What are you drinking?

There’s absolutely no doubt that water is essential: 80% of our body is water, our blood is mainly water, and our vital organs—such as the heart, brain and lungs—have considerable amounts of water. Lack of water literally means that our blood becomes thicker and circulation becomes more difficult, so the vital organs get less oxygen, the brain slows down and we feel fatigued and unable to concentrate. The result is dehydration, which can even result in heat stroke and death. But, how much water do we need? The well-known recommendation is eight glasses of water per day—but a review in the April issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology showed that there is no evidence to back this. The report also busted four beliefs. It says that there is no scientific evidence to show that drinking water suppresses appetite, leading to weight loss, or that it flushes out toxins, reduces headaches and improves the skin.

“Tea is my whisky,” jokes teetotaller Anuradha Bhattacharyya, a 60-year-old Gurgaon-based housewife. It’s a drink she cannot do without, be it the hottest summer day or the coldest winter one. “I don’t think it has done me any harm in all these years.” She even has the medical fraternity supporting her—a 2006 report published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition claimed that tea not only rehydrates as well as water, it has an ingredient that might protect against heart diseases and some cancers. That “magic” ingredient is called flavonoid.

Studies conducted by a research group from King’s College, London, showed that drinking 3-4 cups of tea cut the risk of heart attacks significantly, although the impact on cancer was less clear. Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the UK also claim that two compounds found in green tea, EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) and ECG (epicatechin gallate) help prevent osteoarthritis. EGCG in green tea also helps maintain cognitive ability with age.

On the other hand, tea contains tannins that might add to the risk of oesophagus cancer. It also contains a chemical called oxalate which, when consumed excessively, could lead to kidney damage. And of course, as every student knows, tea has a good share of caffeine, so insomnia might well be the order of the day for heavy tea drinkers.

For latte lovers, there’s much to cheer. Coffee drinkers are apparently far less likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes than non-drinkers. A Harvard study of more than 120,000 people above the age of 18 concluded that drinking six cups of coffee a day on an average brought down the risk of type 2 diabetes by 52% in men and 30% in women. Four or more cups a day, according to studies in the British Medical Journal, halve the risk of developing gallstones. A Norwegian study reported that coffee lowered the risk of colon cancer in younger men, but other studies have contradicted it.