Why is it important to drink enough water?

Water keeps every part of your body working properly. It helps your body flush wastes and stay at the right temperature. It can help prevent kidney stones and constipation.

You lose water throughout the day—through your breath, sweat, urine, and bowel movements. If you live in a hot climate, you lose even more fluid.

You need to replace this lost fluid to stay healthy. If you don’t get enough water, you could become dehydrated. If you get very dehydrated, your body no longer has enough fluid to get blood to your organs. This is dangerous.

Do you have to drink only water to stay hydrated?

All liquids help you stay hydrated. Water is usually the best choice, because it’s free (if you’re drinking tap water) and has no sugar or calories. But most healthy people can get enough fluid through the beverages they consume every day. These can include water, fruit juices, coffee, sodas, iced tea, and other drinks.

Experts say that it’s not true that beverages that have caffeine—such as coffee, tea, and cola drinks—always dehydrate you. Healthy people who consume moderate amounts of caffeine don’t lose more fluid than people who don’t have any caffeine.1 A moderate amount of caffeine is about 200 to 300 milligrams a day. That’s about two to four 8-ounce cups of coffee.

You also get water through food. Some fruits and vegetables contain a lot of water, such as watermelon and lettuce.

How much water do you need to drink every day?

A common recommendation is to drink six or eight 8-ounce glasses of water or other fluid every day. But some adults may need more or less, depending on how healthy they are, how much they exercise, and how hot and dry the climate is.

You may sometimes need to drink more water than usual if you:

• Exercise intensely, especially in a hot climate.
• Are sick, such as with the flu, or have a health problem like a urinary tract infection.
• Are pregnant or breast-feeding.

How can you tell if you are drinking enough water?

The easiest way to know if you’re drinking enough fluid is to look at the color of your urine. If you’re drinking enough water, your urine will be clear or pale yellow. A darker yellow means you aren’t drinking enough water.

People who drink enough water also usually have soft bowel movements. Hard bowel movements or constipation can be signs that you aren’t getting enough water.

If you have any health problems, always talk to your doctor before increasing the amount of water you drink. You may need to limit your fluids if you have certain health concerns, such as kidney problems or heart failure.

It can be dangerous to drink too much water. But it’s rare that anyone drinks too much water. The risk is highest for people who do endurance sports, such as running marathons.

Too much water is dangerous because it would dilute the amount of sodium in your body. This imbalance could cause serious problems, such as confusion, seizures, and coma.

Experts advise athletes who do intense activity to drink a sports drink that contains sodium, other electrolytes, and some sugar. Most people don’t need sports drinks if they are exercising for less than an hour in moderate temperatures. Plain water is fine.

But experts do recommend sports drinks if you’re playing sports or doing other intense physical activity for more than an hour.

What are some easy ways to get more water during the day?

• Drink a glass of water when you get up in the morning, before you have coffee or tea.
• Keep a cup or water bottle by your desk at work. Take several sips of water each hour. If you don’t have a desk job, carry a container of water with you, and take sips throughout the day.
• Take a sip whenever you pass a drinking fountain.
• If you get tired of drinking plain water, add a packet of sugarless flavoring to your water. Or put a slice of lemon or lime in plain or sparkling water.

Is bottled water better than tap water?

No. A lot of plain bottled water is just tap water that has been purified. It’s your choice how you want to drink water. If you like bubbly mineral water, drink that. If you like the idea of vitamins and electrolytes in your water, you can find several varieties of enhanced water at the store.

If you don’t like the taste of your tap water, or if you just want to be extra careful, you can purify tap water at home. Water filters are available in many stores.

Scientists have discovered there are “bad” strains of acne bacteria associated with pimples and “good” strains that may protect the skin.

Acne-causing bacteria live on everyone’s skin, yet one in five people only gets an occasional pimple over a lifetime.

The findings, published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, could lead to new therapies to prevent and treat the disfiguring skin disorder.

“We learned that not all acne bacteria trigger pimples—one strain may help keep skin healthy,” says lead author Huiying Li, an assistant professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles.

“We hope to apply our findings to develop new strategies that stop blemishes before they start and enable dermatologists to customize treatment to each patient’s unique cocktail of skin bacteria.”

The scientists looked at the tiny microbe Propionibacterium acnes, a type of bacteria that thrives in the oily depths of our pores. When the bacteria aggravate the immune system, they cause the swollen, red bumps associated with acne.

Using over-the-counter pore-cleansing strips, researchers from Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and UCLA lifted P. acnes bacteria from the noses of 49 pimply and 52 clear-skinned volunteers.

After extracting the microbial DNA from the strips, the scientists tracked a genetic marker to identify the bacterial strains in each volunteer’s pores and recorded whether the person suffered from acne.

Washington University scientists sequenced the genomes of 66 of the P. acnes strains, enabling the team to zero in on genes unique to each strain.

“Our research underscores the importance of strain-level analysis of the world of human microbes to define the role of bacteria in health and disease,” says co-author George Weinstock, associate director of The Genome Institute and professor of genetics at Washington University in St. Louis.

“This type of analysis has a much higher resolution than prior studies that relied on bacterial cultures or only made distinctions between bacterial species.”

The researchers wanted to learn whether the bacterial strains looked notably different when they were taken from diseased skin, compared with healthy skin.

“Two unique strains of P. acnes appeared in one out of five volunteers with acne but rarely occurred in clear-skinned people,” says co-author Noah Craft, a dermatologist and director of the Center for Immunotherapeutics Research at LA BioMed at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

The biggest discovery was still to come.

Anti-acne bacteria

“We were extremely excited to uncover a third strain of P. acnes that’s common in healthy skin yet rarely found when acne is present,” says Li. “We suspect that this strain contains a natural defense mechanism that enables it to recognize attackers and destroy them before they infect the bacterial cell.”

Body of evidence

The idea fever is helpful in fighting infections isn’t new, however. Before antibiotics were invented in the late 19the century, therapies based on fever were widely used.

Demonstration of the fact that fever from malaria could cure paralysis caused by the sexually transmitted infection, syphilis, was the basis of a Nobel Prize in 1927.

“We’ve come full circle,” Young says. He is not sure why it is now more routine to treat fevers, but says it doesn’t seem to be based on evidence and may relate to the development and marketing of drugs.

More recently, it’s been shown treating fever:

• increases death rates from infections in animals
• worsens nasal symptoms in children with colds
• prolongs blisters in children with chickenpox
• blunts the immune response triggered in children in response to vaccinations

.

“Basically everything that’s more evolved than a cartilaginous fish gets a fever when they get an infection. For it to have evolved and been preserved across all of biology without having a [useful] purpose would be very unusual.”
Fever fits

One reason we try to bring a fever down is fear the temperature will keep rising and cause damage to the brain and other organs.

It’s true that temperatures over 41 degrees Celsius can be harmful but such high fevers usually occur only with events like heat stroke, where our ability to regulate temperature is disrupted.

In contrast, fevers from infections happen because they trigger a resetting of the “thermostat” in our brains. In general, this probably causes our bodies to “mount a response aimed at raising our temperature only to a level that’s needed to kill the bugs,” Young says.

“After that, the fever will go away. I think there’s very little evidence [infections from fevers] will keep getting higher and higher or that the fever in and of itself will be harmful.”

However, high fevers from infections can cause fits or seizures (also known as febrile convulsions) in about one in 30 children. (Check out our Fact File: Fever for more.)

But Young says there isn’t evidence that treating fevers reduces the risk of febrile convulsions. Attempting to bring a fever down rapidly, say in a cold both, can actually trigger a seizure, says Clinical Professor Dominic Fitzgerald, a paediatric respiratory specialist at The Children’s Hospital, Westmead in Sydney, Australia.

Says Young: “if you’ve got an infection, my gut feeling is that it’s not important to treat the temperature but I don’t think we have proof of that yet. What I can say is that using paracetamol and other drugs to treat temperature in the way they’re used commonly is not based on anything other than experience.

“There’s no reason to suspect leaving the temperature to go up would be bad in terms of your ability to fight infection and there’s a lot of data to suggest it’s probably often a good idea.”

You’re achy and lethargic. Your muscles shake. You get chills one minute and are on fire the next.

Having a fever feels horrible and chances are you will try to bring your temperature down – either with medicine, like paracetamol, or other measures, such as tepid baths, stripping off clothing and blankets, lying under a fan and so on.

But do you actually need to treat a fever?

Probably not in most cases, says Dr Paul Young, an intensive care specialist at Wellington Hospital in New Zealand and fever researcher. In fact, it might be important to leave a fever alone.

While quality research has been lacking, there’s some evidence that shows reducing a fever actually hinders recovery from infections, the cause of most fevers in the community, Young says.

But whether slowing down your recovery is an issue might depend on how sick you are.

For mild illnesses like colds, “if it takes you one day longer to get better but you felt better throughout the illness then it might be worth it,” Young says.

Also, if you take paracetamol to lower a fever, it may make you feel better because it also acts as a painkiller. (Whether lowering a fever in itself makes you feel better isn’t clear.)

But when you’re critically ill, some evidence suggests treating a fever might make it less likely you’ll survive.

“At the moment, we use paracetamol all the time. It’s given to more than half of patients in intensive care units on any given day and yet, we don’t know if the fact it reduces temperature is a bad thing.

“We don’t know where the balance of risks and benefit lies at the moment.”

Fabulous fever?

The frightening idea that treating a fever might sometimes kill people stems from a study in which Young was involved, published in the journal Intensive Care Medicine earlier this year.

It looked at over 600,000 intensive care patients and showed that in those with infections, the higher the fever in the first 24 hours after admission, the lower the death rate.

“There’s a cost that comes with having a fever,” says Young. “You tend to have a higher heart rate, you tend to breathe faster and the metabolic demands on your body are generally increased. In the absence of infection this might be a bad thing. But if you have an infection, the fever seems to help kill the bugs.”

Whether leaving a fever alone could make the difference between life and death is being tested in a follow-up study. The results should be available in 2015.

Strawberries increase physical and mental fitness. Ridding the intestinal tract and reduce cholesterol. It acts as a diuretic and flood uric acid from the body. The strawberry diet can regulate a disturbed acid-base balance. Strawberries make cells more resistant and are good for rheumatism and gout. By Strawberry metabolism is stimulated and strengthened the connective tissue. Strawberries keep the blood vessels elastic and are important for the circulatory system and the heart.

What can the strawberry diet really work?

Depending on how long and conscientiously the strawberry diet is followed, it promises a weight loss of up to 5 pounds in a week. The problem with the healthy -sounding diet: the number of calories. With approximately 1200 kcal per day of ” prescribed ” value of strawberry diet is far below the required BMR by an adult, reducing blood sugar levels can drop.

This leads in most cases to the fact that the body runs on the back burner. You feel quickly exhausted and hungry. Who wants to try the strawberry diet anyway, because after all, strawberries are healthy, no doubt, can complete a course of treatment that lasts 2-3 days.

In addition to the change in diet, the movement should be the focus: aerobic exercise such as jogging and swimming is known to be the best. In combination with strength training especially aqua jogging is recommended. Who wants to strengthen his muscles during the strawberry diet, is well advised with the kettlebell training or core training.

As the fruit of the strawberry plant has a dehydrating effect, lots of liquid must be taken to during the diet. We recommend approximately 2 liters a day, but this value should be adjusted individually. Who, for example, suffers from a heart muscle weakness, should not drink 2 liters a day.

Not only the health will be pleased

To move is already a very good condition for the ages still to be healthy and fit later. Therefore, the health Hiking truly offers also for every age group. The advantages are obvious : in addition to the strength, endurance and coordination also the relaxation of the participants is improved. You just learn better and more intensively to deal with his own body.

But there is another positive aspect : If you already regularly participates twice a week at a health migrant course, can also permanently remove. About five kilometers in hiking Pro Tour. That sounds a lot. But anyone who has started again with the hiking is pretty fast find fun. Then the five kilometers is also did not seem so long and exhausting.

Reimbursement by health insurance

At least part of the cost for such a course are covered by statutory health insurance. A certified health hiking course usually costs between 80 and 100 euros. A large part of the amount recoverable from the insurance company again. It’s generally recommended to simply inquire in advance to the competent health insurance company, whether the cost of such a course are actually taken.

Sometimes such activities are rewarded by the health insurance company also with bonus points. In general, the health insurance presuppose, however, that the course is done by a qualified exercise therapist. In addition, all people over 35 and people with chronic medical conditions should talk with their doctor beforehand about the health hiking. This must necessarily give its green light.

Exercise and fresh air are two important aspects for their own health. For this reason, many people opt for regular exercise. Often for sports such as jogging, cycling or swimming are selected. Because this can also complete all outstanding after work. But how does it matter with the walking out? Besides, many certainly directly think of a vacation in the mountains, a backpack and a hiking trail that leads through nature. Basically, this idea is not so far-fetched, but there is yet another form of walking – the health hiking. And it is this form can also be well integrated into everyday life.
What is health hiking?

Even the insurance companies have already realized that many people move much too little. This in turn can have a very negative impact on the health of those affected. So had to act. Thus, the health Hiking from many health insurance was recognized in 2013. Here walking with different fitness exercises combined.

The result is a very beautiful sport in which even a lot can be communicated. After all, you do not like to walk so the world alone. The groups are usually from multiple participants and are led by a trained health guide. So is also becoming a competent local contact, if it does come to questions or problems occur.

Where and how is migrated?

The beauty of the Health Walking is the fact that this may be practiced spontaneously after work. The so-called ” after-work walking” then performs the city parks or small forests that are located nearby. But on weekends, the health Hiking have its uses. Then most people simply have more time and also the desire to move a little more. While hiking course may not be missing the breaks.

These are spent like once on a beautiful meadow or at an interesting vantage point. Here can be a little spoken or nature to be enjoyed. But special stretching and breathing exercises should be on the program. All these aspects make the health Hiking only from really.