Why Drinking 8 Glasses of Water Per Day is a Myth
Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast
Dr. Eric Berg
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How much water should you drink each day? Discover the truth behind the 8 glasses a day myth, the side effects of drinking too much water, and proper hydration tips to keep you hydrated and support overall health.
0:00 Introduction: The drink water myth
1:28 Hydration facts
3:43 Water intake truth
4:10 Thirst and your daily water needs
6:57 Does everyone need 8 glasses of water?
7:06 Urine color and hydration explained
8:04 Overhydration risks
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Thirst tells the body when to drink. There isn’t a single clinical trial that has established exactly how much water we need each day to stay healthy, so where did the “8 glasses of water per day” recommendation come from?
A recommendation published in 1945 suggested consuming approximately 2.5 liters of water per day, but it also noted that most of this intake would come from food. The average person gets close to 1 liter of water from food daily, and the body also produces metabolic water.
Over time, “8 glasses a day” turned into drinking even when you’re not thirsty, but thirst tells the body when to drink fluid. A person’s daily water needs depend on age, body size, physical activity, climate, and other factors, so the number will vary from person to person.
Urine color can help indicate your hydration level. Dark urine means you need more water, while clear urine may indicate overhydration, which can negatively affect electrolyte balance.
Hyponatremia, low sodium in the blood, is a potential risk of overhydration.
Dr. Eric Berg DC Bio:
Dr. Berg, age 61, is a chiropractor who specializes in Healthy Ketosis & Intermittent Fasting. He is the Director of Dr. Berg Nutritionals and author of the best-selling book The Healthy Keto Plan. He no longer practices, but focuses on health education through social media.
Disclaimer:
Dr. Eric Berg received his Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1988. His use of “doctor” or “Dr.” in relation to himself solely refers to that degree. Dr. Berg is a licensed chiropractor in Virginia, California, and Louisiana, but he no longer practices chiropractic in any state and does not see patients, so he can focus on educating people as a full-time activity, yet he maintains an active license. This video is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose, and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, prescription, or recommendation. It does not create a doctor-patient relationship between Dr. Berg and you. You should not make any change in your health regimen or diet before first consulting a physician and obtaining a medical exam, diagnosis, and recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Great Water Lie. That's what we're going to get into. This is one of those topics that |
| 0:04.2 | everyone knows is true. I used to push it on people when I was in my clinic. You need to drink |
| 0:09.7 | eight glasses of water a day. Today we're going to get into the background of where that actually |
| 0:14.4 | came from and somehow we completely neglected our body's communication to us, which is called thirst. But what I'm going to tell |
| 0:24.0 | you out loud is this. There has never been even one single clinical trial that has established |
| 0:32.0 | how much water we need to drink to be healthy. That number, eight glasses of water that we keep repeating |
| 0:39.9 | our entire life came from a footnote, someone misread from 1945. People were asked in the |
| 0:46.3 | street, how much liquid do you drink per day? And based on that one survey, it came out to |
| 0:51.7 | eight glasses of water, and that has become our mantra. In 1945, the Food and |
| 0:57.7 | Nutrition Board of the National Research Council published a set of dietary guidelines. And buried in this |
| 1:03.8 | document was one short paragraph about water. It said this. A suitable allowance of water for adults is |
| 1:10.4 | 2.5 liters per day. |
| 1:13.5 | So if you stop reading right there, you probably think, okay, well, it's roughly about |
| 1:17.6 | eight glasses of water. Case closed. But the very next sentence said, most of the quantity |
| 1:24.0 | is contained in prepared foods. |
| 1:28.3 | Apparently no one really read that next sentence and that changes everything. |
| 1:33.3 | Because if we do the math on that, an average person gets roughly between 700 milliliters |
| 1:40.3 | to one liter of fluid from their daily food. And of course, if you're eating more |
| 1:48.1 | fruits or vegetables, you're going to get more liquid. An apple, by the way, is 86% water. A steak |
| 1:54.8 | is 60% water. A cucumber is 95% water. And on top of that, your body actually can make a certain amount of water. |
| 2:03.0 | It's called metabolic water. |
| 2:04.2 | We're possibly generating over a liter of fluid every single day. |
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