Summary of Huberman Lab Podcast Episode: Optimize Water Quality & Intake for Health | Huberman Lab
Podcast: Huberman Lab
9 min. read
— Description —
Discover the importance of hydration and how to meet your bodys needs at rest and during exercise Learn about the potential benefits of deliberate cold exposure and how to reduce nighttime urination frequency Find out why knowing the fluoride content in your tap water is crucial and how addressing pH and magnesium levels can improve hydration and overall health
Plus, uncover the profile of your tap water and explore options for enhancing its quality.
Optimize Water Quality & Intake for Health | Huberman Lab
Table of contents
Key Takeaways
- A rough estimate of hydration needs at rest: consume 8oz of fluid for every hour you are awake for the first 10 hours of your day – this can be consumed as total volume over the course of the day
- Follow Galpin’s equation for hydration during exercise: your body weight (in pounds) / 30 = # of ounces to consume every 15 minutes
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Deliberate cold exposure sample protocol:2 minutes of deliberate cold exposure/water immersion up to the neck + 30 seconds of deliberate cold exposure with cold shower 5x per week
- Potential benefits: increase in catecholamines (benefits mood and well-being), sexual satisfaction (probably from increases in testosterone in men and women), reduction in anxiety, reduction in waist circumference in men, reduction in abdominal fat in men
- To reduce nighttime urination frequency: (1) hydrate sufficiently during the day; (2) reduce fluid intake at night; (3)don’t chug water at night if you drink! sip slowly, rate matters
- Know how much fluoride is in your tap water! Google your zip code + water analysis – (high fluoride even at 0.5mg/mL can negatively impact thyroid stimulating hormone)
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You don’t need to enrich your water but if pH is insufficient or magnesium is low, address it to achieve better and more efficient hydration, reduce inflammation, blood pressure, and other health metrics
- Find out the profile of your tape water by googling your zip code + water analysis
- You can purchase hydrogen molecular tablets to drop in water which will increase pH
Introduction
- Dr. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. is a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine. His lab focuses on neural regeneration, neuroplasticity, and brain states such as stress, focus, fear, and optimal performance.
- In this episode of the Huberman Lab Podcast, learn all about water: its structure, how it is used by the cells and tissues of our body, how much water we each need to drink, and when in order to optimize our mental focus and physical performance, how weather affects our water use and intake, and so much more.
- Host: Andrew Huberman (@hubermanlab)
What Is Water?
- Each molecule of water contains two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule
- H2O is configured like a peace symbol which helps bind to one another through covalent bonds (strong but can be broken)
- Temperature is a determinant of water’s structure – it can be liquid, gas, or solid
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Rare characteristic: when water is in its solid state (ice), it’s less dense than it is in its liquid state (this is why ice floats in water)
- If this weren’t true, life wouldn’t exist in the same way – for example, the bottom of the ocean would be covered in ice
- The surface tension of water allows some things to float and some things to sink
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Structured water: in the presence of some solids or liquids, the configuration of water changes
- Positives and positives attract and form stronger bonds than ‘regular’ water
- Some people believe the water in the body is structured and now it’s a marketing trend (more on trend below)
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Water is one of the best solvents that exists
- Molecules can be hydrophobic (don’t dissolve well) or hydrophilic (dissolve more easily)
Water In The Body
- Temperature and alkalinity (pH) of water are important determinants in how your body uses water – we are somewhere between 70-90% water
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Every cell in the body requires water (water enters cells through diffusion or aquaporin channels)
- Aquaporin channels are used when water needs to enter or rapidly release through cell
- Bones and ligaments are the only areas in the body without aquaporin channels
- Water enters the body through drinking or breathing in
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The truth about bottled alkaline/pH water: pH in the body is highly regulated without outside intervention – there’s no physiological need to drink pH water unless you have
- What is true is that all water is not created equal and this can differentially affect absorption, which some are more sensitive to
- Most biological processes in the body involve bonding between water and proteins: once water is in cells it’s incorporated into different proteins depending on how hydrophilic or hydrophobic they are
- Free radicals can damage cells because they are free electrons, not bound to anything, and can interact with the molecular structure of proteins and change them which can cause damage to cells
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Antioxidants: bind free radicals or repair bonds between cells so they’re no longer undergoing bad conformations
- Water can act as an antioxidant under the right conditions
- Cells of the kidney and gut are under strong regulation of the circadian clock gene – for the first 10 hours after waking, the kidney is working hard to filter fluid then efficiency reduces
- To reduce nighttime urination frequency: (1) hydrate sufficiently during the day; (2) reduce fluid intake at night; (3)don’t chug water! sip slowly, rate matters
Understanding Hydration
- Why is hydration important? When we are dehydrated, our brain and body don’t function as well, even if it’s slight dehydration
- Informal ways to measure dehydration: (1) if you can pinch the skin on top of your fingers and it doesn’t return for more than 5 seconds; (2) press down on the nail, if the color doesn’t return to normal within a few seconds
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Amount of fluid (not just water) most people need at rest: consume 8oz of fluid for every hour you are awake for the first 10 hours of your day – this can be consumed as total volume over the course of the day
- Not accounting for extreme weather or extreme sports
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Water requirement for exercise: you’ll want additional fluid – follow the Galpin equation, your body weight (in pounds) / 30 = # of ounces to consume every 15 minutes
- For performance’s sake, sip fluid, and don’t chug
- If you sweat a lot of in heat, increase by about 50-100%
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Thirst is a reasonable guide for assessing hydration but thirst doesn’t keep up with hydration needs so can put you behind
- Ideally consume fluids that don’t contain caffeine or other diuretics
- Offset caffeine intake by increasing fluid intake (ideally with electrolytes) 2:1 for caffeine consumption
- When we have fluid in the gut, cells are well-hydrated and the bladder has a fluid, there’s an elevation in sympathetic nervous system activity via (1) mechanical stretch receptors; (2) chemical signals (movement of water across aquaporin channels)
- Ice-cold water (cold that you can feel down your gut) can reduce absorption but you’ll still feel satisfied
Tap Water
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Contaminated tap water can negatively impact fertility in males and females by causing endocrine disruption (ovarian function, spermatogenesis, fertility outcomes)
- The higher the concentration of magnesium and calcium in the water, the higher the pH
- Disinfection byproducts (remnants of disinfection treatment) can also impact the pH of the water
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Know the water in your zip code: google your zip code + water analysis – you’re looking for fluoride levels in water (high fluoride can negatively impact thyroid stimulating hormone)
- Even 0.5mg/L can disrupt thyroid function
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The hardness of water: higher magnesium and calcium-containing water may not taste as good but can have small reductions in the risk of cardiovascular disease
- Possibly because the elevated pH is more readily absorbed and more favorably impacts the hydration of cells
Filtering Tap Water
- Britta or other pitcher-filters are effective at filtering out disinfectant byproducts but not fluoride
- Look for at-home water filters that are geared towards fluoride (cost range will be wide) – check out ClearlyFiltered Pitcher
- Whole house water filters are $2k+ and filter the water in the entire house
- Some middle road systems (like Berkey Filters) remove larger volumes of water than pitchers and can sit on the countertop
- How filters work: physically constrain which molecules are going through, contain neutralizing chemicals
- Zero cost option to filter water: draw 1-5 gallons of water and let it sit uncapped at room temperature for one day or half day so sediment falls to the bottom; then, pour our top 2/3 and drink
- A word of caution about using heat: boiling tap water can actually make contaminants worse
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Understanding water branding:
- Distilled or double-distilled has calcium and magnesium removed – don’t drink this type of water
- Reverse osmosis water removes contaminants and is safe but expensive the access
- Hydrogen-rich water and deuterium water have higher pH (you can create this by dropping a magnesium tablet in your water and letting it sit 5-15 minutes after)
- There aren’t many studies supporting this but the few support potential reductions in inflammatory responses
- There’s no evidence that ingesting structured water has any health benefit
Deliberate Cold Exposure
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Cold exposure (11 minutes per week, up to the neck) has been shown to increase brown fat which increases metabolism and the ability to feel comfortable in cold temperatures
- You want the water to be cold enough that you’re uncomfortable and don’t want to stay in, but the temperature is safe enough to do so
- Key component of cold exposure: warm-up naturally – not in a hot shower or sauna
- Benefits of cold water exposure: increase in catecholamines (benefits mood and well-being), sexual satisfaction (probably from increases in testosterone in men and women), reduction in anxiety, reduction in waist circumference in men, reduction in abdominal fat in men
- Sample protocol: 2 minutes of deliberate cold exposure/water immersion up to the neck + 5x per week, 30 seconds of deliberate cold exposure with a cold shower
Articles & Other Resources
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Articles
- Impact of cold exposure on life satisfaction and physical composition of soldiers (BMJ Military Health)
- Circadian rhythms and the kidney (Nature Review Nephrology)
- Endocrine Disruptors in Water and Their Effects on the Reproductive System (International Journal of Molecular Sciences)
- Impact of Drinking Water Fluoride on Human Thyroid Hormones: A Case- Control Study (Scientific Reports)
- Regulations for calcium, magnesium or hardness in drinking water in the European Union member states (Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology)
- Electrolyzed-Reduced Water: Review I. Molecular Hydrogen Is the Exclusive Agent Responsible for the Therapeutic Effects (International Journal of Molecular Sciences)
- Electrolyzed-Reduced Water: Review II: Safety Concerns and Effectiveness as a Source of Hydrogen Water (International Journal of Molecular Sciences)
- Hydrogen-rich water reduces inflammatory responses and prevents apoptosis of peripheral blood cells in healthy adults: a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial (Scientific Reports)
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Other Resources
- Using Deliberate Cold Exposure for Health and Performance
- ClearlyFiltered Pitcher
- Berkey Filters
- Molecular Hydrogen