http://woowooscience.com/index.php/blog/post/is_drinking_water_really_bad_medicine/ in health, homeopathy, and life en john@vitalpatterns.net Copyright 2008 by the respective commenters 2008-04-04T06:58:00-08:00 http://woowooscience.com/index.php/blog/post/is_drinking_water_really_bad_medicine/#225 You may find this article (and the preceding one) by DrAust of great help in understanding this issue. {categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories} 2008-04-04T02:19:06-08:00 http://woowooscience.com/index.php/blog/post/is_drinking_water_really_bad_medicine/#226 I think Dr. Aust’s Spleen is a bit dry. Maybe drinking some more water every day would help. Actually gimpy, Dr. Aust’s article was helpful—it’s a good example of the specious arguments put on the internet by neo-skeptics trying to bash natural health and healing modalities. The pattern of his argument is more interesting than the argument itself. A topic for my next posting… I have no problem with questioning the 8 glasses number, or that it all must be water. That’s not how I live. But to go from there to the assertion that it doesn’t matter what you drink is not only absurd, but is the same kind of science-less claim that he says he is criticising. {categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories} 2008-04-05T10:07:19-08:00 http://woowooscience.com/index.php/blog/post/is_drinking_water_really_bad_medicine/#227 Regarding definitions, the WHO definition of health is: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Source:http://www.who.int/about/definition/en/print.html I think that we can safely say that almost everyone is in agreement with you that health is not merely an absence of symptoms. {categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories} 2008-04-06T01:42:04-08:00 http://woowooscience.com/index.php/blog/post/is_drinking_water_really_bad_medicine/#229 Yes, the WHO has a good definition of health. By the way, the WHO also has a nice draft report supporting the use of homeopathy (based on data) that has been blocked from final release by the usual politics (not science) surrounding this sort of thing. But here I’m talking about the supposed cornerstone of modern medicine: the randomized double blind clinical trial. These rarely deal with health, only with the absence of a certain symptom or syndrome. And then claims about general health are made from these, as in this claim about water consumption. {categories backspace="1"}{category_name}, {/categories} 2008-04-19T14:07:11-08:00