How Drinking More Water Helps - and Doesn't Help - Us Recover From Being Sick

Valid reasons to enjoy some extra soup or broth.

Chicken noodle soup, the staple of any sick child.Photo byHenrique Felix on Unsplash

When we’re sick, we’re told to rest, take it easy, and drink plenty of fluids. Those might come in the form of chicken soup, or broth, or hot tea, or even just some extra water to wash down our cough medicine.

But does water actually help us get better faster? Does it alleviate symptoms?

Or is it just a placebo, so we think that we’re doing something to help heal?

The answer, of course, is sort of. In classic scientific fashion, it depends. The issue is less about “more water providing more benefits” and more about “not enough water causing additional problems.”

Let’s dive in.

It takes a lot of water to be sick

Do you remember the last time you were sick? You didn’t feel great; food and drinks probably didn’t hold much interest for you. When our body is devoting resources towards fighting against an invading bacterial or viral infection, other systems, including our digestive system, slow down.

Sometimes, the symptoms of the disease can also discourage us from eating and drinking. Respiratory diseases stuff up our nose, reducing our ability to taste and making food taste dull. Nausea makes our stomach churn at just the thought of eating a big meal.

The result? Our food intake, and more importantly our water intake, drops.

But while we can usually run a caloric deficit for a few days, we need water. In fact, when we’re sick, our bodies can use more water than they use when we’re healthy. We lose water when we’re sick because:

• A fever can make us sweat.
• Vomiting requires a lot of saliva, and we also lose the water in our stomach.
• Diarrhea can help expel invading pathogens from our digestive tract, but it also results in water loss.

So when we’re sick, we’re more prone to becoming dehydrated. Water is going out, but we are less motivated to keep up our daily intake.

But if I drink more, will I recover faster?

If you’re sick, taking in adequate amounts of water helps reduce the severity of symptoms, and also ensures that your body is suitably equipped to fight the germs. The liquids you drink provide the basis for your body to make germ-trapping mucus, keep your blood volume up so that white blood cells can travel through your bloodstream to infected areas, and helps clear out waste.

But once you’re drinking enough water, adding more will not make these processes happen faster. Think about filling a car up with gasoline; the car needs the gasoline to power its systems, but once the tank is full, adding more gasoline doesn’t give the car any additional power. It just splashes out and gets discarded.

So if you’re already drinking enough to be hydrated, adding an additional glass of water when sick doesn’t make the disease go away faster.

(Because proper hydration does reduce the severity of symptoms, though, it may make you feel better a little earlier, which could make the sickness seem slightly shorter in duration.)

Tackling a couple other quick myths about drinking water

Water has a lot of other misconceptions around it.

First off, the question of carbonated versus still water. Is carbonated water bad for our teeth? Is it as bad as soda?

Is Carbonated Water Actually Bad for Your Teeth?

“It forms acid!” “The acid is too weak to hurt!” What’s the truth?

The short answer: carbonated waterisacidic, and itcandamage tooth enamel, even if it’s consumed fairly quickly (the minimum exposure time was 15 minutes).But it’s still healthier than insanely sugary sodas.

Second, is it possible for water to be too pure? Can drinking demineralized water strip precious minerals from our own body?

Debunking the Danger Claims of Demineralized Water

Could water that is too pure steal vitamins and minerals from your body?

The short answer: no. We have a lovely pair of organs called kidneys that, along with filtering our blood, pulls out water when it gets too dilute. Our bones will not dissolve if we drink demineralized water or water purified through reverse osmosis.

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It’s especially important when we’re sick, and we don’t want to eat or drink much at all, that we fight those urges and try to consume at least as much water as usual, maybe even a bit more. We still lose water when sick, and getting dehydrated makes an illness feel even worse.

But water won’t actually make us heal faster. Staying properly hydrated will help reduce some symptoms, but it doesn’t shorten the time it takes to recover from a cold or cough.

Water is critical for life, but remember, it can’t replace modern medicine on its own!

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