Are you drinking enough water during winter?

MUSCAT: Remembering to drink enough water is easy during the summer, when higher temperatures are on higher side but staying hydrated is just as important during the winter.

Lack of water in winter season may result in dehydration and can increase the risk of kidney stones, urinary tract infections, and constipation as the human body naturally loses water constantly in the process of breathing, sweating and tears. In addition, the body can loses water through the skin when it becomes dry.

While human body loses the feeling of the need to drink water in winter season especially night times, cold weather and less movement which lead to the dehydration, diseases such as severe low blood pressure, cramps due to imbalance, kidney problems, may be life-threatening.

The Ministry of Health has been creating awareness on the importance of drinking water in the winter through various social media channels. Dr Fatima al Jahwari, Retired General Practitioner, said, “drinking water is very important for an individual’s health, and the individual must remind himself or herself to drink water even by using the alarm, especially in winter, as many cases of headaches caused by dehydration reported. In addition, cases of cold and flu cases which are more common in winter are treated with drinking plenty of water.” Drinking water before bed also has a number of health benefits, including maintaining the body’s pulse during sleep, combating dry mouth during to reduce bad breath and reducing the chances of fungal infection in the lips.

According to experts, drinking pure water is one of the main factors in burning calories and fat accumulated in the body, which helps in losing weight by increasing the rate of metabolism and reducing appetite. They say drinking a cup of pure water balances salts in the body and enhances the vitamins, nutrients and minerals.

Tap water is also important because it contains added minerals, including calcium, magnesium, and potassium which may be considered healthy. Also, unpurified tap water may contain a higher percentage of minerals, which are also considered healthier.

It is important to focus more on drinking sufficient quantities of water daily according to weight, size, level of physical activity and the location.

In general, the daily rate of drinking water is estimated to be between 12 to 28 millilitres per half a kilogramme body weight, meaning that a person who weighs about 75 kilogrammes should drink 2.12 litres to 4.25 litres of water daily.

Over all, drinking a lot of water does not cause health harm, especially if distributed over different times of the day. However, drinking large amount of water at one time may lead to health problem known as water intoxication which causes a decrease in salt in the body as a result of the excretion from frequent urination.