Loma Linda
University reveals first study on correlation between high
water intake and lowered coronary heart disease
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Jacqueline Chan, DrPH and Synnove Knutsen, MD,
PhD
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In 1999, nearly
530,000 people died from coronary heart disease. More than
half of them had no previous symptoms of heart disease.
Drinking high levels of water can significantly reduce the
risk of coronary heart disease, say researchers at Loma
Linda University.
In a press
conference held Thursday, April 25, the results of a study
to be published in the American Journal of Epidemiology
(Vol. 155, No.9) reveal that drinking high amounts of plain
water is as important as exercise, diet, or
not smoking in preventing coronary heart disease.
“Basically, not drinking enough water can be as harmful to
your heart as smoking,” warns Jacqueline
Chan, DrPH, principle investigator and lead author of the
article.
Dr. Chan and Synnove
Knutsen, MD, PhD , second author, chair of epidemiology
department, found that California Seventh-day Adventists who
drink five or more glasses of plain water a day have a much
lower risk of fatal coronary heart disease compared to those
who drink less than two glasses per day.
The study, “Water,
Other Fluids, and Fatal Coronary Heart Disease,” indicates
that whole blood viscosity, plasma viscosity, hematocrit,
and fibrinogen which are considered independent risk factors
for coronary heart disease, can be elevated by
dehydration.
The water study
is part of the original Adventist Health Study, which began
in 1973. Both researchers are also coinvestigators for the
new Adventist Health Study.
The results from
this study show that by drinking more plain water, healthy
people—without any history of heart disease, stroke, or
diabetes—reduced their risk of dying from a heart
attack by half or more. This is as much or more
than if they had adopted any other well-known preventive
measure, including stopping smoking and lowering cholesterol
levels, increasing exercise or maintaining ideal weight.
While not as
glamorous, the degree of benefit from drinking plain water
surpasses that of drinking a moderate amount of alcohol
intake and aspirin with none of the adverse side effects
(social or physiological). Because drinking more plain water
is a simple lifestyle change that anybody can do,
this simple practice has the potential of saving tens of
thousands of lives each year with minimal costt.
Neither total fluid intake, nor intake of
other fluids combined showed this reduced risk. Instead, for
women, high intake (5 or more glasses a day) of
other fluids showed a greatly
increased risk of coronary heart disease.
“People need to be made aware that there is a
difference, at least for heart health, whether they
get their fluids from plain water or from sodas,” says Dr.
Chan.
According to Dr.
Chan, this is the first study to record the association
between high water intake and reduced risk of coronary heart
disease.
“This study needs
to be replicated, and if similar results are found, then
this would be the cheapest and simplest method of preventing
coronary heart disease that could be imagined,”adds Gary
Fraser, MD, PhD, cardiologist at the LLU Heart Institute,
and principal investigator for the new Adventist Health
Study.
