Why Water?
When you walk around the lake-front of the small town where I live, there is a natural spring.
I became interested in it when I went into menopause. Not because of its aesthetic value, but because it reminded me of the small mountain village in Switzerland, which is home to a source of glacial water that runs down off the towering mountains above and into the troughs in the village.
In previous visits to this alpine village, I thought that the troughs were for animals, but they aren’t. The locals drink this water and according to the World Health Organisation, this village has pristine water that is ranked high in it’s calcium and magnesium content.
Yes indeed, 1 litre of this water delivers around 520mg of calcium per litre. That’s half of our total calcium intake of 1200mg per day. Drink 2 litres daily and there is your calcium intake done and dusted without a calcium supplement in sight.
I’ve been reminded of the incredible healing effects of both the natural alpine water in Switzerland and the local spring where I fill my water bottles each week, because of the numerous discussions on social media, extolling the benefits of all sorts of supplements and protein powders etc for menopause symptoms, however, not once have I seen the recommendation for water.
The body’s first need for health during and after menopause, is not peptides or proteins, but water. The human body contains about 60% water – a total of around 42L in a 70 kg person.
Water acts as the core medium and regulator for maintaining homeostasis – the regulation of metabolism in the body. The balance of fluid inputs and outputs helps to regulate the HPA-Thyroid Axis too – the neurochemical and hormonal axis that typically gets out of balance as women move through menopause.
Water keeps cell volumes stable and internal conditions steady.
So, if you are feeling hot, more tired than usual and your blood pressure is elevated, then perhaps what you really need isn’t all the supplements and muscle growth powders you are reading about on social media. Instead, perhaps you need to explore your water intake and a good quality spring water, which may contain various minerals, such as calcium, magnesium and phosphorus that your changing organs during and after menopause needs.
One of these organs is your gut. Sufficient water intake maintains your gut microbiome and immune homeostasis [Sato et al., 2024], as well as regulating body temperature and blood pressure.
Water Intake and Effect on the Gut Microbiome
As the UK and Europe have been experiencing unprecedented heat waves over the past week and down here in the South of New Zealand it is extremely cold, water intake has been on my mind.
Whilst we all know that we should be drinking enough water to remain cool (around 2L daily), did you know that the type and quality of water also affects the gut microbiome too? In turn, this impacts your hot flushes, fatigue and your blood pressure.
The effect of drinking water on the gut microbiome is poorly understood mentions a relatively recent study (Vanhaecke, Britten et al, 2022). The authors were exploring the associations of plain drinking water source and intake with gut and oral microbiota compositions in a population-based cohort.
Factors such as lifestyle and diet are now widely recognized as key drivers of gut and oral microbiome compositions, so it was interesting that this study was one of the first times that water quality, amount and type had been positioned in gut health research and microbiota composition.
The researchers set out to explore the relations of plain drinking water source and intake with the composition of the gut and oral microbiota in a large cohort of self-selected participants, some from the US Gut Health Project and others from the United Kingdom.
Water is the main component of the body and represents approximately 76% of muscle mass, so for women entering menopause and for those of you in post-menopause, our water intake and quality matters to our health and our symptoms.
We all know that drinking water comes from various origins – albeit these days, primarily via plastic bottles or boxes purchased at the supermarket! But what type of water (tap-water, well-water, filtered water or bottled water) is best for our gut microbiota? This is what this study attempted to explore.
Tap water is obviously subjected to different treatments before its consumption. Whereas natural mineral water, spring water, and well water, such as in the village where I live and in the Swiss mountain village where I visit occasionally, comes from groundwater, tap water originates either from surface water or from groundwater, but undergoes various treatments depending on government and community requirements and regulations. Common treatments control the chemical and mineral composition in tap water.
As the authors mentioned, “consumed in large amounts on a daily basis, drinking water may be considered a potential source of microbial gut diversity” (p. 172). For women going into and through menopause, their gut diversity matters.
Whilst I’ve talked about this in other articles such as this one HERE, this is just a reminder that the health of our gut influences sleep, temperature regulation, brain fog, anxiety and depression. All symptoms which frustrate numerous women during their menopause transition.
The Amount of Water Intake Influences your Gut Health
Whilst this new research focused on both men and women, 56% of subjects who qualified for the study were mid-life women.
That’s what piqued my interest in it as well as the fact that this study was perhaps the first to specifically explore the links between drinking water consumption, in terms of both origin and amount consumed, and the microbiota of the digestive tract independently of a wide range of confounding factors (demographics, lifestyle, and diet) in a large sample of the general population.
So, what did the study find?
- Drinking water source was among the major contributing factors to the variation in gut microbiota composition.
- Subjects drinking mostly well water had higher faecal microbiota and diversity than the groups drinking either bottled, tap, or filtered water. This higher diversity is beneficial to gut health.
- The amount of water drunk was also associated with differences in gut microbiota composition between participants who consumed low and high amounts of drinking water. Participants who ranked as low water drinkers (less than 1L daily) were found to have poorer gut microbiome diversity.
Lower gut bacterial diversity, has consistently been associated with impaired gut health and lifestyle diseases. When the gut microbial community has greater diversity, the immune system may be more resilient and robust against environmental influences.
Hence, higher diversity appears a hallmark of healthy gut microbiomes and the researchers concluded that yes indeed, where we source our water from and how much we drink may be an important influence on gut health.
Over the past decade, women from around the world have joined me on the joined me in the MyMT™ programmes.
I’m so grateful that they have, because I want them to discover the powerful strategies that I’ve spent years researching to turn around our health, weight and symptoms in menopause and post-menopause naturally without the need for endless expensive supplements.
Furthermore, A growing body of evidence has implicated the gut microbiome—the trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that inhabit the digestive tract—in COVID-19 severity. [BMJ, 25/01/2022] This is an important point to note for recovery purposes – your gut health matters!
Whether you are having to face the heat wave up there in the Northern Hemisphere, or you live in areas where it’s cold in the Southern Hemisphere where I am, then this is your reminder that in order to help your gut health and therefore, your menopause symptoms, one of your goals is to drink water – and according to this research, preferably water sourced underground from a well.
When you have time, have a listen to my video below as to how my 12 week coaching programmes work, or jump on the website to take the MyMT™ Symptoms Quiz or read about my 2 hr Masterclass on Menopause (and yes, you can ‘pause’ me anytime).
Dr Wendy Sweet (PhD)/ MyMT™ Founder/ Member: Australasian & British Societies of Lifestyle Medicine.
References:
Daniels MC, Popkin BM. Impact of water intake on energy intake and weight status: a systematic review. Nutr Rev. 2010 Sep;68(9):505-21. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2010.00311.x. PMID: 20796216; PMCID: PMC2929932.
Popkin BM, D’Anci KE, Rosenberg IH. Water, hydration, and health. Nutr Rev. 2010 Aug;68(8):439-58. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2010.00304.x. PMID: 20646222; PMCID: PMC2908954.
Sato K, Hara-Chikuma M, Yasui M, Inoue J, Kim YG. Sufficient water intake maintains the gut microbiota and immune homeostasis and promotes pathogen elimination. iScience. 2024 May 3;27(6):109903. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109903. PMID: 38799550; PMCID: PMC11126815.
Vanhaecke, T., Bretin, O., Poirel, M. & Tap, J. (2022). Drinking Water Source and Intake Are Associated with Distinct Gut Microbiota Signatures in US and UK Populations, The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 152, Issue 1, January 2022, Pages 171–182.
Wasserfurth P, Schneider I, Ströhle A, Nebl J, Bitterlich N, Hahn A. Effects of mineral waters on acid-base status in healthy adults: results of a randomized trial. Food Nutr Res. 2019 Dec 3;63. doi: 10.29219/fnr.v63.3515. PMID: 31839789; PMCID: PMC6901030.
