EU Bans Claim Water Prevents Dehydration

[lacktheknack]

Hmmmmm, I'd like to know... the whole story.

Companies want to label their bottled water as the miracle cure to the dreaded disease of dehydration. EU feels that that is senseless marketing practices and that water is just water. Corporations whine.

Story is published with poorly chosen title and deliberate misunderstanding bias, makes me sputter and go "WHAT WHY WHAT WHAT WHAT WHY HOW BUT BUT WHAT BUT WHY BUT BUT BUT REPTILE I DON'T WHAT" for about ten minutes. Thanks for the clarification, though.

Still, it seems like a weird way of wording it. Plus, this little detail:

It declared that shortage of water in the body was just a symptom of dehydration.

...seems somewhat misleading. Shouldn't it be "shortage of water in the body IS dehydration"? I mean, we have "de" (not), "hydro" (water), and "tion" (condition).

(My apologies for probably butchering Greek beyond recognition, but you get my point.)

 

[AugustFall]

Dehydration could do with water retention which drinking more water would not fix. This makes sense.

It sounds stupid but if you are dehydrated due to certain medical conditions drinking water will not help.

Edit:

snip

 

[Treblaine]

I'm struggling to see how the EU possibly has a case here.

All the other times it was things like only certain bananas had a curviness standard, not your regular bog-standard simply labelled "bananas" type of banana.

But things like saying:

"It declared that shortage of water in the body was just a symptom of dehydration."

That's rather explicit, that seems far too bold faced a lie and if they really did say that that is outrageous to say the cause is a symptom. Symptoms are things like blurred vision, reduced mental clarity, change in urine colour, you know, indications of what is actually happening!

Drinking water doesn't help ease dehydration as much as you would think. You need salt along with the water. Plain water by itself could make things even worse for you.

I need to know the whole story on this one.

Except dehydration is separate from low blood-salinity, Hyponatremia. They may appear similar but they are distinct.

Dehydration IS a lack of water, introducing water DOES counter that. HYDRATION. You have to drink and sweat crazy amounts before hypoatremia becomes a problem.

In only 13% of top athletes who run triathlons experience technical Hypoatremia and they are consuming VAST amounts of water in hot climates, over long distances and have a very targeted glucose-intense diet that tends to cut out salt because... well... salt is bad for you, right?

Also Hyponatremia is very unlikely in the public considering how salty our diets our anyway, you can't get away from the high levels of salt in all our foods and the main mode of loss of sodium (the important part of salt) is when water is lost through sweating. How often do you sweat enough to soak your clothes all the way through?

Actually, hyponatremia is a result of correcting volume depletion with water. Volume depletion is a result of losing isotonic fluid. Dehydration is a result of losing hypotonic fluid. Water is about as hypotonic a fluid as there is, so water most definitely corrects dehydration.

Hyponatremia generally only occurs in amateur athletes who don't really have any business attempting the task at hand. Heat conditioning generally results in the secretion of a more dilute sweat which can easily be replaced with water.

So yet again, dumbasses spoil it for everyone.

Hmm, I never heard of "heat conditioning" reducing sodium loss through sweating. Got anything to back that up? Sure it isn't just the athletes subtly adjust their diet for higher sodium? Remember, it's sodium that is important, not the chloride part of salt/sodium-chloride.

Sources would be nice (can't be that hard to collect sweat of different athletes and compare sodium levels)

 

[rednightmare]

haha just kidding. I'm an American so this doesn't apply to me. Excuse me while I eat some pizza to get my daily dose of awesome viatamins.

But I do live in Europe. Now I am going to hide in a corner, feeling shame as a minor action

 

[seraphy]

Snip...

You read that story right?

This is direct quote from it.

The decision - after three years of discussions - results from an attempt by two German academics to test EU advertising rules which set down when companies can claim their products reduce the risk of disease.

So EU didn't bring it here.

Those two academics were on purpose trying to obfuscate rules, or just making EU look bad for forcing them to rule on something like this. But obviously EU can't allow something like this to happen.

 

[Treblaine]

haha just kidding. I'm an American so this doesn't apply to me. Excuse me while I eat some pizza to get my daily dose of awesome viatamins.

But I do live in Europe now I am going to hide in a corner, feeling shame as a minor action

Maybe "Don't want to live on this continent any more?" Meme variant?

 

[lacktheknack]

Dehydration could do with water retention which drinking more water would not fix. This makes sense.

It sounds stupid but if you are dehydrated due to certain medical conditions drinking water will not help.

Edit:

snip

Uhm, did you want to say something to me?

 

[BabyRaptor]

I like how it wasn't my country being stupid this time.

Wait, what?

Water doesn't help you stay hydrated.

Water.

I...My brain. It no longer works.

One good thing about living in the USA Babe, you build-up a sort of immunity for this kind of Bullshit.

I do live in the US, actually. I guess my numbness has worn off some after shutting out the news for awhile.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

Well at least the american government isn't the only one making increadibly bad decisions

 

[Wintermoot]

this is to prevent companies from claiming that their wine cures cancer and stuff unlike the US people have common sense and don,t sue the microwave company after microwaving the family dog.
PS
but yeah I agree the EU is falling apart a few months ago they passed a law that prohibited 5yo,s from using balloons due to chocking hazard.

No idea what was lost in translation there but they set out to ban the horseshit advertising "our water has extra hydration, stay hydrated for longer with our super duper extra cool new water, ..." and all the ignorant monkeys nodded: "you know I did feel the extra hydration in that"

You effin stupid *#$%&@#*!!! It's all fucking tap water you gullible monkeys.

yeah pretty much this.

 

[Smooth Operator]

No idea what was lost in translation there but they set out to ban the horseshit advertising "our water has extra hydration, stay hydrated for longer with our super duper extra cool new water, ..." and all the ignorant monkeys nodded: "you know I did feel the extra hydration in that"

You effin stupid *#$%&@#*!!! It's all fucking tap water you gullible monkeys.

 

[Treblaine]

Snip...

You read that story right?

This is direct quote from it.

The decision - after three years of discussions - results from an attempt by two German academics to test EU advertising rules which set down when companies can claim their products reduce the risk of disease.

So EU didn't bring it here.

Those two academics were on purpose trying to obfuscate rules, or just making EU look bad for forcing them to rule on something like this. But obviously EU can't allow something like this to happen.

No, the rules have always been there - poorly worded as they are - they simply asked them to clarify what would and would not be legal, rather than go out and say it risking massive fines or even prison sentences. EU brought about the obfuscation and these academics demanded clarification. EU made themselves look bad.

"But obviously EU can't allow something like this to happen."

Yes, can't possibly have someone state the scientific fact that consuming water helps counter dehydration.

They had all sorts of silly reasons like "well that would mean that beer is hydrating" when IT IS! Sorry if they don't like that fact that there might be some slim benefit of consuming and alcoholic beverage, even when they are informed of the associated health risks. That is no reason to suppress scientific facts.

 

[Wintermoot]

I like how it wasn't my country being stupid this time.

Wait, what?

Water doesn't help you stay hydrated.

Water.

I...My brain. It no longer works.

One good thing about living in the USA Babe, you build-up a sort of immunity for this kind of Bullshit.

Europe isn't a country it,s a coalition of mostly western European countries and a few eastern ones.

 

[Treblaine]

this is to prevent companies from claiming that their wine cures cancer and stuff unlike the US people have common sense and don,t sue the microwave company after microwaving the family dog.
PS
but yeah I agree the EU is falling apart a few months ago they passed a law that prohibited 5yo,s from using balloons due to chocking hazard.

Except wine Does NOT cure cancer.

And water DOES help counter dehydration!

 

[seraphy]

No, the rules have always been there - poorly worded as they are - they simply asked them to clarify what would and would not be legal, rather than go out and say it risking massive fines or even prison sentences. EU brought about the obfuscation and these academics demanded clarification. EU made themselves look bad.

"But obviously EU can't allow something like this to happen."

Yes, can't possibly have someone state the scientific fact that consuming water helps counter dehydration.

They had all sorts of silly reasons like "well that would mean that beer is hydrating" when IT IS! Sorry if they don't like that fact that there might be some slim benefit of consuming and alcoholic beverage, even when they are informed of the associated health risks. That is no reason to suppress scientific facts.

Ahh and now you are doing same thing as these people. There are always loopholes in rules if you dig deep enough.

Would it be against these rules to put words say "stay hydrated" in water bottle? I think not.

It's different thing altogether to claim that there is some huge medicinal benefit in your bottled water. Certainly you or anyone else should understand that these rules were not made for cases like this.

I'll just say that we must agree to disagree here.

 

[Treblaine]

No idea what was lost in translation there but they set out to ban the horseshit advertising "our water has extra hydration, stay hydrated for longer with our super duper extra cool new water, ..." and all the ignorant monkeys nodded: "you know I did feel the extra hydration in that"

You effin stupid *#$%&@#*!!! It's all fucking tap water you gullible monkeys.

Yeah, I'm gonna need a god damn source on that.

Because it's been stated over an over again stated they are simply asking that any water simply state the scientific fact that it is hydrating. This isn't just for bottled water, they can't even say this about tap water! Any water!

The requested claim is not that it hydrates more than regular water, simply the fact that it does! This is a spurious and facetious straw man argument you are making!

PS: people drink bottled water because they are fed up of the chemical taste of tap-water. Mine is so saturated with carbonites my kettle is caked in limescale after a year. Though frankly I drink cola, not bottled water.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

What a fucking waste of money. In a world recession they spend money researching something just to tell us that basically sports drinks stop dehydration more than pure water something people should know anyway.