‘The human body can survive weeks without food but just a few days without water.’
The importance of drinking water is often undermined. Many live in a misconception that water is essential only to quench your thirst; however, in reality, water provides a lot of other health benefits to your body.
You might be aware of a few health benefits of drinking water, but not many are aware of the impact water has on keeping your bones healthy. (Evans, M.R., Ribeiro, C.D. and Salmon, R.L., 2003)
Water is an essential factor in living a healthy life. Our body is made up of 50-75 percent water.
Drinking adequate water frequently can positively affect the body and also help with dehydration. This condition can lead to unclear thinking, bad moods, overheating of the body, constipation, kidney stones, and many more. Following are the ways in which water helps your body:
As mentioned, almost 70 percent of our body is filled with water. Water makes up for about a quarter of our bones structure. Calcium and collagen are responsible for the rest of the mass.
When our bones contain enough water, it is easier to diffuse nutrients more effectively through pores. A few studies also show that water is also an essential constituent in the structure of the cortical bone, the more complex external layer of the bone.
Orthopedic professionals state that drinking enough water can help the bones get more substantial and help with the overall density of the bone.
Proper hydration can also help with the lubricating of the joint. Bone density and joint lubrication are the critical factors in preventing sports injuries like fractures and conditions like osteoporosis. (Susanto, T., Sulistyorini, L., Wuryaningsih, E.W. and Bahtiar, S., 2016)
Drinking adequate water helps in improving the health of your bones as well as your joints. Lack of hydration can lead to several orthopedic problems such as,
- Osteoporosis
- Musculoskeletal conditions
These problems may get severe with increasing age.
We all know that bones are made up of calcium components and other nutrients. So having a diet rich in such nutrients will surely help in keeping your bones healthy. But what if these nutrients fail to reach the bone.
This will only lead to the bones losing strength and mass because of being nutritionally deficient. Water plays a vital part in carrying calcium and other nutrients in the body to make up for the lost minerals, which is a natural process.
Dehydration can also lead to harmful toxins building up in your bones. This leads to several health problems such as inflammation, weakening, and loss of bone density.
Dehydration can also lead to an increase in the elastic modulus of the bone tissue. On the other hand, it also causes structural changes such as shrinkage, leading to mechanical alterations, especially in the cancellous bone.
We know it is quite hard to remind yourself to drink water in such a fast-paced world below are a few things you can do which can help you in keeping yourself hydrated.
- Keep a water bottle handy. Having a water bottle handy all the time will remind you to drink water frequently.
- Drink before, after, and during exercise. Exercise leads to sweating and loss of water, so frequently drinking water helps keep your body hydrated.
- Drink a cup of water instead of your regular coffee. It will give you the boost you need to start the day.
- Keep track of the amount of water you drink every day. Often it happens you might feel you are drinking enough, but that is not the reality always.
- Drinking enough water leads to the essential nutrients being transported to the brain effectively.
- Water makes up for a quarter of your bone structure
- Dehydration can lead to several bone conditions.
- Dehydration leads to toxins being formed in your bones. Water helps in cleansing your body of such toxins.
Drinking enough water throughout the days is healthy for bones; however, it is not the sole thing responsible for making your bones stronger.
Water plays an important role in promoting a healthy lifestyle.
There are various other factors such as calcium and vitamin D intake, bodyweight management, physical activity, and genetics, etc. that influence the health of your bones (Lee, A.C.K., Jordan, H.C. and Horsley, J., 2015)
