does it count???

Dr. Grandjean: No. The belief that drinking water is essential to maintaining hydration status is a common misperception – for example, many frequent travelers have asked me how they can stay hydrated when they don’t always have easy access to water. In fact, this premise in part stimulated an interest among my colleagues at The Center for Human Nutrition and me to study whether there is a difference in maintaining hydration status based on the types of beverages consumed.1

For our study, healthy volunteers participated in two separate trials, which differed only in the types of beverages consumed. During one trial, one-third of the total fluid volume consumed was plain water and two-thirds was a mix of juice, coffee and soft drinks. We used this mix because it closely represents what most Americans consume. During the other trial, the subjects consumed the same amount of fluid, but the beverage mix included only juice, coffee and soft drinks – no drinking water. Upon analyzing the results, we found no differences in markers of hydration, which suggested that although the body needs water, it doesn’t need drinking water per se as long as adequate amounts of other beverages are consumed.