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And my doctor just told me to drink 8 glasses of water a day
Heinz Valtin at the Dartmouth Medical School did a search of the scientific literature and could find no evidence at all for the widely held belief that drinking 8 glasses of water a day is heathly. None. Valtin's study was published in the American Journal of Physiology.
My doctor really did just tell me to do this, claiming all sorts of benefits. I wonder how doctors sort out what they know with what level of confidence - it can't be easy. What is based on data from statistically valid studies and what is just lore? Not that lore can't be useful, or that so-called scentific studies can't be biased because of financial or ideological biass. Makes a patetient nervous, but I guess that is why Lewis Thomas called it "The Youngest Science."
Tip o the hat to David's Science News over at the cool blogs at Salon.
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