Is Drinking a lot of Water Good for my Skin?

For years we have been hearing that in order to keep your skin healthy you need to drink eight glasses of water a day. A lot of people have just accepted this as being true without really thinking about how much water they really need. So is drinking a lot of water good for your skin?

The subject of drinking a lot of water for the health of your skin has become somewhat controversial. The traditional view has been that drinking water was essential to keeping your skin properly hydrated. The belief is that the only way to avoid dry skin was to keep the insides of your body properly hydrated. As a result it has been recommended for years now that we drink at least eight glasses of water every day. This belief has been called into question by recent research however which has raised questions about just how much water we really need.

Recent research has demonstrated that dry skin is not really related to the amount of water that you drink. In reality unless you are severely dehydrated it has no real impact at all. Instead dry skin largely comes down to the environment, how may oil glands you have and how much oil they produce. It also appears that how good a job you do of cleansing your face is also a key factor. Interestingly all of those moisturizing products that you see on the market seem to offer no real benefit either.

While drinking lots of water may not affect the dryness of your skin there are still reasons that you may want to continue to do so. The biggest is that it is well established that drinking lots of water will help to flush the toxins out your system. This will help to keep you healthy which is critical if you are going to have healthy looking skin. In addition drinking lots of water can help prevent the formation of things like acne since this is usually caused by the toxins in your system as well.

Given all of the above the question has to be asked as to how much water you should be drinking each day. Certainly there are benefits to drinking lots of water however the standard recommendation of eight glasses a day is probably excessive. Part of the problem with a recommendation of eight glasses a day is that it doesn't allow for differences between people. Should a 250 pound man and a 110 pound women really be consuming the same amount of water. There is also the issue of the climate where you live, there will obviously be different needs if you live in an area that gets very hot. In general the average sized person should probably be fine with four glasses a day of water however this will need to be adjusted for factors like climate and your size.