How much water is it recommended to drink each day?
Hydration and taking care of your daily fluid intake is key to staying in shape. Indeed, maintaining a good level of hydration on a daily basis is one of the keys to well-being in order to keep your body healthy and feel good!
Each of us, according to his typology and his environment, expresses a different water need. Health institutions agree to recommend the intake of at least 1.5 L of water to drink each day... but this benchmark changes in practice according to your age, body size, climatic conditions, your diet, and your physical activities...
This article will give you the tips to adopt to prevent dehydration, even slight, and to learn to recognize the symptoms of dehydration with simple tests.
Take the right steps to prevent dehydration
- Start the day with a large glass of water. This will allow you to better eliminate toxins, burn more calories and maintain an always efficient metabolism. Otherwise, a less hydrated body will have a slowed metabolism.
- Remember to drink throughout the day, about a glass of water every 20 minutes. It is ideal to always have a water bottle on you! For seniors, we recommend Auxivia which allows you to control the senior's hydration on a daily basis.
- Choose foods rich in water. Our article " Hydration of the body: How to stay well hydrated to feel good?" will describe which ingredients to favor in order to optimize its water intake through food.
How do I know if I am well hydrated on a daily basis?
1/ Measure your daily hydration
- The skin fold test
The state of suppleness of the skin is a useful indicator for measuring its hydration at a given moment. The suppleness and elasticity of the skin are due to the presence of a protein synthesized in the dermis, “elastin”. It forms a dense network under the epidermis, and allows the elastic fibers of the dermis to be extensible.
Although it is one of the most resistant proteins in the human body, its production generally stops at puberty. Its presence then decreases with age, explaining the slackening of the skin and the appearance of wrinkles.
During this test, we look at the ability of the skin to get back into place after being stretched, and after how many seconds it regains its initial appearance.
Perform the skinfold test on yourself, infants and children or the elderly.
- Gently pull between your thumb and forefinger a piece of skin on the back of the person's hand, then release it.
- Observe after how many seconds this skin regains its initial appearance.
- You can repeat the same gesture on yourself for comparison.
In a normal case, the skin should return to its original appearance instantly. In the opposite case of a delay, the skin lacks hydration, and therefore a sufficiently elastic structure.
This test can be easily performed on yourself, or on your loved ones. It will be easily interpretable in elderly patients and malnourished by loss of this elastin, but more subtle in children and obese patients. If you identify even slight dehydration, have the reflex to lie the person down and offer him water or another drink.
- Test the color of his urine to test his hydration
Professor Armstrong of the University of Connecticut has developed a simple test to judge for yourself how hydrated you are at any time of the day based on the color of your urine ( Hydration Check: The Science )
The clearer the urine, the higher the level of hydration, and vice versa. A numbered scale of colors from very pale yellow (number 1) to brownish green (number 8) allows easy comparison. If the colorimetry of your urine is too dark, remember to hydrate yourself!
2/ The impedance meter, a scale with 17 different indicators!
Never has a scale been so versatile! Body mass, BMI (Body Mass Index), protein or fat mass, share of visceral fat and obviously hydration rate... But how does it work and does it really work?
This scale measures your share of water via a bio-impedance process. A weak imperceptible current is transmitted by diffusing through the body. The resistance measured, induced by your share of water, makes it possible to display a rate in the minute.
This method is not 100% exact, but it has the merit of making you visualize your biological evolution without great constraint. The ideal is to use this measure and see its evolution day by day with the objective of improving it. Be sure to reproduce the weighings under identical circumstances (same device used, preferably in the morning at the same time, etc.).
3/ The LVL connected watch, a traveling companion that notifies in real time!
What if we could quantify our water consumption at any time of the day, and without making complex calculations? This is what the Texan startup BSX Athletics ( BSX Athletics - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding ) is trying to do with its connected watch project.
Unlike the green light commonly used in all other connected tools, its sensor here uses red light . Ten times more penetrating light that measures more than moisture content. Heart rate, sweat rate, number of calories burned and steps taken are displayed on the touch screen connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth.
With an autonomy of approximately four hours, the LVL watch will advise the user from the dedicated application, with advice such as the amount of water to drink before sport or bedtime.
If due to still insufficient financing, LVL is not yet available on the market, its profits seem promising. For a relatively reasonable price (128 euros), it would make it easier for the elderly to stay at home and reduce the number of hospitalizations for dehydration, which are still too high.
4/ Medical technology
The technique reserved for professionals is the blood test. An excessive presence of sodium and potassium in the blood, or even a hemoconcentrated state, then confirms the management of the severely dehydrated subject. Except in the case of hospitalization, extreme precision of daily measurements is not necessarily necessary. The key is to keep in mind that a physical examination can already be revealing.
When to use Hydratis ?
If with these different methods your hydration level does not yet appear satisfactory, the Hydratis solution can allow you to achieve it much more easily. Based on hyperosmolarity, it allows much faster and more efficient water absorption.
While water alone would only reach the bloodstream after a certain period of digestion, the osmolar concentration of the drink allows for more efficient assimilation of liquids.