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Why you don’t need to drink 8 cups of water a day

By Anahad O’Connor

06 Dec 2022 · 5 min read

Editor's Note

At some point in your life, you've probably been told that you need eight cups of water a day. Researchers now find that this is not necessarily the case. The Washington Post has the story.

We’ve all heard the age-old advice to drink eight cups of water a day. But if you fall short, don’t worry: That advice is probably wrong anyway.

That’s according to new research, published in the journal Science, which found that for most healthy adults, drinking eight cups of water a day is completely unnecessary. The advice is misguided in part because it doesn’t take into account all the water that we get from our food and from other beverages like coffee and tea. The research found that our water needs vary from one person to next and depend on factors like your age, sex, size, physical activity levels and the climate that you live in.

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