And I’m not suggesting increased water consumption for congestive heart failure.
I’m talking about PMS, and the fact that time and again I see other medical health practitioners recommending adequate water consumption.
Cite: “Bloating or water retention is also common during PMS. Try reducing salt consumption and increasing water consumption. Less salt means less water retention, and better hydration will help alleviate some symptoms of PMS.”
Cite: “Decreasing salt intake and increasing water consumption to avoid water retention and bloating.”
Cite: “Reduce salt intake and increase water consumption”
Cite: “5. Drink Water: When you’re retaining water, drinking more might seem like the last thing you want to do. In fact it should be the first. Water is a diuretic, so it will stimulate your body to excrete the excess. Also, if you’re dehydrated, your body will retain whatever fluid is available, making bloating worse. Be sure to drink six to eight glasses every day”
Cite: “Avoid dehydration - drink water and fruit juice in preference to tea and coffee which are diuretics as well as stimulants.”
And by those last two, you can see that while us laypeople might be playing a little loose with the formal definition of “diuretic,” (water is a diuretic - drink it! Tea is a diuretic - avoid it!) the recommendation to maintain adequate water consumption to reduce symptoms of PMS is common.
Solfy, I don’t think you’re really disagreeing with irishlass, y’all are just talking about two different maladies. Drinking more water can help with lowgrade edema in an otherwise healthy person IF you’re slightly dehydrated. The presence of adequate water shuts down the “stop peeing so much, we’re dehydrating to death!” signals (also called antidiuretic hormone or vasopressin) so that your body excretes the correct amount of water. But if you’re retaining water for any reason *other *than dehydration, it won’t do squat.
There are people who think most of us are chronically dehydrated (which I personally doubt, given the ubiquity of bottled water I see clenched in sweaty fists everywhere I go), hence the recommendation to drink more water, or drink “adequate” water. They’re looking at mild water retention in a healthy individual as a sign of low-level dehydration. It doesn’t move water out of intracellular spaces and it doesn’t make you urinate more than a normal healthy person, so it’s not really a “diuretic”, it just changes the hormone levels in your body so you urinate correctly (which may indeed be more than you personally were urinating before).
**irishlass **is speaking from a medical, “something serious is wrong here” perspective. If you’ve got pitting edema or water retention from heart or kidney failure, drinking more water will make things much worse. That’s when you need a fluid *restricted *diet.
Sorry if I put words in anyone’s mouth there, but it just seemed to me like you are both right, but about different things, so that only sounds like you are disagreeing.
Well put.
I was not disagreeing. Just backing up my assertion that adequate water intake is good for PMS. I will admit to resenting being indirectly compared to the “flush out the toxins” quacks by virtue of my not having a medical license. I will also admit to being hormonal and sleep deprived. I will now go get a glass of water.
I’m all in favour of adequate hydration- dehydration is not good, but neither is excess fluid intake. 2-3 litres a day of any sort of fluid is perfectly adequate for an average sized person with decent kidney and cardiac function.
I’m being snarky and cross because I’ve dealt with young women with grossly abnormal electrolytes because they were drinking 8 glasses of water a day plus however many cups of tea, coffee, coke, sports drinks, herbal tea, milk and fruit juice they were already drinking. It was just after new year, so I can only imagine it was as part of some sort of quacky “detox” regime.
Someone somewhere is telling people that it doesn’t “count” unless it is water and that any other fluid is dehydrating them. :rolleyes:
In a country where the ambient temperature rarely rises above 25 degrees celsius one simply doesn’t need to replace litres of sweat, and so 2-3 litres is going to keep you well hydrated and happy if you are between 50 and 70kgs.
Drinking more water than that (if you are not a big person) will probably not help as it will simply get excreted after being registered as excessive by the body. Unfortunately it might take some vital electrolytes with it as it goes, and if you drink enough then I get to deal with a sick person and that is a guaranteed way to ruin my day.