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Comment by throwthrowuknow | Hacker News Reader

I’ve always been extremely suspicious of constant water consumption. No other mammal seems to do this. Even the ones that require a lot of water like horses will only drink when they’re thirsty or while eating.

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The point is you shouldn’t wait to drink until you feel thirty. That’s too late. Your muscle has been consumed by then.

Its aggravated because the "water sensor" appears to fail early with age. Elderly people tend to not get the thisty feeling as often, but get dehydrated anyway.

Indeed. That’s why I form the habit to drink 3 liters everyday to keep my urine white transparent.

I wonder how much of the effects of ageing are due to cascading failures downstream of alterations like these. For example, it's common for people to lose teeth in advanced ages. How much of this is due to dry mouths from insufficient water intake? Fallen teeth then may become entry points for infections, et cetera. Perhaps fixing a few early causes we can avoid a lot of negative effects and live more, without the need to go full spartan in lifestyle discipline.

I don’t know the exact things. I only know that diabetes would make this loss tremendously. As to teeth loss, it’s mainly because periodontitis but not age though it always goes worse as the age increases because of their life behaviors.

No other mammal eats cooked or baked food. Raw meat or raw plant contain more water than our food.

Most other animals have typical lifespans that don't top two decades.

Tl;Dr blame Gatorade marketing.

The book "waterlogged" does a good takedown of the myth. Basically only you need to drink when you are thirsty.

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