Happy Day! Coffee, apparently, is not as dehydrating as we thought!
Coffee lovers rejoice! Well, I will at least.
The common wisdom is: Drink water (not coffee!) from the moment you get up till the moment you lay your head down to sleep or you risk major dehydration. Certainly many holistic health professionals have touted coffee as a dehydrating substance, telling clients that they must drink two glasses of water for every cup of coffee they’ve consumed, just to make up for the resulting fluid deficit. So we’ve been taught all these years. Turns out, it ain’t so!
Recent scientific research has shown that not only does moderate caffeine consumption not dehydrate you, but it is now considered an acceptable contributor to our daily fluid intake requirement. (YAY!!) The caveat here is that you have to watch how much caffeine you take in. One study, published in 2007, looked at fluid balance, hydration and exercise in the heat, and concluded that if you have no more than 300 mg to 400 mg of caffeine, there is no dehydration effect, either with exercise or at rest. Since a 1.5 ounce shot of espresso contains approximately 77 mg of caffeine, you’d probably be just fine to have that single or double latte in the morning, before lacing up those hiking boots.
Personally, I'm rejoicing at this news. For years, I’ve had a slightly guilty feeling about my penchant for coffee. Now the research backs up what I’ve intuitively always known: a good shot of espresso gives me better endurance , without depleting me of the fluids I need. Aaah…all is well in a world where coffee contributes to proper hydration.
Thanks to Korina Felkers at the Boulder Coffee Examiner in Boulder CO for her awesome news! :)