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Water is refreshing, and common sense tells us that drinking it can make you feel much better if you are thirsty. (Photos.com)
I came across the online article “EU Bans Claim That Water Can Prevent Dehydration” on Nov. 18 in The Telegraph. In short, it tells us that EU bureaucrats have forbidden companies that sell bottled water from claiming that water can prevent dehydration.
I’ve not read the ruling, just the report, but it seems to be a decision that has taken considerable time and resources and was motivated more by politics than anything else.
I honestly believe that maintaining hydration is one of the simplest, easiest, and cheapest things individuals can do to maintain their energy and vitality. I have seen countless individuals with low fluid intakes experience considerable uplift in their general well-being just by increasing their consumption of water and other beverages.
The EU ruling brought to mind a practice known as evidence-based medicine or EBM. This is a term that is generally taken to mean medicine that has a solid research base to support it. However, should we dispense with things that have no evidence to support them even though they seem the right thing to do, and experience shows them to be broadly beneficial?
If we do dispense with such things, then we doctors better shut up shop because the great majority of medical practice is not supported by rigorous scientific evidence. Surgery is a prime example. When someone comes in with the signs and symptoms of an infected appendix, surgeons do not wait for randomized controlled trials before they operate.
Neither do they wait for sufficient supportive evidence before they take steps to stem significant bleeding sustained during injury. They just get on with saving people’s lives even in the absence of evidence.
Some years ago, I read a letter in the British Medical Journal from James Michelson, professor of orthopedic surgery at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. What he wrote should remind us all of why EBM should not be the only evidence in town. It highlights why common sense also has a role in medicine. The following is an extract from that letter.
“In the course of practice in orthopedic surgery (although not documented in the literature), it has been my experience (those of you who adhere to the EBM doctrines hopefully will excuse this phraseology) that when I hit my finger with a hammer (or mallet, for that matter), my finger hurts. It is even worse if I use a power tool (like drilling through the finger).
“My question: How many times do I have to do this before I can say that I have sufficient evidence to potentially causally link the hammer blow to my finger hurting? And what do I use as the control?”
One of my teachers in medical school once noted that fields such as orthopedic surgery were very difficult for some physicians to master because such fields required the exercise of common sense.
Professor Michelson has a point. And those who believe the EU’s action—banning the claim that water can combat dehydration—is nonsense also have a point.
Dr. John Briffa is a London-based physician and author with an interest in nutrition and natural medicine. His website is DrBriffa.com.
