Water doesn't prevent Dehydration

[Zakharra]

 I heard this on the radio and had to look it up. I find the premise to be silly. Water bottlers can't say their water doesn't prevent dehydration?  :o

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/EU-bans-claim-that-water-can-prevent-dehydration.html

[Pumpkin Seeds]

I understand what they are saying, but its just one of those things where science is splitting hairs and politics tries to grab something to run with down to the bank.  Drinking a lot of water doesn't necessarily prevent dehydration because someone can still be dehydrated while drinking a lot of water.  There are also many reason for dehydration.  For instance if someone is having a diabetic episode they will continue to pee, constantly.  They are going to be dehydrated no matter how much fluid they drink.  Low fluid in the body is considered a symptom then and so is not the cause nor the treatment.  The symptom is treated when water is given to the patient, not necessarily the condition of dehydration.

I mean...it just sounds stupid and kind of is a stupid statement.   

[Solstice]

Doing a bit of reading up on the matter at hand, the article appears to be somewhat (read: extremely) disingenuous.

Admittedly it's just a blog entry, but this does seem to explain what actually happened, and how it was spun into "EU claims water won't prevent dehydration":
http://euromove.blogactiv.eu/2011/11/21/anatomy-of-a-euromyth/

[Shiny]

 That blog actually seems more believable since it appears to hotlink authentic journals and protocols of the involved EU institutions (EFSA etc.), which back its version of the story.

So not a completely ridiculous ruling, but old fashioned sensationalism by some newspaper. :P

[Vekseid]

The Telegraph has a special hate for the EU.

Regardless, if you're dehydrated from say, working out a lot, and all you take is water, then yes, drinking nothing but water can eventually kill you if you keep it up. You lose a lot of other nutrients too while you work out, namely salt.

[Vekseid]

I just removed a no-content post with no more content than "I'm just going to leave this here." that linked to a blog post that addressed none of the facts presented by the posters here, including by people involved in the medical profession.

If you are not going to add to the discussion, and simply post spam, you will be treated as a spammer. I have already made this warning regarding other topics, I have no idea why the hell I have to do it here.

[Oniya]

I think that the thing that the 'ban' is intended to address is the misconception that a bottle of water with the claim is somehow more effective at preventing dehydration than a bottle without the claim - even when the contents of each are still a roughly 2:1 ratio of hydrogen to oxygen (with wiggle room allowed for trace minerals and the air-space at the top of the bottle.)

[consortium11]

As someone who's generally Eurosceptic (at least to this version of the EU) these "gotcha" type headlines and quotes annoy me no end. There are a lot of things that you can be highly critical of the EU about... but sensationalist stories misrepresenting what actually happened help no-one and if anything distort what should be an important debate.

[Star Safyre]

Water doesn't prevent dehydration; pizza is a vegetable.  This is where governments and common sense collide, with neither side winning.

[DarkEden]

Slightly off topic of water's inability to prevent dehydration, has anyone ever heard of the dihydrogen monoxide epidemic? It's absolutely terrifying. A high school kid discovered it as a school project, and I believe it won't be far now before the U.S. government allocates a committee or group to further study its harmful effects.

There's a great web site dedicated to its warnings: dhmo.org

(Sorry for the stripped down link. I'm not yet allowed to post url's.)

If this can save just one life, then I believe this post was not in vain.