly it sounds like we might be arguing two sides of a similar point: I'm focused on the drug action (caffeine as a diuretic), you're focused on the actual beverage (coffee as a hydration drink).

    Thanks for the great discussion :)

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (5 children)

    I don't agree with your characterization of the discussion. My understanding was that caffeine the drug irritates the badder and causes you to pee, but doesn't actually dehydrate you.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

    That's fair, I'm sorry if I put words in your mouth.

    If I'm understanding you, you're focusing on how it's affecting you to increase urination, right? I know nothing about bladder irritation - you could be right, for sure.

    My only contention with increased pee volumes is that if you're peeing, you're losing water, so if caffeine is increasing urination, it's dehydrating you, regardless of how it's coming about, no? Is there a part of your point I'm not getting?

    Where I'm sitting: caffeine as a drug is a diuretic and causes dehydration in high enough volumes, but caffeine does not appear in strong enough concentrations in drip coffee to cause dehydration. So, coffee is a hydrating drink, but because water outweighs the dehydration impact of the caffeine, rather than caffeine is not a diuretic.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

    As I understand it, your bladder collects urine, which is water and waste products. Your body, your kidneys, etc, are always trying to maintain a Goldilocks level of hydration. If you drink a lot of water, your body removes the water from your bloodstream and puts it in the bladder so you can pee it out. That way you don't get overhydrated. If you're underhydrating, you will still have to pee eventually to void the water soluble waste products in urine, like uric acid. And if you don't replenish this you'll get dehydrated.

    As I understand it, alcohol dehydrates you -- it removes water from your bloodstream and into your bladder, which gets full and causes you to pee. Your electrolytes get more concentrated, and your muscles are less effective. Your body doesn't have the water it needs to properly function unless you drink more water.

    Caffeine on the other hand does not dehydrate you this way. What it does is irritate your bladder, causing you to void whatever was in there before you would otherwise need to, but not affecting your electrolyte balance in your blood.

    So while both are "diuretics" in the sense that they make you pee, only one is dehydrating you, and is a "diuretic" in that sense.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Thanks for clarifying, I see what you mean. Could this not be considered a question of drug action then, how it impacts your body? Since all of them will go through your bloodstream, one impacts your hydration levels pre-bladder, one post-bladder - assuming you're correct about the bladder irritation. I'd be interested to find out more about this irritation.

    I think caffeine impacts your bloodstream more than this discussion indicates, as it is absorbed into the blood before it can be filtered by the kidneys, transmitted to the bladder, then increasing urination. I assume that increased urination, regardless of pre- or post-bladder, will result in similar effects as alcohol, the difference being the magnitude of the impact (alcohol being the more potent drug, results in more dehydration). Any loss of water should result in higher concentration of solutes, no?

    With the information we have, I think we disagree on how to apply the definition of diuretic and how caffeine works, but we're also getting into more complex levels of biology and drug action. I'm sure we could get into very complex chemistry if we wanted haha

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    Any loss of water should result in higher

    concentration of solutes, no?

    I don't think this is completely true. Caffeine may cause you to empty your bladder, but your body continues to function normally, and will keep blood concentration of electrolytes at homeostasis.

    Compare this to alcohol which removes water from the bloodstream, which increases concentration of solutes in the blood.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    That's fair. I'd be curious to know more, but don't know enough to argue it. I'll let you know if I get around to investigating further haha

    Anyway, I want to thank you for an intriguing and entertaining conversation. It's nice having a good long discussion with someone with diverging viewpoints. All the best in this new year :)

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    drink more water

    This worked for me! They usually say you need to drink 2 liters. I tried. After 2 day's I look back ... 1 liter/day and I give up. Until I read an article saying I just need to drink more water (but within limits).

    Day 1: I drank one glass .. mission accomplished !! Day 2: I drank almost 2 glasses .. mission accomplished !!

    So I got myself drinking a couple of glasses ( 1..4) a day. Along with coffee and tea etc ... I think it's enough, I'll live

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  • [–] 45 points 10 months ago (12 children)

    Why is your 'water' suspiciously blue? Then again, if you drink 4L of water / day while ostensibly sitting at a desk, electrolytes might be a very good idea.

    And maybe a catheter.

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  • [–] 23 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Yeah, I never understood these arbitrary water volume challenges. Drink when you're thirsty. If you're you are worried, just take some extra drinks each time. Most hydration issues can probably be solved by drinking water instead of anything else.. like whatever is in this container

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  • [–] 30 points 10 months ago

    As someone with ADHD, I often don't realize I'm thirsty until I have a headache and am about to pass out. Having an even arbitrary water goal forces me to do the math every once in a while and go "oh, I should probably drink something today"

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    3.7 liters (~16 cups) is the scientific recommendation (source), but you're supposed deduct from that number what you're getting from food, which is why everyone is freaking out about 4 liters of straight water.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    That was NOT a scientific recommendation. If you're not getting sample tested, most doctors would first direct you to urine color and skin snappiness

    What the source says:

    Studies have produced varying recommendations over the years. But your individual water needs depend on many factors, including your health, how active you are and where you live.
    ...
    No single formula fits everyone. ...
    Most healthy people can stay hydrated by drinking water and other fluids whenever they feel thirsty.
    ...
    Your fluid intake is probably adequate if:
    -You rarely feel thirsty
    -Your urine is colorless or light yellow

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    The mayoclinic page I linked said the 3.7 liters recommendation comes from the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. But yeah, even if it's 3 liters after you knock off the 20% you get from food intake, that's a lot of water.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    That doesn't sound right at all, as obviously it would depend on the size of your body. The recommendation I've heard is 30-40 millilitres per kilogram of body weight, so by that to need 4 litres per day you'd have to weigh 115 kilograms.

    I'm not entirely convinced by body weight either though, because e.g. perspiration is affected more by the body's surface area than mass, and surface area does not grow linearly with body mass. Water loss via respiration is probably the same regardless of your size, because your lungs are still the same size. Cellular metabolism, I imagine, doesn't scale linearly either because as you get bigger you don't get more cells, the existing ones just get bigger, but I know very little about this.

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  • [–] 43 points 10 months ago

    "Drink before you are thirsty" is a lie that can be traced back to the Nestlé and their marketing departments.

    https://youtu.be/aznnt5JB1Gg

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  • [–] 70 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    4 liters per day is absolutely insane unless you're doing physical labour in the sun all day, but you do you.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    During summer, but working inside, I will easily drink 4 litres. Any temp above 22°C and I start to sweat, a lot. When we had a heat wave one year, around 38°C inside, the water was just running off my hands and soaking the laptop keyboard. Puddles on either side of track pad, and forming on the desk.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago*

    4 liters of water per day is completely fine if you are not absolutely sedentary in a cool climate.

    (The following is for a healthy male, who requires the most generally)

    Average adult in a temperate climate needs 3.7L according to mayo clinic

    harvard says a minimum of 3.1L per day

    Most people are pretty dehydrated in general. Your piss isn't supposed to be bright yellow.

    BBC summarized some journal papers that said that most adults are 1-2% dehydrated. Human thirst mechanisms also degrade as we age, not to mention "nurture" factors like people not drinking enough water when they are young, so their thirst mechanisms are already skewed towards too little water. Also hunger and thirst mechanisms are tied together so dehydrated people may overeat more as their body tries to get more water through food (also contributing to the huge rise in obesity)

    There are a variety of unpleasant problems that come from drinking too little water, drinking too much water (within reason, not 12L per day) has the side effects of good kidneys and pissing more often...

    Of course, a 140cm person won't need 4 liters, but a 2m tall person who goes to the gym may need 5+.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago

    The bottle is not uniform. It’s more narrow at the grip. 

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    DMC material, right there.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Don't even mention HCL or KOH man. I did earlier on another post and it was removed for spam! Of all things. Suffer from hemorrhoids? Go get your prep H. Leave me out of it.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Don't force youself to drink more water. You drink when you're thirsty. Just like when you eat when you're hungry, your body will tell you when to drink.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    That doesn't work for me and multiple people I know. I drink way too much because of that and they sometimes don't drink anything for over 24h

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    I'm no expert so take what I say with a grain of salt.

    It's not a perfect system for the same reason some people over-eat and some don't eat at all. Your lifestyle could also affect it.

    If you are frequently thirsty and no amount of water is quenching your thirst, you might not have enough electrolytes to retain the water causing you to always be thirsty. Apart from gatorade or pedialyte, coconut water is also high in electrolytes...or maybe you have diabetes.

    Again, I'm no doctor and I may be talking out my ass and obviously I don't know you or your lifestyle. Just what I remember reading when I had issues drinking water.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago
    [–] -1 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    if it's blue, it's not water.

    if you squirted some garbage flavour syrup into it, it's not water

    if you added anything to it, it's not water.

    why is this blue...

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  • [+] -11 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    You'd get more comments if you played ignorant, and let the people tell you why.

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