Ive looked over the years for information from an original source study that says people should be drinking the proverbial 8 glasses of water a day. I havent been able to find one, which leads me to believe that this recommendation is just that: proverbial. Likewise, the notion that some mildly diuretic beverages dont count or may count as negatives seems odd to me and I have been unable to find any studies that support this oft repeated notion. (Youre drinking 8 glasses of water a day to make sure you pee. A cup of coffee makes you pee how is this bad? Relax, youre going to drink another glass of water in a few minutes. A six-pack of beer, on the other hand, will give you a whole host of problems.) Your body has been pretty finely tuned by nature over the eons and is a pretty effective moderator of water levels under normal conditions, learning to trust the signals it gives you would seem to be a good guideline. Drink when you feel thirsty.
Sometimes we put ourselves in unique situations that our body has a hard time coping with. Thirst often isnt an adequate signal if youre working hard, older or
underwater. Divers place themselves in an environment that their bodies clearly werent designed to operate in. The underwater environment imposes special stresses and strains and needs on us that our finely tuned machine isnt always prepared to deal with.
Dehydration is a clearly identified corollary to decompression sickness, a problem that our body was never intended to need to respond to. Additionally, even mild dehydration (1% to 2% of your body weight) increases fatigue, lightheadedness and is related to a host of other issues that can carry a heavy price tag underwater. The increased danger of dehydration related problems underwater is exacerbated by an otherwise normal physiological process: most people find that diving stimulates their kidneys and they end up peeing more and more often when diving. I like to think of this as my body saying too much water even though I'm only swimming in it. At any rate, I think prudence dictates that divers should be mildly over-hydrated at the start of the diving day and pay special attention to avoiding getting dehydrated for a day or so after diving is done. If you arent peeing several times a day, youre dehydrated. Its abnormal to get in the water and not feel a need to pee, if you dont, you need to find out why not.
As to punisher, he might be a pee-phobic but thus far it appears that his head hasn't exploded and his legs haven't fallen off due to chronic dehydration, so it's also possible that his body just works a little different from mine. I do know that if I limited my water intake to the 8X8 guideline, I'd have to change my handle from "reefraff" to "raisin." Actually, I'm kind of envious of punisher, since dealing with urea-enhanced wetsuits is definitely NOT my idea of a good time.
I should end with a caveat: Im not a doctor and I dont sleep at Holiday Inn. I did sleep with a doctor for awhile, however...
