What do you base this statement on? If it's the old myth that you need to drink 8 glasses a day, it's just that: a myth. So please check out
snopes.com: Eight Glasses of Water a Day for some facts concerning this.
If you're up to some more advanced reading, try a meta study that can be read on-line at
“Drink at least eight glasses of water a day.†Really? Is there scientific evidence for “8 × 8�, where a part of the conclusion is
Another more recent study, available at
http://www.asn-online.org/press/pdf/2008-Media/Water Study.pdf reached very similar conclusions.
Additionally, while I've also read and heard "be hydrated or get DCS", once you start dig deeper, this does not seem to be so evidently true. For instance,
Technical diving. Proceedings of the Divers Alert Network 2008 January 18-19 Conference says on page 179:
BTW, on this very page it is stated that
and in the article "RISK FACTORS FOR DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS" on page 116 it states that there is weak evidence of dehydration being a risk factor.
I am, of course, in favour of research in this area, as hydrating yourself, if it is indeed a risk factor, is relatively simple (especially if, apparently, we're not as dehydrated as is commonly perceived). But money could perhaps better be spent in other areas of research.
BTW, I would never trust a web site selling a "H2O Overdrive" product to provide something resembling science behind hydration - it could well be quackery. For instance, the pompous "The Future of Hydration is H2O Overdrive" subtitle does not inspire much confidence.
First, state of the art ideas on nutrition for sports performance are not likely to come from mainsttream medical doctors, however well intentioned they are...The people getting the best information, are the ones working directly with top athletes, finding ways to optimize performance, and get this to be easily repeatable.
I get most of my ideas from a guy named Terry Giles, a long time friend of mine, and one of the top sports performance gurus. He has created dozens of the best protein and other supplement lines for many of the biggest sports nutrition companies, and "within that community--the people in sports performance and supplements, they all know Terry Giles".
Terry used to train the biggest Body builders, some of the top triathletes, and many top athletes in a lot of sports, and create special custom supplements for them. When he trained body builders, a week of training and diet from Terry would practically guarantee a top 3 placing in a Mr Universe level show....so these were like $20,000 weeks, back in late nineties when he still did that....
Any athlete he trained, would be told to drink 2 gallons of water per day, in addition to any sports drinks they consumed. The effect, would be increased metabolic efficiency, better utilization of fats and better removal of wastes. His athletes would get more "ripped". They would get stronger, and faster, and recover better.
Suger products were always discouraged, as bad, and the H2O Overdrive example, a drink Terry created, actually works far better for an elite level cyclist or other competitive aerobic athlete, than any thing else I have ever tried. It would destroy gatorade in any test, although that says little, as coke can do almost as well as gatorade....
Your snopes concept is fine for the general non-athletic public to use, but someone looking to reach their ultimate potential, will not benefit from the type of research you are dealing with via snopes.
Before I would be willing to engage in an arguement with you about this, try doing some research on the effects of protein and carbs in a ratio for hydration effects...and why hydration is better with the correct ratio, than with just water itself...
Look at why you want more potassiun than sodium in an electrolyte....something Gatorade fails badly in.... I think the original gatorade formula, the one back in "early 80's?" , which tasted like lemon lime flavored sweat, DID have more potassium than sodium...when Gatarade was purchased by Kraft or some other big food company, they took the name, then changed the formula to taste good, with practically no performance benefit....Lance Armstrong on a main leg of the Tour, could not use a drink with this much sugar.... It is a drink sold to make money with, and one that has probably contributed to more adult diabetic conditions than anything other than coke and pepsi. Creating insulin sensitivity, should get some attention, why are you not dealing with this?
Everything I am writing about here, in terms of results, I have tried myself.....I even sponsored a Cat 3 cycling team last year, that had the same results with this hydration issues as I did.