Drinking myths about water: In the check we reveal what is really true

Water is our elixir of life - without enough water the body cannot survive long. There are some drinking myths about life-giving water that we take a closer look at in this article.

Drinking myths: unhealthy tap water

• There is no food in Germany that is subject to stricter conditions and is better monitored than our tap water.
• As long as there are no old lead or copper pipes in your house, you need not have any concerns about the quality of the tap water. Whether you drink tap water or mineral water is just a matter of personal taste.

Can water last forever?

• Tap water from the tap can become unhealthy if it is in the tap for longer. Then legionella can multiply there.
• With mineral water, bacteria get into the water when you drink from a bottle. If water is left open in the glass for a long time - regardless of whether it is tap water or mineral water - bacteria also collect there, which can cause gastrointestinal complaints.
• If the water is carbonated, it is not so susceptible: the acid kills bacteria. Nevertheless, you should consume a water bottle once opened within two to three days.

Drinking a lot of colds - right or wrong?

• A lot doesn't necessarily help a lot - this old truism also applies to colds and the myth that especially then you drink a lot. Too much can even be harmful if you either have heart failure or have lung problems.
• The normal and healthy drinking amount of two liters a day is sufficient even for colds. The lost fluid only needs to be compensated for when there is a high fever combined with excessive sweating.

An ice cold drink and refreshment

• An ice-cold drink briefly refreshes on a hot summer day - but the emphasis is on the short-term: The body will try to compensate for the cold that is supplied to it quickly by taking countermeasures and heating up. In the end, it will make you warmer.
• For this reason, desert inhabitants also drink warm tea - despite the high temperatures prevailing there. You don't have to go that far and it doesn't necessarily have to be tea. The drink should just not be ice-cold, but should be at room temperature.

Drinking too much water is not possible

• As mentioned at the beginning, our body needs enough water to be viable at all. However, this does not mean that he can cope with tons of liquids.
• At some point, what we drink is transported through the blood to the kidneys - and they have to filter the liquid and concentrate it again. Our kidneys produce about 180 liters of so-called primary urine from the blood that flows through them every day. The kidneys concentrate this to about 1.8 liters of urine, which we then excrete.
• However, the kidney's capacities are not unlimited. If you drink lots of fluids, the sodium concentration in the blood drops and the cells in the body swell, they are almost completely soaked. If this happens in the cells of the brain, there is a special problem: the brain sits in a solid structure, the skull. This does not give way when the brain swells, the pressure increases.
• The more pressure on the brain, the more serious the consequences: First, it is just a headache, later neurological failures can lead to fainting or, in the worst case, death.

Cracking with your fingers is unhealthy: myth or fact? We'll answer this question in the next article.