Water CAN make you fat?

How water CAN make you fat: chemicals in drink can trigger weight gain and fertility problems | Mail Online

Can water make you fat? It sounds absurd, the kind of suggestion peddled by some New Age psycho-babble diet.

After all, can there be anything in our diet that equals the critically important role played by water in maintaining our health?

Water is the foundation of life, the major content of most organisms, the primary component of our cells and is responsible for aiding thousands of chemical processes in the body.

What is more, there is surely nothing more refreshing than a long, cool, sparklingly clear glass of water poured straight from the tap?

As a doctor of more than 20 years' standing, the answer has to be a resounding no.

Yet when we do drink it, how many of us get the healthy water we deserve?

Thanks to the possible pollutants that are so difficult to remove from our water supply, it has been linked to a number of health complaints - and yes, it may even trigger weight gain.

Even calorie-free water can affect our body fat levels if chemicals that disturb hormonal activity leach into our supply and drive up our chances of putting on weight.

Celebrities trying to keep trim and maintain a youthful look drink up to 3 litres of water a day.

WATER WITH EXTRAS

Our tap water is, by and large, safe and mostly free of the bugs that cause the gastric infections and waterborne diseases in other parts of the world.

The main purification processes are good at freeing our supply of these potentially harmful microorganisms --although a recent report found that 40 per cent of water in London still has a lead content that is higher than European regulations. (Lead in water has been linked to abnormal brain development in unborn babies.)

Indeed, though I live in beautiful rural Yorkshire, where you'd think the water would come sparkling out of the tap, it is a fairly unappetising colour thanks to the old (though not lead) pipes that serve my home.

Problems such as this arise because filtration does not always sift out up to 60,000 dissolvable chemicals that can get into our water supply.

Among these are the so-called gender-bending chemicals such as Bisphenol A (BPA) - used in the manufacture of plastics such as babies' bottles - which various studies have linked to reproductive difficulties, as well as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

A recent study by Harvard School of Public Health found that those who drank from bottles made with BPA showed a two-thirds increase of the chemical in their urine.