How much water is it recommended to drink each day?
Hydration and ensuring adequate daily water intake are key to staying healthy. Maintaining proper hydration levels is essential for well-being, keeping your body healthy and helping you feel good!
Each of us, depending on our individual characteristics and environment, has a different need for hydration. Health institutions generally recommend drinking at least 1.5 liters of water per day... but this guideline varies in practice depending on your age, body size, climate, diet, and physical activity.
This article will give you tips to adopt to prevent dehydration, even mild dehydration, and to learn how to recognize the symptoms of dehydration with simple tests.
Adopting the right habits to prevent dehydration
- Start your day with a large glass of water. This will help eliminate toxins more effectively, burn more calories, and maintain a consistently efficient metabolism. Conversely, a dehydrated body will experience a slower metabolism.
- Remember to drink throughout the day, about a glass of water every 20 minutes. It's ideal to always have a water bottle with you! For seniors , we recommend Auxivia, which allows you to monitor your daily hydration.
- Prioritize foods rich in water. Our article " Body Hydration: How to Stay Well Hydrated to Feel Good?" will describe which ingredients to prioritize in order to optimize your water intake through diet.
How can I tell if I am properly hydrated on a daily basis?
Measure your daily hydration with the skinfold test
The skin's suppleness is a useful indicator for measuring its hydration at any given time. Skin suppleness and elasticity are due to the presence of a protein synthesized in the dermis, called elastin. It forms a dense network beneath the epidermis, allowing the elastic fibers of the dermis to be extensible.
Although it is one of the most resilient proteins in the human body, its production generally ceases at puberty. Its presence then decreases with age, explaining the sagging of the skin and the appearance of wrinkles.
This test examines the skin's ability to return to its original position after being stretched, and how many seconds it takes to regain its initial appearance.
Perform the skinfold test on yourself, on infants and children, or on the elderly.
- Gently pull a piece of skin on the back of the person's hand between your thumb and forefinger, then release it.
- Observe how many seconds it takes for the skin to return to its original appearance.
- You can repeat the same action on yourself for comparison.
In a normal case, the skin should return to its original appearance instantly. If it doesn't, there's a delay, indicating a lack of hydration and therefore insufficient elasticity.
This test can easily be performed on yourself or your loved ones. It will be easily interpreted in elderly and malnourished patients due to a loss of elastin, but more subtle in children and obese patients. If you identify even mild dehydration, immediately have the person lie down and offer them water or another beverage.
1) Test the color of your urine to test your hydration
Professor Armstrong, from the University of Connecticut, has developed a simple test to judge one's hydration status at any time of day based on the color of one's urine ( Hydration Check: The Science ).
The clearer your urine, the higher your hydration level, and vice versa. A numbered color scale ranging from very pale yellow (number 1) to brownish-green (number 8) allows for easy comparison. If your urine is too dark, remember to hydrate!
2) The bioimpedance analyzer, a scale with 17 different indicators!
Never before has a scale been so versatile! Body mass, BMI (Body Mass Index), protein or fat mass percentage, visceral fat percentage and of course hydration level... But how does it work and does it really work?
This scale measures your water percentage using bioimpedance analysis. A weak, imperceptible electrical current is transmitted through the body. The resistance measured by your water percentage allows the scale to display a reading within a minute.
This method isn't 100% accurate, but it has the advantage of allowing you to visualize your biological progress without much effort. Ideally, you should use this measurement and track your progress day by day with the goal of improving it. Be sure to repeat the weighings under identical circumstances (same device used, preferably in the morning at the same time, etc.).
3) The LVL smartwatch, a travel companion that notifies you in real time!
What if we could quantify our water consumption at any time of day, without making complicated calculations? That's what the Texas startup BSX Athletics ( BSX Athletics - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding ) is trying to do with its smartwatch project.
Unlike the green light commonly used in other connected devices, its sensor uses red light . This light is ten times more penetrating and measures much more than just hydration levels. Heart rate, perspiration rate, calories burned, and steps taken are displayed on the touchscreen connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth.
With a battery life 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.
Although LVL is not yet available on the market due to insufficient funding, its benefits appear promising. For a relatively reasonable price (€128), it would facilitate home care for the elderly and reduce the number of hospitalizations for dehydration, which remains far too high.
4) Medical technique
The technique reserved for professionals is a blood test. An excessive presence of sodium and potassium in the blood, or even a hemoconcentrated state, then confirms the need for treatment of a severely dehydrated individual. Except in cases of hospitalization, extremely precise daily measurements are not necessarily required. The important thing to keep in mind is that a physical examination can already be revealing.
When to use Hydratis?
If your hydration level is still not satisfactory after using these different methods, the Hydratis solution can help you achieve it much more easily. Based on hyperosmolarity, it allows for much faster and more efficient water absorption.
Whereas water alone would only reach the bloodstream after a certain digestion period, the osmolar concentration of the drink allows for more efficient assimilation of liquids.
