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FUNNY~! Drinking Water DOES NOT Hydrate!
Renegade:
Yeah seriously! Dehydration as a medical/biological state was obviously defined in such a way that the claim the water will cure it is not medically proven enough that companies can go around claiming their products are a cure.
-Eóin (November 20, 2011, 05:28 PM)
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Actually, that's not a correct characterization.
The Panel notes that dehydration was identified as the disease by the applicant. Dehydrationis a condition of body water depletion. Upon request for clarification on the risk factor, the applicant proposed “water loss in tissues” or “reduced water content in tissues” as risk factors, the reduction of which was proposed to lead to a reduction of the risk of development of dehydration. The Panel notes that the proposed risk factors are measures of water depletion and thus are measures of the disease (dehydration).
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In a living organism, “water loss in tissues” or “reduced water content in tissues” are "dehydration".
The panel there simply stated that the 'risk factors' are not 'risk factors' and are merely 'measures' of dehydration. As risk factor would be something like being stranded in the desert, or whatever.
There is no mention or implication of any condition that causes dehydration, e.g. a virus, diarrhea, vomiting, etc.
As a concrete example, there is no claim that drinking water will 'cure' diarrhea.
To expand the quote above:
FROM:
“water loss in tissues” or “reduced water content in tissues” as risk factors, the reduction of which was proposed to lead to a reduction of the risk of development of dehydration.
TO:
the reduction of ("water loss in tissues" or "reduced water content in tissues") was proposed to lead to a reduction of the risk of development of ("water loss in tissues" or "reduced water content in tissues").
i.e. It's trivial, as I stated above.
But seriously, only Humpty Dumpty would characterize "dehydration" as a "disease".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty#In_Through_the_Looking-Glass
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
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The issue seems to be the dehydration is a symptom which can have causes other than simply not drinking enough. In such cases drinking water is not a cure. If you even just read to the end of the article you linked you'd have realised this.
-Eóin (November 20, 2011, 05:28 PM)
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As above, that's not a correct characterization of the claim.
The claim was a trivial one. There was nothing extraordinary or non-trivial in the claim, and no mention of any cause beyond “water loss in tissues” and “reduced water content in tissues”, which is merely to say, "dehydration", which occurs naturally all the time. Breathing slowly dehydrates you, etc. etc. Your body loses water all the time. This IS dehydration. Perhaps not extreme, but it is none the less, dehydration. The claim makes no mention of degree of dehydration.
i.e. (Re)hydration is the opposite of dehydration.
If you are dehydrated, then you need to drink water. If you are drinking enough water, you will not become dehydrated (under normal conditions).
Claims about curing diarrea or some other condition are entirely different.
If you have severe diarrea, drinking water is little different than pouring water into a glass with a hole in the bottom. Are you "hydrating"? Yes. Is it doing any good? No. Because the rate of dehydration is greater than any possible rate of hydration that you can achieve. The issue there is not about de/hydration, the issue is about diarrea accelerating dehydration beyond any capacity to hydrate.
The claim made no mention of extraordinary factors.
Under normal conditions, drinking water will rehydrate you and prevent dehydration. Everyone experiences this whenever they are thirsty. There is no magic there.
Companies shouldn't be allowed to make medical claims willy-nilly and the only way to stop them is through regulations.
-Eóin (November 20, 2011, 05:28 PM)
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Absolutely agreed about not making medical claims.
As for regulation, I have no strong opinion on that topic at the moment. My inclination is that corporations are so psychopathic and corrupt, that regulation is needed.
But as usual people don't care about the actual case or the facts behind it, it's more fun to assume everyone else is stupid and if that means misrepresenting facts and outright lying most people are happy.
-Eóin (November 20, 2011, 05:28 PM)
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It's still completely hilarious. The claim is trivial, and it took the EFSA 3 years to figure it out. 3 YEARS! With 21 scientists!
Renegade:
More on the hilarious front:
http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459.full
Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials
Abstract
Objectives To determine whether parachutes are effective in preventing major trauma related to gravitational challenge.
Design Systematic review of randomised controlled trials.
Data sources: Medline, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases; appropriate internet sites and citation lists.
Study selection: Studies showing the effects of using a parachute during free fall.
Main outcome measure Death or major trauma, defined as an injury severity score > 15.
Results We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention.
Conclusions As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.
...
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That's just excellent~! ;D
You really must read the whole thing though.
The point of the BMJ parachute experiment proposal is to suggest that it's ok to not be a complete buffoon and that some things can be safely taken at face value.
Eóin:
I would think it took 3 years because of how borderline the claim is. In the end they decided you can't claim drinking water reduced the risk of dehydration because the "risk-factors" were so badly defined.
Simple really, if you want to claim your product reduces the risk-factors of something, you'd really want to know what those risk factors are. These guys clearly didn't.
If someone else can come along and show otherwise the regulations will undoubtedly be changed. The media won't report that of course, because that would be boring.
mrainey:
Maybe the manufacturers should be required to include a line stating that drinking large amounts of water in a short period of time can result in death (which is true).
Renegade:
I would think it took 3 years because of how borderline the claim is. In the end they decided you can't claim drinking water reduced the risk of dehydration because the "risk-factors" were so badly defined.
-Eóin (November 20, 2011, 09:49 PM)
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The original claim is just as silly as the response. Ask a silly question, get a silly answer? :P
Simple really, if you want to claim your product reduces the risk-factors of something, you'd really want to know what those risk factors are. These guys clearly didn't.
-Eóin (November 20, 2011, 09:49 PM)
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Yep. Which only makes the whole thing all that much funnier~! ;D
If someone else can come along and show otherwise the regulations will undoubtedly be changed. The media won't report that of course, because that would be boring.
-Eóin (November 20, 2011, 09:49 PM)
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The media rarely reports anything useful.
Actually, I like the communist China English news. It's a refreshing perspective. Slanted? Sure. But still refreshing.
Al Jazeera is excellent. Again, a much broader perspective that's nice to hear from.
Maybe the manufacturers should be required to include a line stating that drinking large amounts of water in a short period of time can result in death (which is true).
-mrainey (November 20, 2011, 09:59 PM)
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That would be hilarious!
What would be even better is to have some bottler package their water in slightly smaller bottles, e.g. 495 ml vs. 500 ml bottles, then claim that their water is less deadly than the competition~! ;D In some twisted way, it would be true... :P
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