A Nephrologist’s Plea: Stop Obsessing Over Water

A specialist in kidney health has a simple plea for the public: please stop obsessing over water. The fixation on achieving a specific, often excessively high, daily intake is causing unnecessary anxiety and, in some cases, tangible physical harm. It’s time to bring common sense back to hydration.
Our kidneys are incredibly sophisticated and do not require us to micromanage their fluid supply. For the vast majority of healthy people, the body’s thirst mechanism is a perfectly calibrated tool for maintaining hydration. We’ve been conditioned to ignore it, but it’s highly reliable.
The obsession with drinking five, six, or even more liters of water a day is not based on robust scientific evidence for the general population. This practice provides no extra protection against kidney disease; it just forces the kidneys to work harder to excrete the surplus.
This constant overwork can disrupt the body’s delicate electrolyte balance, potentially leading to hyponatremia. The symptoms—nausea, confusion, seizures—are a direct result of this obsession, turning a quest for health into a medical issue.
The plea, therefore, is to relax. Let go of the gallon jug and the hourly reminders. Instead, keep a glass of water handy and drink from it when you feel the natural urge to do so. Health is about balance and listening to your body, not about obsessively pursuing an arbitrary number.