Water

Water and Exercise:

We need 8 cups of water a day

Drink by schedule, not by thirst,

Plan for fluid intake during competition.

Practice drinking during training

Drink 24 oz for every pound of weight loss after activity (one medium mouthful of fluid equals about 1 oz),

Choose water if you are exercising less than 90 minutes and a sports drink if exercising greater than 90 minutes.

Know the warning signs of dehydration:

	fatigue
	lightheadedness
	headache
	dark urine
	dry mouth

Know if your public water system contains fluoride,

If you use a water filter in your home, learn if it removes fluoride from your drinking water,

Be aware that if your job/profession keeps your away from home more than 4 days per week that you may need to use a fluoride rinse.

If, you drink bottled water know if it contains fluoride.

Identify if your child's daycare, preschool or school receives fluoridated public water.

Block-charcoal or activated-charcoal systems like Brita do NOT remove fluoride. The fluoride levels in your home drinking water are substantially reduced only if you have a "reverse-osmosis" filtration system.
Resource: Environmental Nutrition March 2001

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Fluoride Dosage Schedule

Age	Fluoride Ion Level in Drinking Water (ppm)
	<0.3 ppm	0.3-0.6 ppm	<0.6 ppm
Birth-6 months	None	None	None
6 months-3 years	.25 mg/day	None	None
3-6 years	.50 mg/day	.25 mg/day	None
6-16 years	1.0 mg/day	.50 mg/day	None
1.0 ppm=lmg/liter	2.2 mg sodium fluoride contains 1 mg fluoride ion

ADA Council on Access, Prevention & Interprofessional Relations. Caries Diagnosis and Risk Assessment. JADA 1995;126:195.

Bottled Water Health Updates

Bottled water can harbor microbes

— Just because water comes in a bottle doesn't mean it's sterile, according to American Society for Microbiology's. "There is a misconception that bottled water is free from microbes. It is not," said Dr. Fred Rosenberg . But, he added, "If you are a healthy individual, there's probably little to fear from it." However, it is not a great idea to share bottled water after it has been opened, or to leave an open bottle sitting around in warm weather for too long. Bottled water can indeed contain microbes at levels capable of making a person with a weak immune system sick.

The U.S. does not monitor bottled water for the presence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause illness, is often resistant to antibiotics and is a reliable indicator that contamination has occurred during bottling, according to Rosenberg. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said such testing would be too expensive. The FDA does watch bottled water for contamination with coliform bacteria. But standards for municipal water — which is monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency — are actually tougher. While the FDA allows for the presence of tiny amounts of coliform bacteria in 1 out of 10 bottles tested, the EPA has zero tolerance. Glass bottles, the researcher said, are less hospitable to growth of bacteria than plastic ones. And the organism that causes cholera can survive in flat bottled water, but dies off in carbonated water within a day.
Anne Harding Salt Lake City (Reuters Health)

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February 06, 2008