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Hydration

Regular hydration is crucial for one’s health. Hydration helps regulate body temperature, improve cognitive function, flush toxins from the body, clear skin, improve metabolism, reduce muscle fatigue, increase productivity, and keep organs, muscles and joints functioning properly. If the body becomes dehydrated and stays that way for an extended period of time, many ill effects occur, including fatigue, mental fog and cognitive decline, low blood pressure, constipation, abdominal pain, and even death. Hydration is essential to life!

The easiest way to successfully stay hydrated is to drink sufficient water throughout the day, beginning upon waking (the body begins to dehydrate during sleep). Water is adequate to provide all of your body’s fluidic needs. People find drinking water to be a bit boring, however. Consequently, the variety of beverages that have been invented over the past centuries to supplement plain water is enormous. Drinking plain water is a tiny fraction of the fluid consumption of the human population. Options for beverages beyond plain water include the following, to name some: coffee, tea, and chai; flavored sugar-free sparkling water; soda pop and flavored sugar-enhanced waters; sports drinks with and without added sugars; fruit juices and ciders; beer, wine, and other alcoholic drinks. 

Some health-conscious enterprises, such as schools and hospitals, are making efforts to eliminate the unhealthful beverages from their options. They are trying to help their clients and loyal patrons stay hydrated without consuming added sugars, which are known to contribute to many illnesses and diseases. Below are examples of informative signs recently posted at prominent health-care providers announcing and explaining the decision to limit beverages to healthful options.

Alina Health Infographic on sugary drinks 

NYC Health and Hospitals

Water and water-derived drinks (carbonated water, tea, coffee, chai, and so on) are not nutritious per se, as they do not contain protein, fiber, and other necessary dietary components. They provide hydration without introducing harmful components, including sugars and alcohol. They are flat-face foods, and that is fine. A sugar-free beverage that is a flat-face food is a valuable addition to your daily food and drink consumption.

The water-derived drinks with added sugars, are frown foods. These introduce risks for diseases and illnesses and should be approached with thoughtfulness. Sports drinks have added sugars, as do soda pops. Even some “flavored water” beverages and teas have added sugars. Some manufacturers make sugar-free versions of these drinks (PowerAde Zero Sugar and ), so these represent a flat-face drink that is an alternative to the sugary originals. With these sugar-free varieties, one should be aware that an artificial sweetener is used to create the sweetness, and you can read about artificial sweeteners in our article

Beverages based on fruits are usually high in sugar and demand some caution as well. We discuss the various ways to consume fruits in our article about the different forms of fruits. Eating the whole fruit (fresh, canned, or frozen) has more nutrition than drinking a juiced form of the same fruit, so you might consider avoiding fruit drinks as your primary source for hydration.

Coffee and tea are common drinks for millions of people, so they deserve some extra attention here. Research abounds for both drinks, with their health effects studied around the world in different populations. The research findings are not always consistent, especially with coffee. The research on tea shows fewer disparities. Coffee is a diuretic, leading to frequent urination following consumption, but overall the beverage is considered hydrating. Coffee is also considered to have these health benefits:  Tea, in contrast, is not as strong of a diuretic as coffee, so its hydrating function is .  Tea contains . As with all other beverages, you need to be cautious that you are not converting a potentially positive beverage (coffee and tea) into a harmful one with added sugars. If you are drinking sweetened coffee and tea, and lots of  are available, you are undermining the benefits of the pure coffee and tea (for hydration and other health advantages) with the negative impact of heavy sugar consumption.  

Milk (dairy or vegetable) is another way to hydrate. Today you can find any milk or dairy-free milk product that suits your needs, from whole milk, low-fat, and non-fat cow or goat milk to soy, almond, oat, and hemp milk. Traditional dairy milks (whole, 2%, low-fat, and skim) are a great way to hydrate the body as well as consume calcium to help build strong bones and teeth and other key nutrients. Reduced-fat and skim milk contain fewer calories and more nutrients and are overall healthier options compared to whole milk, which has a higher saturated fat content and gives you more calories per cup. So, when given the choice, opt for lower-fat milk options to hydrate. As many individuals are lactose-intolerant or dairy sensitive, vegetarian, vegan, or choose to avoid animal-based milk for personal health or environmental sustainability reasons, many new dairy-free milk alternative products have become available in recent years. While these products are generally made by soaking almonds, soybeans, oats, hemp, or other grains or vegetables in water and thus can be hydrating, some of these beverages contain a lot of added sugar, so be careful when choosing and opt for the sugar-free versions. Additionally, some milk alternatives are lower in calcium, protein, or other key nutrients that you may get from dairy milk, so make sure to check the Nutrition Facts label.

Alcohol in general is dehydrating, so when drinking alcoholic drinks such as wine, wine coolers, hard seltzers and cocktails, simultaneously drinking plenty of water is crucial to prevent any symptoms of dehydration. Despite water being one of the primary ingredients in many alcohols, the diuretic effects of alcohol itself outweigh the hydrating effects from the water. This is especially true for drinks with higher alcohol content, such as wines, cocktails, spirits, liquor, and beers with high alcohol content. 

However, some beers have historically been used to hydrate people. Consuming and making beer, made through a brewing and fermentation process, can be traced back thousands of years. Today, beer consists of water, barley, hops, and yeast, which is similar to ingredients used many years ago. To make beer, you need to boil the wort (water, barley, and hops), which effectively kills any bacteria and germs that may have contaminated the water.111,22 In summary, hydration is essential day in, day out. You cannot live long without keeping your body hydrated. Even short of death, the negative health impacts from dehydration are not something to ignore. Furthermore, you can remember  take-away points from this article: (1) a majority of your hydration is best derived from plain water (still or sparkling); (2) many of the alternatives to water introduce a potential risk of added sugars that make the beverage harmful to you as a source of unnecessary high levels of sugar; (3) some of the alternatives to water have additional health benefits beyond hydration including offering vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, and these can be enjoyed for both hydration and their salubrious effect; (4) some of the alternatives are both hydrating and dehydrating (diuretics), so you must balance consumption of these, such as alcohol and coffee, with additional hydration from other sources.