May Bonus: Do You Really Need Eight Glasses of Water A Day?

I got on instagram after listening to this and immediately saw a video of someone making raspberry water

guys I don't know if it's still an option, but I really like your idea of green screening yourselves sagely nodding and pointing to people reacting to your content. I'll patreon that

Commenting on this in the future to report that the perspective trick did, in fact, become a brief trend on TikTok

The story of someone dying of water intoxication after taking ecstasy isn’t an urban legend! Leah Betts from essex in the UK died in 1995. Poor girl was only 18 :(

As another up close person, I feel like I got content about drinking water before and with meals to increase fullness SO MUCH, especially approximately five years ago. It has never ever worked for me and I actually think sometimes it makes me hungrier.

After knee surgery a few days ago I'm not that thirsty and going to the bathroom on crutches feels wobbly, so I don't drink as much as usually. Trying to stave off the guilt, I'm registering to this 😜 This podcast keeps me sane and is the electronic equivalent of my comfort blanket. Thank you for all that you do 😍

I love how ridiculous and whimsical y'all are. I've listened to all your episodes multiple times. At this point I'm just enjoying your humor and your way of talking about things. Thanks for adding a positive note to my days. ❤️

As someone with ADHD I also tend not to notice thirst (hunger, peeing, tiredness...) signals from my body until my body is practically screaming at me.

107.9 the end, the station that held the contest, is the station we listened to on the school bus on the way to school in the mornings during the 2000s. I'm so glad I wasn't on the bus the morning they did the competition, but I sure heard about it from a friend IMMEDIATELY the next day.

Close up American had me ROLLING

Now you have debunked the 2000 calories myth and 8 glasses of water a day, it would be super interesting to get your take on the 75 minutes vigorous exercise/150 minutes moderate exercise a week recommendation - I wonder if it comes from a similarly unscientific/unproven body of research? Love your podcast so much, and thanks for all you both do!

Providence Water Fire mention. Did not expect that tbh. It happens every week May-December I think, maybe every other (I get DoorDash ads about it in the app. It’ll read “stock up on snacks for WaterFire”). I went once. You look at the water and the fire and you go “cool” and move on. It’s definitely a thing for tourists, including the tours of Brown University.

One of the other downsides of the idea that you need so much water (besides making people feel bad/wrong) is medical concerns getting ignored. I went to my PCP recently with a spike in the number of headaches/migraines I’ve been getting, and she said, “Oh, you probably just need to drink more water.”

Fascinating ep - worth adding autistic people to your list of those who may not experience the thirst sensation typically (due to atypical interoception that can occur as part of the sensory dimension of autism).

Pre-meal water! Can't remember if it was in this episode or not, I've listened to a few lately. But when you mentioned pre-meal water for weight loss I remembered this - it's an official recommendation here in Australia, and there are citations. One has weak evidence, mostly that consuming non-calorie beverages before a meal reduces total meal calorie intake when compared to drinks with calories (seems obvious). The other is testing water's effect with a hypocaloric diet, so not particularly relevant to adding water to regular eating patterns. So it looks like a case of finding whatever they can to make the recommendation look legit. Disappointing. Scanning related results (quickly, so not reliably), it looks like it may have more of an effect on older people. https://www.racgp.org.au/afp/2013/july/pre-meal-water

“Some of my best friends are molecules of H2O” -Michael Hobbes. Me, pointing up at the sky and nodding

Loving my RI shout out!

“TikTok, it’s fun when it’s not you” - is definitely merch worthy

You are absolutely not “an average minded person” (complimentary)

this episode is delightful! I just want to say, there's a wonderful video on a YouTube channel called tor's cabinet of curiosity days which discusses the Cleveland River fires. he talks about how a big part of all the drama surrounding it was the fact that Cleveland had America's first mayor (or one of the first Mayors?) who was a person of color. Y'all would be interested.

Michael came to this episode ready to talk shit

Dasani water in particular is reverse osmosis filtered. So sure, it comes from a tap, but then they work on it to improve it before selling it to you. That is extremely valuable since RO filtration removes the pollutants that municipal water processing doesn’t (like PFAS). So dunking on Dasani in particular isn’t warranted. Pick on Deer Park or Topo Chico: those two actually contain PFAS according to Consumer Reports.

I know im late to the party but I've never had an episode of any podcast make me need to pee before

You have Got To do an episode on Whole 30/Melissa Urban. Especially since she’s now schilling for other brands

Off topic but I was listening to one of your episodes walking home from the bus stop after dark and hearing you both talking and laughing made me feel less afraid as I walked. Just wanted you to know that ❤️

One of the radio hosts for the Hold Your Wee for a Wii contest was the BROTHER of LORI VALLOW, the notorious Mormon survivalist serial killer psychopath that is always in true crime discussions right now. Isn’t that bonkers in the conkers??

Late to the party but I'm someone who actually enforces SDWA regulations at the state level -I pre-apologize, I know my area of expertise is honestly annoying as hell. Anyway. Agree with a lot of your conclusions about bottled water, but just a little nit-pick. Bottlers are regulated under the SDWA in a category called BVRB systems (bottled, vended, retail, bulk). These do have their own regulations, but bottlers are held to the same standards of contaminants (MCLs) as other system types and are required to monitor for most contaminants on a similar frequency to municipal systems. Bottlers are generally required to test for bacteria (bacti) once per week, but they're required to test again for each new batch number. Larger municipalities may need to test for bacti multiple times a day, but any given municipal system isn't constantly testing for bacti (Some small systems literally test bacti once or twice *per month*). Also, if a bottler tests either positive for coliform or is above a certain HPC (another measure of bacterial activity), they must alert their regulating agency within 1 hour, and will re-sample. Coliforms on their own (Total Coliforms) are generally harmless, but if the coliforms are confirmed in repeat sampling, they typically must do an investigation and cleaning and report the results to their regulating agency. If E. coli is found, any product from the affected batches *must* be recalled publicly if it has a potential of being served to the public. There are regulations about how these recalls have to be announced--however, we don't hear about them often because the bacteria test takes 24-48 hours (Depending on whether or not coliforms or EC are present), and batches typically don't ship out that quickly, so they can internally stop the shipments en route or hold them at the warehouse so they don't get out. If they can verify the location of every affected product, they don't need to announce a recall. If a bottled water product involves any flavoring, coloring, or bubbles, it's under FDA's jurisdiction primarily because it's generally considered a beverage and not 'water', but if it's just still water, inspections and regulations get put on whatever entity has jurisdiction to enforce the SDWA in that bottler's area--So yes, most bottled water isn't regulated day-to-day by FDA but it is being watched by someone: a county health department, state departments of health or environment, or in the case of water systems in Wyoming, the EPA does it themselves; whoever has primacy for every other public water system. Fun fact, if you want to know about your bottled water, they're federally required to have a reference number on the packaging that identifies who regulates them and you can go to that state's site and check the number i the state database (In New York, it's the CHD number. In Pennsylvania, it's called a PWSID. Look at the packaging and you should be able to see a weird little number without much other context--that's it.) Also, every bottled water supplier is required to put out a water quality report. They're usually buried at the bottom of a website, but scroll down and it's there. These reports also include lists of all contaminants they monitored for, results of that sampling, and a list of their sources. For a fun game, go to your fave bottled water, find their source, and then notice how many other brands use the same. exact. sources. The secret of bottled water is that it's all the same. (And yes, many of the sources are municipal.)

Would you consider covering the storybots "why can't we eat dessert all the time" episode? It's targeted at children, and it has a lot of food health information, but I wonder how it stands up to scrutiny.

I was at Basel-Mulhouse (In France/Switzerland) airport in May and filled up my water bottle in the toilets. I noticed a sign on the mirrors saying that the elderly, young children and various other groups of people shouldn’t drink the water. I didn’t really think much of it. Then when I was on the plane, we were told that they wouldn’t be serving hot drinks on board because the water in and around the airport is contaminated by PFAS (forever chemicals). When we landed I had a look in the local press and due to the use of flame retardant foam for fire drills at the airport, the water in Saint-Louis and other surrounding villages is contaminated. There has been a run on bottled water in the shops and everyone is drinking it, not just the “at risk” groups. The water has been contaminated for decades but the extent of it is only coming to the surface now. Makes you wonder how much groundwater around airports has forever chemicals in it. Also, I know you’ve/we’ve had a good laugh about heavy metal contamination on the pod before. But another scandal has come to light in France recently about cadmium contamination in the population. France buys phosphate from Marocco to make fertiliser and it turns out that this phosphate is high in cadmium. It may be why rates of pancreatic cancer are so high in France compared to its neighbours. So in the French context, it may be worth getting tested for cadmium. Not saying the medical medium is right or anything!

This was so timely because I just finished researching water filter pitchers. I have always preferred just refrigerating my tap water because I know how safe it is and it has always tasted great until recently. Now there’s a strong metallic aftertaste. I don’t drink much besides water so it has to taste good. And I wish water filters didn’t filter out the fluoride. But I’ve recently become happy with drinking 6 cups of water a day instead of 8. It’s easier because it’s 2 fill-ups of my water bottle and I can more easily get all my water in before bed. I do have to drink more consistently because of medication but I don’t need to feel like a fish!

mike is wrong, look into fake urine

No idea where to submit ideas - but Sue Becker and the flour scam business.

In my 20s (early 00s) when I had some sketchy over exercise/disordered eating stuff going on I drank one gallon every day between 9am and 4pm and then had a bunch more (a half gallon to a full gallon most days) before and after work. I did this for about two years. Let me tell you all I did was pee for those two years. I had learned the timing for it well for my commute so I wouldn’t get stuck in the car or train, but otherwise the rest of the day all I did was go back and forth to the restroom. I couldn’t get anything done. May have contributed to eventually getting laid off. I really have to wonder whatelse it did to my body. A lot of stuff I did back then really f’d me up.

I’m interested in listening to this Ultra Processed episode but Apple Podcasts keeps giving me an error message 😧

So I my person finally started listening to maintenance phase (I think because I reference it so often in my every day life). I have regrets now though because we've had a running "argument" for years that coffee cannot be substituted for water. They pop up this morning after listening to this episode and were like "actually that study only had an N of 3 and its not dehydrating" XD

One of the reasons many Italians drink bottled water, I think, is that in some parts of Italy, like in the Province of Veneto, the groundwater has major PFAS contamination. There is also a lot of run off from agriculture, farms, and industry that has polluted the water. I believe the people there are completely justified in drinking bottled water.

You two were clearly never involved in bullet journaling. 🤣 I rage quit several bullet journal groups around 10 years ago because the members were obsessed with tracking their water consumption and forcing themselves to drink a minimum of 64 oz of water a day. I'm a medical librarian with zero tolerance for this bullshit and told SO MANY PEOPLE THIS WAS MADE UP AND NO ONE LISTENED TO ME. I'm also trained as an anthropologist so I found the self-imposed stress fascinating but also OH MY GOD PEOPLE ARE DYING, KIM.

Back during lockdown I got a horrible tooth infection, but I'd already used up my FSA getting my wisdom teeth pulled. The only time I wasn't in raging pain was when I had water in my mouth, for like three days I was drinking so much water I was vomiting it back up. (Shout out to urgent care for prescribing me antibiotics even tho it was a tooth infection, and the dispensary for knowing exactly what I needed so I could actually sleep)

Ok don't come for baked beans!!! 😅 im from the uk and as a single mum with a full time job. It feels like, to me, thar the logical end point for a lot of this rhetoric about ultra processed food ends up with trad wifery... I.e. walking back the gains made by feminism. They want us all to get back in the kitchen and spend all our time and energy making food from scratch while they get to live a fulfilling life persuing whatever they want. Like, no thanks

I live in Portland and just got a general mailing about the City’s annual drinking water report and it made me so happy to see the city doing outreach about how safe the drinking water is! I think they mail it out every year, but it was just top of mind after this episode. Thanks for the good work and laughs as always :)

Total non sequitur but yall should do an episode on public design (like for airline seats, roller coasters, restaurant seating, mri machines, car safety, medications) and when the research was done and for what weight, bc the “standards” haven’t been updated in a long time despite Americans getting bigger over time (which is largely acknowledged)

I have a combination of health problems that just make me thirsty all the time. I get so many compliments for my I guess extremely virtuous water consumption and have even gotten some sarcastic comments from doctors about how it’s not going to solve all my problems. I’m just thirsty, guys.

Don’t drink a gallon to pass the pee test! I got a diluted result and they made me give a HAIR SAMPLE. 😂

Would y'all ever do an episode on iron deficiency? I know Mike has dealt with it and maybe Aubrey too since it's so common! Doctors must have learned "iron overload is dangerous" in med school and as a result are super dismissive of iron deficiency. I also suspect it's gotten more common since most of us have had COVID. I feel that so many people THINK they know how to treat it (lucky iron fish, spinach, red meat, orange juice, multi-vitamin) but it takes many, many months of doing & avoiding VERY specific things to grow iron stores.

What about the 'you shouldn't drink water while eating' thing? I grew up in Switzerland and I was constantly told this as a kid, which drove me crazy. I just get thirsty while eating, leave me alone!!!

Old Growth Table just put out an episode on water that is a great complement to this one. It’s hosted by Valerie Segrest, a Native Food Nutritionist. She talks about how stressful it can be on your body to drink to meet an arbitrary quota and looks at it from a Coast Salish perspective instead.

Hey! I'd love to see an episode about breathing. There's a lot of advice out there about diaphragmatic breathing and how it can make you healthier. A fitness professional recommended I read the book "Breath" by James Nestor. It reads like a diet book. I spoke to my doctor about how deep breathing makes me anxious and lightheaded. She said that's because for many people, deep breathing like that is registered in the body as hyperventilating and it's not actually good for all of us and that the body knows how to breathe. Yet so much of the fitness space is focused on perfecting breathing.

What about all fuss with PFAS in the public water? Is that just because it’s regulated more strictly than bottled water?

ok so what I want to know now is, does drinking a bunch of extra water when sick actually help you get better? I drink a shit ton of water and tea when I'm sick because I've always been told that was essential

Zurich has a ton of drinking fountains or "bubblers" if you're from Wisconsin

I drink between six and eight litres of water a day and feel very attacked by this episode.

Omg, this is so well-timed. I just got a newsletter at work talking about water needs and how the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommended 11.5 cups of water for women and 15.5 cups (almost a gallon!) for men. Later in the article it's like... Yea, that includes the water we get from foods, so really like 8-10 cups a day. And it goes on to suggest how to get more water in your day. Then I looked at the reference from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which is from 2004 and starts with the line "the vast majority of healthy people meet their daily hydration by letting thirst be their guide." And it goes on to say that they don't recommend a certain amount of water to drink. So, the reference is totally misrepresented as proof that you need to drink a million glasses of water a day, which is the opposite of what the source document actually says. 🙄

Sidenote: cells swelling due to too much water in the blood is because of osmosis, where intracellular fluid suddenly has a higher concentration of solutes than extracellular fluid causing the extracellular fluid to rush into the cells. Depressingly, that symptom of the swollen bellies from that protein deficiency disease Kwashiorkor , is due to low albumin levels (I think it’s albumin, might also just be straight up amino acids) which help maintain intra and extra cellular fluid levels through osmosis. The low albumin levels cause all the intracellular fluid in the soft tissues to move out of the cells and that causes the belly swelling 😭😭😭

Water Fire! Man, that took me way back

I love that you did this episode. It reminds me of when I first saw liquid IV ads coming out and thinking this sounds fake.

enjoyed this so so much. it reminded me of one of the funnier Dr Glaucomflecken on nephrology... "is homeostasis a joke to you?!"

My stress comes from feeling a UTI developing when I do have my water bottle within reach 😭

I live in Providence, and I’ve been to Waterfire once. I thought, why is this a thing?

When I was on chemo the clinic pushed drinking 2-3 quarts of water a day. I would drink water as well as coconut water and electrolyte drinks. Nurses scolded me for considering those as part of my water intake. Ended up hospitalized with severely low potassium and magnesium impacting my heartrate. The cardiologist changed the water guideline. He had seen this too many times.

I love these bonus episodes. Also, I feel so vindicated. Though I already knew the advice was crap-science, I got irrationally mad at the CONSTANT advice to drink 80 fluid oz while pregnant. While I’m certain I needed more than before, measuring it seemed unimportant. Plus does a pregnant person really need to pee more? Surely no. Listening to this episode has evoked all the “I knew it!” feelings. Heh

“The only thing that would make this sadder is if it was a Wii U.” What if I told you it was cohosted by Lori Vallow’s brother

Puppy p pi pi p

I hardly remember drinking water in childhood. I DID drink a lot of tea, and later (instant) coffee. (We thought it was weird when we found out American kids didn't drink tea & coffee). Not fizzy pop (soda) very often, as it was expensive (or so my Mum said). We also had 'orange squash' quite often, ie syrup diluted with tap water. I got into drinking plain water as a young adult, but I drink bottled water because I just don't like the taste of what comes out of *my* taps. In other places in the UK, I do happily drink tap water. It just depends. Tea and coffee taste different in other areas too, of course. I can definitely tell when I need more to drink. I feel thirsty if I have Chinese restaurant food or a bacon sandwich, or even a ham sandwich. If I restrict my drinking due to things like travelling, I can start to feel a little head-achey, but quite a small drink will alleviate it. I have honestly heard/read the 8 glasses of water thing debunked before, but it's always fun to hear your take on issues.

Can't help but think that Fiji Water's insistent refrain of 'no human contact' is so no one thinks any *brown* people will have been near their product. Dreadful on so many levels!

My mom went to university in Cleveland and dunking on Cleveland is a family pastime, but I do appreciate Cleveland clapping back. Also I have to drink extra water if I'm doing any urine test at all because that's the only way to ensure I'll "produce" at a given time...

Someone may have mentioned this, but i DEEPLY HATE the new rhetoric of "drink your weight in oz" or 1/2 your weigt. YOU'RE TELLING FAT PEOPLE TO DRINK THAT?! as a teacher and 330 pound fat person....EXCUSE ME?! 165 ounces of water?! Also. At least once a festival as a paramedic we report to water intoxication. PLEASE Mike and Aubrey-do a deep dive on protein recommendations! That's another place where they say do 1 G for your body weight. If I ate 350 g of protein in a day I would never stop eating or chugging a protein shake and probably explode

Please please do an episode about rawdogging 🙏🙏

I couldn't help it, I just checked out Micheal Hobbes TikTok...

Someone may have already mentioned this, but do you know the DJ who hosted the ‘hold your wee for a Wii’ competition is the brother of Mormon fringe leader and murderer, Lori Vallow?

I don't know where to send these but have you mentioned heart rate variability before? I use a heart rate tracker so I can pace because I have chronic fatigue and it mentions it but I've never heard about it before and chronic fatigue studies are still extremely basic because of the myth it's not a real condition

I’ve heard from doctors that water intoxication can be a serious risk with certain medications too (like oxcarbazepine and lamotrigne) when low blood sodium is a side effect.

I hiked the Grand Canyon (rim to river and back in one day, not recommended) once when I was in college and our group leader, himself a science teacher, former Park ranger, and volunteer firefighter and EMT, warned us constantly against drinking too much water without balancing it with electrolytes because of hydronarcosis, and that concept/vague worry has lived in my brain for 20+ years

I CAN SEND THIRST SIGNALS WAY FASTER THAN THAT, I'M DYING

listening to this in the central valley of CA with my glass of tap water 🧍‍♀️

(Also as a POTS girly who drinks a truly alarming amount of liquids generally but especially water…thank you for not coming for us, I KNOW it’s insane that I carry a full litre bottle of water with me at all times & usually get through it several times a day, but I faint if I don’t have a lil beveragino at all times)

I started laughing so much at you fucking owning Waterfire, I did an exchange semester at RISD during my undergrad & I remember standing around the river during that with the Europeans (I’m Australian) being like “why is this the only time you people drink outside”

it’s absolutely WILD that a person who works for the NIH says they “work in politics”

I love this episode! The best advice my doctor gave me when I had a bad UTI was literally just drink whatever when you're thirsty, it doesn't have to be water just have some form of liquids. Also don't hold your pee, go when you're body tells ya lol

Great episode! As a Cleveland area resident, props to Aubrey for the correct pronunciation of Cuyahoga! That one gets a lot of people 🤣

I can't believe how helpful this was to my mental health. One less thing to stress about in life! Thank you!

Late to the party so apologies if someone already brought this up, but the watertok accounts weren't just "flavoring water with sugar-free syrup". A lot of people were adding, like, 15-20 pumps of full-sugar syrup (the kind used in lattes) so the resulting concoction had more sugar than soda. Like, do what you want, but they were still talking about how they switched to water to be healthy. That's why people got upset

The perspective jokes are killing me. 😂

Listening to this in Richmond VA where we are currently experiencing our second water crisis of the year 🙃🫠

Mike dunking on the Wii U is the content I am here for.

I really wanted to gift Americans with the Australian word ‘cordial’ when WaterTok was big. You’re making cordial guys!

Yes there is Mike-tok because that's how I met a friend! She posted a video that started with "this video is for Michael Hobbes and Michael Hobbes only..." she proceeded to talk about how amazing it was to hear you find out what Luigi looked like in real time. It's a lovely video and it helped me find an awesome person with similar interests.

Thank you! This info is so helpful. I frequently over-hydrate and get headaches. I will focus on my actual thirst more💓

omg drinking bleach is actually something that is recommended in weird health truther circles! my partners mother had cancer and her father was constantly pressuring her to stop chemo and drink bleach instead. she did not stop chemo.

Genuinely shocked Aubrey let Michael working for a Christian house decorating company pass without comment. HOW MANY JOBS, MIKE?

Great episode! Thank you so much!

I requested this topic years ago! Heck yeah thank you for covering it🚰

That radio show happened in my hometown. The family sued the station, the hosts, everyone. It like tanked the careers of the 3 “DJs” who hosted the show. Ah Sacramento producing great hits like death by water

I LOST IT at “as a tall fat person “ 😆🤣😆🤣😅

Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon— I am a huge fan. And I would listen to anything you fine folks produce. I am here for the shouting ❤️

I don’t understand how a person could avoid the urge to pee to the point of death. That doesn’t seem right.

I’d love to know if any research about dry mouths came up during the investigation into this! I took a medication a while ago that permanently made my mouth feel dry and I struggle with drinking too much water and never having a hydrated mouth feeling. The only advice I ever get is just drink more water which doesn’t seem helpful when you can’t live in the restroom to pee every hour

Yay a new episode ‼️‼️‼️💙

I must inform you all that the host of the Wii/pee contest was Lori Daybell’s brother.

This was great. Really put me in my place as a bottled water drinker. It’s so ingrained in me and I do always get nauseous when I drink straight from the tap. It must be all in my head. I was surprised this wasn’t tied into or even mentioned discussion of books by Masaru Emoto, “The True Power of Water” and that other “You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty” book. I would assume there’s not much there maybe. I remember Emoto’s book having a bump from some tv personality. Maybe Oprah? Anyway, thanks!

Tok Talk was a highlight for this episode!

Well, call me one of the jerks who enjoyed the Kurtis Conner / Danny Gonzalez videos making fun of the people who made soft drinks in giant Stanley cups and called it water.

Just felt the need to google "does dehydration impact risk of concussion" after the mention of cerebral spinal fluid - answer: maybe. But it's an easy thing to do to potentially reduce risk (with appropriate electrolytes).

I nearly died of water intoxication once! I was having severe sciatica and the medication I was trying to treat it with said to take with a full glass of water but the nerve damage causing the sciatica prevented me from being able to pee. So I had drunk like 68+ oz of water and not peed in over 24 hours when I went to the emergency room. And the fact that once the ER heard that they moved fast was a big indicator how bad it was. I was in surgery getting 2 pieces of my spine removed the next morning to take the pressure off my nerve.

Leah Betts put me off ever trying ecstasy

Random thought, I'm so curious as to whether there's some kind of breakdown of bottled water usage by residents vs. tourists, or some type of correlation of bottled water and revenue from tourism. When I traveled to India, Egypt, and Peru, there were very loud and frequent guidelines about only using bottled water, including for brushing your teeth and reminders to keep your mouth closed during showers. But I also remember hearing from locals that they drink the tap water without a problem. Whether or not it's objectively safe to do so (toxic particles, bacteria, etc.), the locals are adapted to drinking their water without getting (visibly) sick, and/or in poor places, they may not be able to afford bottled water, even when it would be safer. Italy and Mexico seem like they would have higher tourism numbers, so I'm wondering whether the bottled water usage is likely to be influenced by tourists.

The reason Mike remembers the rave warnings about drinking too much water might well be because he lived in the UK at one point - one of the first publicised ecstasy deaths over here was caused by this and was used as a scare story for years and years. Anyone of a certain age here will hear "death by too much water" and immediately think of poor Leah Betts!

And because I know you like a moral panic - our example of someone dying from too much water in the UK is Leah Betts who took ecstasy then sadly drank too much and was used as an anti-drug campaign for years.

Does Mike know that the Decoding the Gurus podcast is threatening to study Mike as a guru?!

I thought this was a generation gap thing because I'm Gen X and we basically just have a cup of tea occasionally.

Goddamn it just hearing water mentioned so much is making me drink a tonne of water.

"who wants to drink duck shit!". 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Fuuuuuuuuuck Nestle https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/blue-triton-closing-aberfoyle-water-bottling-facility-1.7388736

Fluoride episode please!

The fact that there are now multiple TikToks using the audio of Aubrey and Mike discussing TikTok 🤌🏻

The seniors thing is very real. My grandmother got kidey failure after drinking nothing but tea (and Im assuming not much tea) for 2 weeks. She did recover fully.

This is great, as always. Would love to hear an episode about the protein craze!

I want to gently correct the initial physiology of how water affects the body. There are different ways we can be damaged by water (not including drowning, lol) Fluid is in three compartments of the body, the cellular space (inside cells) the vascular space (in your blood) and the interstitial space, which is in between cells and blood vessels, and is hugely important. There's also cerebral spinal fluid and I genuinely can't remember whether it's one of those or a separate compartment, but the levels there have their own amazing pressure controls. 1, when someone is dehydrated, especially from sweating, they have lost a lot of water AND electrolytes. The water remaining is pretty evenly spread through the compartments, but the cells hold onto their electrolytes. If the dehydrated person is given too much PLAIN water too fast, A, the cells, which are higher in salts than the surrounding fluid, draw in water really fast until the membrane can't contain it any more. B, the blood becomes very diluted, throwing off the electrolytes balance. This is bad because the little electric signals that control us need a specific balance of sodium and potassium to function, so an imbalance can cause uncontrollable or weak muscle movement, including in the heart. 2, drinking too much water in general raises the blood pressure, changes the blood viscosity, and makes your kidneys work really hard. They generally do a great job keeping up, but they can be excreting more electrolytes than they should be to do so, which has slower affects. If there is a reason the kidneys start functioning less, the water can increase in the blood, leading to hypervolaemia. This doesn't really bother the cells, except that the stuff they need from the blood is not getting to them fast enough. Some areas of the body will get oedemic, which is increased interstitial (between the cells) fluid. The lymph system is responsible for pulling that fluid back into the blood stream, but it's a pretty passive system, affected by movement and fighting gravity, so it gets overwhelmed. Oedema can cause damage to the cells if it's long-term. People get ulcers, skin integrity is not great, etc. So yeah. I know Audrey's explanation was simple but it was incorrect, in that extra water on its own doesn't make cells swell.

“Bitch if you’re gonna come for Cleveland, we’re gonna come back” - I want this on my gravestone.

Would love to see an episode on this trend i see alot now of Almond mum/Trad family types like Nara Smith and ballerina farm and other health influencers promoting the idea that we should be slaving away in the kitchen hrs a day making our products from scratch, instead of store bought. Do we really need to be making our own sunscreen, doing heavy metal detox on our kids and spending hours on homemade chips, lollies and sounddough bread or can we all just save ourselves a little time and just buy it from the store. What affect does it have on these children being raised in these ideas. I feel like i know the answer but id love to hear a deep dive and your take on it all.

HOKAY. I work at NIH. No one who works at NIH would EVER say they work in politics. NO ONE. EVER. Even the two appointed directors (NIH and NCI) used to be working scientists. Nor would anyone EVER say they work for the HHS secretary. It's not how the hierarchy works. The only one who could even maybe kinda sorta say that would be the director (and it wouldn't have occurred to the prior directors because they worked for the American people at the pleasure of the president). Grindr bro is 100% DOGE, BUT ALSO that statement is really clear evidence that JB is not calling the shots at NIH. That is NOT how this is supposed to work. Congress confirmed JB to lead the NIH. Not 🧠🪱. I fucking hate this administration.

I have listened to 10 minutes so far and the fact that you have mentioned watertok is so validating to me.

Also adding that neuro divergent people also have a difference in how their bodies process internal signals including hunger and thirst. As an Autistic person I forget to do the eating and drinking thing regularly because my body just does not reliably tell me when I am hungry or thirsty and then suddenly I'm in hospital with dehydration cause I got stuck on my special interest for too long 🤦🏻‍♀️ I set alarms now and I don't aim for a specific amount of water but just that I have a little bit every 3 hours. I can drink outside of that but those are my alarms so that I remember that I do need some kind of hydration 😅

Enjoyed a tall glass of seattle tap water to this one

Finally, I understand the nephrology jokes in Dr. Glaucomflecken's skits

The one biology concept I remember from high school is osmosis. When that competition happened here (in Australia, our commercial radio shows have a legitimate death count of more than one person. It needs to be stopped) i was like oh my God you people don't remember osmosis and it really shows!

have a friend who repeatedly referred to herself as “hobbespilled” while researching and writing her thesis in politics

“*A lot of my friends are molecules of H2O.*”-Mike 😭

1996. 8th grade science fair project was a water taste test. Participants favored City Of Columbus (OH) tap water over bottled and Brita filtered water. And I got a Superior at State.

I feel like now would be a good time to share that in Scotland we call tap water “council juice”. We are VERY proud of our top shelf council juice.

BUT WHAT COLOR SHOULD I BE PEEING

The Father Ted “this cow is very small, the ones out there are far away” 🤣

The “close up person” and “in-frame American” jokes had me DYING!!!

So Michael mentioned in passing about how passing off tap water as bottled water shouldn’t be allowed - this happened in the UK. I don’t think it’s illegal per se but when Dasani tried to do it it went DISASTROUSLY wrong. 1) whilst they never said it was mineral water the fact that they use language similar to selling mineral water so they got investigated… 2)…and it was found that they were using water from a contaminated water source in Sidcup Now, Coca Cola probably couldn’t have survived this if… 3) …one of the most famous episodes of British television of all time hadn’t been about the main character trying to get rich quick on the bottled water craze and was bottling water from his kitchen tap. That was contaminated. From a water source *nine miles away from the one Dasani was using* So yeah, the British public mocked the shit out of it so hard that not only was Dasani removed from sale in the UK, it never expended into continental Europe, and no one has ever tried to sell us bottled tap water again

Logged in JUST to say Michael is on point in this episode. "Some of my closest friends are H2O molecules" killed me.

Feeling called out by this one…I am one of those very attached to my water drinking habits people!! My naturopath says half your body weight in ounces, which for me is about 64 oz a day. It makes me feel way more alert and energized, reduces my headaches and stops my lips from chapping. Totally shocking to me that that is not proven by research!

Now I really want a Dasani ad campaign about how this is artisanal tap water from Atlanta. 😂

Waterfire is a really cool ongoing event in Providence, on its beautiful reclaimed river, and also an awesome art center with excellent galleries and a local bookstore. :)

There's a really good early Nicholas Cage film about a paramedic working in a really poor area of (I think) LA, Bringing Out the Dead. Theres a character in there whi has an addiction to water and suffers from the effects of overhydration.

I’m currently breastfeeding and need an obscene amount of water right now. I need all those 8 glasses.

Cleveland tap water itself meets federal safety standards when it leaves the treatment plant, but it can become contaminated with lead as it travels through old lead service lines and plumbing, especially in homes built before 1986. The city has identified over 185,000 lead service lines—about 43% of all lines—which pose a risk of lead exposure.

I’m still processing that Adam Cox, Lori Vallow’s brother, was actually part of that “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest....

"Hold your wee for a wii" happened in my hometown, Sacramento. I was in middle or high school at the time. I remember when it happened and I learned all about water intoxication because of it. IIRC that radio station and the DJ involved suffered almost no consequences because of it, and later the DJ got involved in his brother's cult, which ended badly? Pretty sure I've listened to a Dollop or Behind the Bastards about it, and when that guy showed up in the episode I was like "holy shit small world".

As of 2025, tap water is considered unsafe to drink in the majority of countries worldwide. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Yale University's Environmental Performance Index (EPI), only about 50 countries have tap water that is generally safe for consumption without additional treatment. This implies that in approximately 140 countries, tap water may pose health risks if consumed directly.

Cleveland finally makes an episode of Maintenance Phase! Of course it involves the Cuyahoga River catching fire. It should be noted that Cuyahoga is not the first or only river has caught on fire. It’s just the one that led to actual regulation.

Not me running tik tok to see the Michael Hobbs tik tok.

Calistoga bottled water used to have naturally occurring arsenic in it that was over what was allowed in tap water. Loved this episode! Thanks for doing the research Aubrey and Mike!

I'm not sure if I love my local art installation getting a shout-out on this episode 😂

I can STRONGLY recommend reading about Coca Cola's disastrous attempt to launch Dasani in the UK in 2004. UK bottled water is *always* "sourced from spring water". When the media found out Dasani was just filtered tap water they were *eviscerated*. Then high levels of contaminants were found in a batch. Absolute disaster. Joyful schadenfreude ❤️ https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/mar/19/foodanddrink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasani?wprov=sfla1

There are some other groups of people who may be vulnerable to dehydration because they may not receive or recognise thirst signals from their body. This can include neurodivergent (especially autistic) people, and people with certain chronic illnesses or brain injuries. In my case, a side effect of my Long Covid is that I rarely feel thirsty or hungry, so have to make a conscious effort to remind myself to eat and drink. This is especially challenging when extreme fatigue frequently leaves me bed bound.

I’m having flashbacks to college when the fraternity Fiji would give out Fiji water bottles (as opposed to the regular ol’ Ozarka water bottles) to potential new members as a flex. A lot to unpack there

I remember a news story from my childhood of parents who wanted to punish their four year old child for drinking kool-aid by forcing her to drink water. They tied her hands behind her back and made her drink. She died from her brain swelling.

All I can think is Aubrey missed a real opportunity to talk about poop with Mike. There is a huge thing about happy bowels and enough water, right?

I feel called out as someone who grew up in Italy and whose family always bought bottled water 😆

“Do you wanna drink duck shit?” 💩 🦆 😂

If the episodes aren’t an hour long i get dehydrated

Great episode, but I'm dying to know what Michael did once he found out that guy worked for RFK. You left us hanging, I need the gossip, auuuugggh!

The healthy boundaries of Michael saying “please don’t” when Aubrey wants to send him TikToks about himself 🙌🏻

Was waiting for someone in the comments to mention that the Hold Your Wii for a Wii DJ guy was Lori Vallows brother.

Great episode as ever 🤗 would love a bonus episode on either Herbalife or essential oils!

You forgot to test a crucial hydration myth “pee white, sing right.”

I was in South Korea a couple months ago on a guided tour and our local guide thought it was SO strange that us Americans were okay with drinking tap water, especially since the tour company provided bottled water for us. We asked her if the tap water was safe to drink, and she said, "Yes, it's very, very clean, it's tested every 6 months - but no one drinks it." 🙃 The bottled water industry has really done a number on our world!

Wait, the Grindr guy at the beginning of the episode says he works in politics but he works at the NIH. Shouldn’t he work in “science” or “health sciences”? I guess I’m thinking of the NIH from the before-time.

Thinking about my parents telling me if I was hungry to drink water and then wait half an hour because if "you think you're hungry you're probably thirsty"

Okay as a (non-native) Clevelander, thank you and I love you for the Fiji water shade. "Bitch, if you're gonna come for Cleveland, we're gonna come back" brb petitioning the city for a new slogan

I’m begging y’all to release this as main feed material. My mom is one of the ones that went down the rabbit hole and ended up getting water poisoning (long term). I think this is an easy in that a lot of the older generations can relate to. Many didn’t grow up drinking as much water as we do now and question it to some extent.

also the father ted joke of 'these cows are small and the ones outside are far away' comes up in my life way more than i ever thought it would! here we are again with faraway michael

Honestly, big shout out to Water Fire. The tradition and its origin are so zany and mob related. No stollen velour needed lol

I saw it was only 39 minutes long and thought to myself that maybe Mike can take a break from editing because my body & soul could use an unfiltered stream of consciousness spiral from yall right now 🙃

My friends and I call it the “Michael Hobbes Extended Universe”

I cannot wait for Michael and Aubrey toks to make their way to reels on Instagram because the idea of Michael pointing up at her is killing me

So the water / ecstasy thing is definitely not an urban legend; any Brit of a certain age will remember the case of Leah Betts, a teenager who took MDMA then panicked when her parents arrived home and tried to "wash out" the drugs with water. Iirc MDMA messes with your body's homeostatic control processes (which is also why it mucks up thermoregulation). Too much water probably less an issue than overheating, but it absolutely has caused fatalities

"some of my best friends are molecules of H2O" 😂🤪

I want to see a bonus cross-over episode with If Books Could Kill where you review Evie Magazine, the Peter Thiel-backed publication that tries to be a conservative Cosmo. Recent low-lights include the "raw milkmaid dress," claiming that the COVID vaccines cause miscarriages, and a glowing article about an influencer who is promoting eating disorders.

Jamie Loftus shout out!!!!!!

With all the talk about how clean municipal water is (and I do agree), all I could think of was how the cleanliness at the source means nothing if all the pipes are full of lead, ala Flint, Michigan.

I work as a private chef and am constantly in the homes of wealthy people. You wouldn’t believe how universally rich people live in areas with pristine municipal water, but then put a whole house reverse osmosis system in, but then just drink bottled water anyway

Got my tonsils out 4 weeks ago meaning I was really dehydrated and malnourished so I started drinking flavored water to get through it. The weird baggage people have with water additives is wild 💀 love this episode!

Between Michael's dabbling in political work on Grindr and Aubrey representing the Close Up American community, I had no choice but to point upwards and nod at my work desk several times. This is one of my favorite episodes of all time. You two are a fucking riot in a hard time.

As a fat lady who was on WW as a teen I remember that we were told that Diet Coke counted towards our water intake.

I was hoping they’d mention the “half your body weight in ounces” thing and how for fat people, that would be skewed.

I feel like my whole life with water has been an absolute lie. Also, I have deliberately stayed away from TikTok because I don't need another thing to doom scroll but...am I changing my mind now? MAYBE.

I’m only halfway through the episode, but I have to always be the person to bring up that there are still 38 boil water advisories in 36 First Nation communities in Canada. These advisories can last for years - I believe the longest one is about 30 years? There’s been a lot of progress made on ending boil water advisories but there’s still work to be done.

I’m an esthetician (skin care specialist) and my clients are constantly commenting on their water consumption in relation to their skin. My standard answer is “your skin is the very last organ that water is distributed to. Drink more water if you want but it’s not going to impact your skin in any noticeable way” Happy to hear yall mention that!

Thank you for talking about the issues with Fiji water. I lived there for a while and was dying at the description of the bottling plant. It’s like off the main highway and looks like a factory in one of the more industrialized areas of the main island. When I lived there, Fiji water also ran a WILD campaign that donated like a dollar per bottle sale to Feeding America. Which like, ok, but it was so obvious Fiji Water is exploiting the natural resource of land and people

Possible topic for a future episode? It feels very much exporting US-style fatphobia to other places around the globe via NGOs. How the AP talks about weightloss in this article is a big yikes https://apnews.com/article/kenya-obesity-diabetes-weight-health-7d2040af1fa84ac8039b26caf5b73767

Sort of adjacent to today’s episode but does anyone else remember Ellington Darden’s “super hydration “ system - basically chug a gallon+ of ICE water (and eat very little food)? Tried it (of course) and was a miserably cold constantly peeing person living in the bathroom. So when I see these inspo “rise and grind positivity” gallon jugs everywhere…I get flashbacks to that. 🥶

Truly did not realize that I was carrying around subconscious guilt about failing at hydration. Having Michael tell me I "don't really need to worry about it" was an unexpected balm to my soul.

"Do you want to drink duck shit?!" 😆😆😆 Have you all done an episode about genetically modified foods? "Common sense" says GMOs = Bad but it can't be that simple, right?

HOW am I not on Michael Hobbes tok??

Curious about electrolyte drink mixes as well. Do these really help with hydration?

Omg! Childhood trauma unlocked when they forced a book about a teen girl who died this way after taking ecstasy at a rave. That scared me straight!

I kind of love that this was the thing that finally led me to Google what exactly a gallon is. Imperial measurements are usually roughly half or double the metric equivalent (a pound is just under half a kg, an inch is about 2.5 cm) so I just sort of assumed a gallon was half a litre, or maybe two. Reader, one US liquid gallon is almost 3.8 LITRES, so that poor radio show contestant died after drinking seven and a half litres of water. My bladder hurts just thinking about it.

i <3 tap water though maybe it's time to talk to a doctor about my throat feeling too dry Constantly. i've never needed reminders to drink water or be told that it's healthy because i Always want to drink water. only recently realizing this might now be super common, oops

WATERFIRE MENTIONED holy shit

Am I a 6’2” fat lady or is everyone else just very far away?

I take medication for blood pressure and get a dry mouth, so I drink a ridiculous amount of water. Luckily I am in Tasmania, Australia and we have beautiful tap water. It’s pretty strange here for people to only drink bottled water.

30 years ago I had hyponatremia. At a rave. As described, all you had ever heard was that if you felt bad just drink more water. Seizure. Luckily, after a hospital visit, I was okay, but it really scared all of us.

the Cleveland Public Utilities Commission is so based

Even as a kid I would always worry what counted as water for my 8 glasses of water. Like would a smoothie count?

episodes that changed my brain chemistry…..

Municipality water worker here. THANK YOU. I have to do customer calls for water quality sampling and it is WILD the things people say about their tap water. I always tell them taste preference is just that, your preference, but don't mix science with marketing. Bottled water is more expensive and less regulated.

hey guys, I live in spain. I used to live in valencia where the water is super hard. you have to use a ton of fabric softener or your clothes come out like cardboard. so everyone buys bottled water for drinking, some even use it for cooking. now am in barcelona and very few people buy bottled water as the water is fine to drink. however, another factor here is that when you go to a restaurant and ask for water, they will always give you a bottle of it (w or without gas). it's totally a hustle to charge you. but you have no choice. you cannot get just a glass of water without making a huge stink. (I've seen people try) so that would account for the high numbers of bottled water sold here.

I heared your Wii U joke, Mike🫂

OMG, I’m an opera singer and I teach voice science, and all of my favorite myths to bust are about hydration. There’s allllll this stuff about caffeinated beverages being dehydrating, but you’d have to drink like GALLONS of coffee for this to be a problem (and also probably be dead, because if you’re alive your vocal cords are plenty hydrated). The other one, which is fun to share with my students who have Emotional Support Water Bottles, is that it takes 70-90 minutes for anything you ingest by mouth to hydrate your whole system. So drinking tons of water in your voice lesson isn’t that important—it’s more important that you are generally hydrating.

I just say shit all the time, too, Michael. Then all the imaginary follow-up conversations, ad infinitum.

No joke, someone I know took a drug test after drinking a lot of water (not trying to hide anything) and was told she needed to drink less water and do it again later because the urine was too dilute. So yes it potentially works, but they might be onto you if you do it.

I thought this was going to be about if you really needed 8 hours of sleep per day and my thought was "No, I need at least 9.5"

I know you're talking mostly about american municipal water but I feel a little disappointed that you didn't mention that Warsaw, Poland uses clams to monitor the municipal water quality. It's such a fun fact!

👆🙂‍↕️

Oh man I’m not surprised that the drink water before you eat is old, because before I heard it as diet advice, my great grandmother hated us to drink with meals because she thought we’d get too full of water and not eat our dinner

Another maintenance phase episode that is a you're wrong about episode. Loved it! Thanks!

Feeling so much better after listening to this. It is quite scary how people make up these arbitrary rules - calorie intake, water intake, etc and then they become gospel. Keep doing the good work, you two 😊

Was there anything in the research about hydration in pregnancy and breastfeeding? At least in Australia the recommendations are to drink even more , e.g. like 2.5-3 litres and I feel/felt so awful if I didn't manage some days

as an english person who was bought up drinking mostly squash/cordial (orange squash or vimto for us) i was so confused by how much people didnt like the 'adding flavoured stuff to water' ! sure i drink 'plain' water too but vimto is really tasty

I remember being told, "Are you hungry or do you just need to drink water? Drink x amount of water and wait" as a teenager - just left me feeling tired and constantly peeing. My whole Australian reaction to Watertok was, "Oh, the Americans have discovered.... cordial?" Is cordial a thing in the US? The thing that got me about Watertok was watching people using bottled water in their Stanley cups - so it was really confusing to have this reusable cup but using a few small bottles of water to fill it up. (And for a fun ride I might go back and relisten to the Dollop about the Resnicks and Fiji water.) My other half works in the gas industry, so working out in the driest bits of Australia - and in some places they are so concerned with preventing dehydration that there's a "pee log" where you have to record when you go and the colour - so if you don't log enough trips or record anything darker than "tangerine sunset" you have to sit the shift out in the medi-bay. We have a lot of shade descriptions going on in our house on a regular basis...

Just because the issue of purifying water has come up a few times now: Having to add chemicals to purify US municipal water supplies has to do with the US largely relying on open reservoirs (where, yes, animals will have pooped or died in the water). In places where you drill for water underground, chemicals are not added to purify, because it isn't necessary. I'm in Denmark and we switched from open reservoirs to ground water in... the 1800s? around the time bacteria and its role in disease was discovered.

mike yelling "do you want to drink duck shit" was so funny, I want to just package up that clip and listen to it on repeat thank you

I love how Michael went from being disturbed by MichaelTok to coming up with ways of making hilarious new tiktoks based on the ones about him and friends

How 👏 many 👏 jobs 👏 Michael? Has anyone made a "Michael Hobbes Job Tracker"?

my work puts up health tips on the restroom doors for some reason, and last year we realized that they were probably AI generated when it said we should drink 8 cups of water 8 times a day (aka FOUR GALLONS)

Fun fact: One of the "holding your wee for a wii" radio DJs is the brother of child killer/religious zealot Lori Vallow Daybell.

bout to find out if I should be a hydrohomie or hydrohater

I never felt so thirsty listening to an episode 😂 chugging my water at the train station

Wait, Michael is 5'6?!? Felt seen by this short king all this time but somehow learning he's an inch taller than me makes him one of the talls for my brain.

Can you guys make a main feed episode about the science behind putting fluoride in drinking water? Local governments around the US are having this “debate” and I think it would help if you guys raised awareness about the science and the cold hard facts.

Let’s GOooo

the episode I've DREAMED of!!

At this point, I'd be more shocked if the answer was yes 😂 excited to dive into this one, thanks!

First! Immediately stopped listening to some of my favorite songs to hear you two yap about water

So excited yay!!