Water doesn't hydrate, pizza's a vegetable, your life is a lie

[Bob The Mercenary]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/EU-bans-claim-that-water-can-prevent-dehydration.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/kristin-wartman/pizza-is-a-vegetable_b_1101433.html

I really don't have much in the way of coherent comments on either of these stories and was more interested in everyone else's take.

[Magus]

Well, Mr. Dole, we knew about pizza being a vegetable (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=41030), but now that I've found out that water doesn't prevent dehydration, I can go back to drinking what I was before they invented water: motor oil! It keeps your bowels nicely lubricated, cleans and protects, and can keep you going for up to 7500 miles with the new synthetic blends!

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Next you're going to tell me dogs and cats are living together.

[BitVyper]

I... kind of see where the guys who denied them the right to make the claim are coming from, but it's mostly just incredibly pedantic. Like, I guess their position on the matter is that drinking a whole bunch of water water doesn't make your body mitigate dehydration any better, it just hydrates you. Like I could be drinking ten glasses of water a day, but drinking lots of water doesn't make me retain that water any better if I decide to go take a twelve hour walk in the desert. The claim, so we're clear, is “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration.” The guy calling the panel that denied this claim stupid, says “Of course water hydrates," but that's not really what the claim says. Or at least it could be interpretted otherwise.

I mean the whole thing is stupid, but I guess they aren't being totally unreasonable here. This application WAS made for the purpose of testing the law, so you can't really blame them for responding to it as if it weren't something everyone considers self-evident. They're making clear what you can and can't get away with.

[Mr.Bookworm]

EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.

Welp, world is fucked, time to start over.

[Magus]

A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control.

See, this makes perfect sense. It's like how reduced blood content is simply a symptom of massive bleeding. Giving you more blood isn't going to help you! The freaking Red Cross is just a pointless dog-and-pony show, a horrible waste of our tax dollars!

[Mr.Bookworm]

I mean the whole thing is stupid, but I guess they aren't being totally unreasonable here.

No, it is completely and totally fucking unreasonable in anything but the most pedantic sense.

Manufacturers can make ridiculous claims that are either technically true in the most technical sense or outright lies, that's not exactly a state secret. But instead of doing anything about that, the EU chose to plant the fucking line on the claim that water can prevent dehydration.

christ

[Mr.Bookworm]

following a three-year investigation

I mean I guess it was completely and totally vital to the health of a critically imperiled governmental body that they spend three years worth of money on examining the claim that water can prevent dehydration.

[Magus]

CRITICAL JUNCTURE: Will bottled water companies appeal the decision or simply change their claim of "helps prevent dehydration" to "helps keep you hydrated"???

[BitVyper]

No, it is completely and totally fucking unreasonable in anything but the most pedantic sense.

Manufacturers can make ridiculous claims that are either technically true in the most technical sense or outright lies, that's not exactly a state secret. But instead of doing anything about that, the EU chose to plant the fucking line on the claim that water can prevent dehydration.

christ

I'm just gonna point to my edit here:

This application WAS made for the purpose of testing the law, so you can't really blame them for responding to it as if it weren't something everyone considers self-evident. They're making clear what you can and can't get away with.

The wording in this claim about water could potentially allow it to be interpretted as something that isn't really true. Obviously as far as hydration goes, that's not really a concern, but it could be if the claim had been about the benefits of say, a health drink. I don't really know how these applications work, but this one seems like a sleazy way to trick someone into giving you precedent to wield later on.

Edit: As for how long it took... eh, that doesn't mean they actually put a lot of resources and manpower into it.

[Archbio]

It's like how reduced blood content is simply a symptom of massive bleeding. Giving you more blood isn't going to help you! The freaking Red Cross is just a pointless dog-and-pony show, a horrible waste of our tax dollars!

I think your analogy brings the distinction the officials were making into sharper relief, as it were. Like, with drink water, preventing dehydratation and hydrating seem like they'd amount to the same thing most of the time.

But if I doctor sees a patient with massive bleeding and thinks "transfusion prevents blood loss" then you're going to have a problem.

[Magus]

A blood transfusion while suffering from bleeding can help keep you from dying as quickly while they patch you up, though. So it's not a completely broken analogy! Only mostly broken.

Basically if you are suffering from dehydration water is at least part of the cure.

[Krylo]

But the water wouldn't (necessarily/in all cases) prevent it.

A blood transfusion won't prevent massive blood loss. It is merely a treatment for it. Water doesn't prevent dehydration (in all cases), it's merely a treatment for it.

If they had asked for permission to say that water hydrates, then it'd probably be allowed. And if they had allowed it as it is, it would/could set precedent and potentially allow for companies to later sell cough syrup as 'prevents cold symptoms', or equally silly things.

The problem with saying 'prevents (issue)', when something is actually just part of the treatment for the issue, is that it implies you should have it all the time, even when said issue isn't happening. Which is fine for water, but isn't fine for everything else, and with laws you have to worry about setting precedents that companies could later leverage to push through more things until the labeling is all entirely pointless.

Edit: Also this: “This claim is trying to imply that there is something special about bottled water which is not a reasonable claim.”

I mean, do you want every single drinkable fluid in the supermarket to advertise that it prevents dehydration on the label? Wouldn't that be silly?

[Thadius]

Which is fine for water, but isn't fine for everything else, and with laws you have to worry about setting precedents that companies could later leverage to push through more things until the labeling is all entirely pointless.

You say that like the labeling isn't already pointless.

Hell if you have to put on a label that states what your product does that is not made self-evident in the name, then either you've chosen a really exotic name, or your product does something really weird.

But back to the topic. So water does not prevent dehydration in all cases. Sorta like saying breathing does not prevent asphyxiation in all cases.

Wait I might have done this wrong.

[Amake]

Now we just have to spend five years figuring out the exact meaning of the word "prevent". Like, if you take 1cc of water five minutes prior to going out into the sun and getting your dehydration on, the part of that dehydration that is pre-emptively compensated for by that water could probably be said to be prevented.

Or maybe they're going to be forced to change the wording to "Pre-emptively compensates for dehydration". That would be pretty funny.

[Marc v4.0]

I want to know who could honestly give enough shits about this to carry it on for 3 years.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I want to know who could honestly give enough shits about this to carry it on for 3 years.

^This. I mean this is a thing that someone has actually done. There are scientists out there who are trying to like, find cures for cancer and aids, and and figure out how to grow better crops faster to prevent famines, and these people are concerned with the labelling implications of bottled water?

God damnit humanity, I want to head desk so hard right now.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

.............really, EU? Fuckin, really?

Shit like this is making me depressed.

Professor has always said it best:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/original/000/126/314/3cd8a33a.png?1306264975

[PyrosNine]

This is less an issue of science and more an issue of terminology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehydration). Dehydration is actually two different types of Dehydration, one being a need for water, and the other being a need for the electrolytes commonly found in water, like salt.

Conveniently, drinking water can cure both, for the most part, but if you have the need for salt or electrolytes, bottled water won't actually help you.

The problem is that both the language of science and the EU's ruling use the catch-all Dehydration for both, so it means it's both technically true and not true at the same time. Instead of simply realizing that all that needs to be done is simply refer to the second type of Dehydration as something else, or by it's specific name, the fixture of the English language made them make a contradictory and somewhat silly statement.

Yes, if you have severe dehydration (usually the type 2 kind, and for a long period) you probably need more than just bottled water, you need Gatorade, solid food, medical help. However, for most cases of dehydration bottled water (preferably with some sort of mineral content)

Really, there should have simply been a "you can't use it unless you specifically dictate WHICH Dehydration it can fix or prevent" or simply stated that only bottled water that had more advanced dehydration elements could be used. A bottle of water that says "prevents dehydration" is not a misleading claim for a wide margin, to the same extent that a can of soup will help protect me from heart disease.

The optimal bottle of water should say "prevents dehydration*'

*combined with a proper diet and no present health problems"

Either way, the committee and decision were a waste of time and money when WIKIPEDIA IT"S FREAKING SELF could explain the extent that water could help with dehydration, in both cases! (Wiki Editor's/Advanced Research Assistant's Note: By also following the Wiki's citations to see the supporting material and verifying their sources, as should any student/researcher who uses Wikipedia as an information resource.)

FAAAAAAAIIIIIIIILLLLLL!

[Arhra]

This whole water thing is just poor journalism.

Check sources, people! (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2011/nov/18/1?INTCMP=SRCH)

For the actual conclusion of the study:

The claimed effect is “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance”. The target population is assumed to be the general population. Dehydration is a condition of body water depletion. The proposed risk factors are measures of water depletion and thus are measures of the disease. The proposed claim does not comply with the requirements for a disease risk reduction claim pursuant to Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006.

Hurr, durr, they rejected it because the applicant didn't meet the requirement that 'The Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 defines reduction of disease risk claims as claims which state that the consumption of a food "significantly reduces a risk factor in the development of a human disease."'

You see the applicant provided "water depletion in body tissue" as the risk factor. The panel concluded that this is a measure of the 'disease' (dehydration), not a risk factor.

Here's an absurd example to get the point across:

"Regular transfusion of significant amounts of blood can reduce the risk of development of blood loss and of concomitant decrease of performance."

Feel free to get as angry as you like about the pizza = vegetable thing though. That be crazy, yo.

[Kerensky287]

See, for me, it's a catch-22.

One option is that the EU, in a position of massive power, has come to believe that drinking water does not stop you from becoming thirsty. This means that entirely the wrong people are in power.

The other option, though, which assumes Ahrha's interpretation, is that not only do we have people trying to prescribe water as almost a vaccine for disease prevention, but we have people stupid enough to believe them.

In either case, I think I'm about done with Earth.

[Nique]

Ima be a slogan writer!

' "Drink" bottled" "water"... It's "good" for "you"! '

[Meister]

I really don't have much in the way of coherent comments on either of these stories and was more interested in everyone else's take.

Please avoid creating new threads with only one or a few links and/or very little input in the initial post. Ideally if you want to start a discussion about something you found on the net or elsewhere, you'll provide a link and quote liberally from your source, and give us your own take on whatever you're linking.
You guys got a thread going now, that's fair enough, carry on. We'd just like to avoid having NPF turn into a private comment-on-news community.

e: vv nope, that's straight from the general rules thread. News is just even stricter (more or less used-to-be by now I guess).

[rpgdemon]

I thought that quoting and stuff only applied in the News subforum?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Poor journalism is poor. Carry on.

[Arhra]

See, for me, it's a catch-22.

One option is that the EU, in a position of massive power, has come to believe that drinking water does not stop you from becoming thirsty. This means that entirely the wrong people are in power.

The other option, though, which assumes Ahrha's interpretation, is that not only do we have people trying to prescribe water as almost a vaccine for disease prevention, but we have people stupid enough to believe them.

In either case, I think I'm about done with Earth.

Firstly, while the document is written in a legalese style, that is what it said.

Secondly, it was submitted as a 'test exercise' by two professors.