Drinking cold fluids when feeling hot - harmful?

Life Health & Fitness
1

Please help settle an issue once and for all.

I say that consuming a cold beverage when I feel hot and sweaty is OK. Americans do it all the time with no apparent ill effect. Hey, the Finns take saunas and then roll in the snow.

She says it’s harmful. It causes inability to lose weight, weakens the immune system, harms the organs due to the shock of cold on hot, and a host of other bad things. (“Americans do it all the time, eh? No wonder they’re fat and unhealthy!”)

It’s not enough to say “You do it your way; I’ll do it my way; let’s leave it at that.” Is there any truth to the idea that consuming an icy beverage (even just icy water) on a hot day is bad? Is it just yin-yang hokum? If it does have an effect, is it negligible or significant?

Any scientific studies made?

2

It is bad if you are Asian :slight_smile: There that will keep you in the honey with your honey. Why fight? Agree ! (to dis-agree)

3

Science?..SCIENCE?..folk tales like this one are impervious to scientific inquiry.

This is a constant issue with the wife and myself. She always uses the “they said” approach.
Something along the line of cold water makes the “fat/cholesterol in your blood stick together” and this will make you have heart attack.
“They said” it will cause your chi to stick.
Stick where, Dear?
In your chi thing place where it moves.

Uh…OK.

If I ever find out who “They” are…‘They’ got a lot of ‘splain’ to do!.. :loco:

4

Chris,
I remember that this very subject was broached a while back on Forumosa, and the hot drinks are healthier thing was scientifically, empirically refuted. I just can’t remember who started the thread or when. :blush:

5

When my local friends use ‘they said so’, they mean one or more of the following:

mother
friends
local TV
Apple Daily or Next Magazine

6

Ask urodacus.

7

I hear either too hot or too cold just cause some burning or stomach upset respectively.

But yes it is a myth that cold drinks will cause your fat to “stick” and explode out of your chest like face-hugger spawn

don’t know how accurate this is:

chestofbooks.com/health/natural- … Meals.html

8

[quote=“Huaxia”]I hear either too hot or too cold just cause some burning or stomach upset respectively.

But yes it is a myth that cold drinks will cause your fat to “stick” and explode out of your chest like face-hugger spawn

don’t know how accurate this is:

chestofbooks.com/health/natural- … Meals.html[/quote]

Finally some sense out of you. :bravo:

9

I would search PubMed: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

Cold water helps regulate body temperature when you’re overheating, but then that’s obvious. I drink it after vigorous exercise. But cold water when your body isn’t hot isn’t considered good from a Chinese medicine (TCM) POV because your body has to use it’s own energy stores to heat the water. This draws body heat away from the limbs, reducing blood flow to the joints and organs.

From a TCM POV, it’s also bad for digestion because you’re diluting the stomach acid and cooling the stomach down when it wants to heat up for digestion.

I mostly buy the TCM POV on this but I still have cold drinks when I’m hot. If I get any grumbling, I just say that Caucasians are used to a cooler climate. :laughing:

10

In Burma during the war sergeant-major used to insist all the lads drank hot chai in summer. Hot drinks in summer encourage perspiration which helps the body cool down.

11

I think this is important. Coming from somewhere with frozen pipes in the winter, a cold drink isn’t going to have a bad effect on me. I don’t think I ever drank hot or warm drinks until I left home and started drinking coffee. White rice turns my stomach to mush, though.

12

[quote=“Chris”]Please help settle an issue once and for all.

I say that consuming a cold beverage when I feel hot and sweaty is OK. Americans do it all the time with no apparent ill effect. Hey, the Finns take saunas and then roll in the snow.
[/quote]

I am a distance runner and I will tell you that it is definately a GOOD thing to drink cold drinks when you are hot because it helps your body cool down and ward off overheating. Drinking cold water BEFORE a race is known to ward off overheating on the roads and drinking cold water after a race helps cool down an overheated body after a marathon.

This is another of those traditional folk tales that have no basis in fact.

13

no non-East Asian drinks warm water. it is f*cking gross.

you need cold water to cool down when exercising. do you think pro-athletes are drinking hot water on the sidelines?

I’ve had TWese tell me I shouldn’t eat oranges when I am sick (causes scratchy throat, promotes coughing).roffles roffles

borrom line, if all the food lore was true (the medicinal values of the diet here) people here would live to 150. its mostly horseshit, just like the cold water scare tactics.

14

This and many other food fallacies are based on Chinese medicine, flow of qi through the body, and principles of the five elements. Illness is due to inharmonious combinations of these elements. Many of these ‘principles’ have absolutely no correlation with things as we now understand them to be in physics, chemistry and western medicine, but surprisingly large chunks of Chinese medicine do hold up in the Western context, though not for the Chinese reasons. Chinese medicine is 5,000 years old, you know, and you big-noses just don’t understand it.

Drinking cold water certainly can cause gut and throat spasms and even stomach cramps, of course, but it’s all a matter of degree: slamming down a whole gallon of iced water is not good for anyone, but drinking a glassful at a reasonable pace won’t harm anyone, I’m sure.

The hot water thing also has a basis in reality: if the water is warm or hot, then it has been boiled recently, and that means it’s less likely to make you sick. Cold water is possibly contaminated with germs straight from the pigfarm upstream, or was once boiled and has become contaminated again.

15

It’s ok as long as you burn ghost money while doing it or soon afterward.

16

Well, I’d first like to know where the people who state that cold water is definitely good to drink while exercising to please state your reasoning and have scientific research to back up your claims. Aren’t you supposed to be hot and sweat after exercising? How would giving your body a sudden jolt of cold be helpful? As far as overheating is concerned, your body naturally cools itself down through sweat. If your body is in danger of overheating, then it is too hot and you shouldn’t be doing whatever you are doing in the first place! Again, please state scientific reasoning backed with research as to the beneficial effects.

Now, I will state my opinion but, as I have no research to back it up, it is just a theory.

Your digestive system is not designed to cool things down. When, before the invention of ice, refrigeration, and the like, did your stomach have to heat up ice cold water? If you lived in a cold environment, I don’t think you’d be wanting to drink cold drinks; you’d warm them up first. And, if living in a hot environment, before the invention of ice, you’d have no way to cool the drinks down the way we do now.

Now, how harmful, if at all, drinking cold water is is debatable. However, if your body has to constantly be heating up water all the time, how draining on your digestive system / body is that over years and years? Have you noticed how much heat it takes to warm up a glass of cold water to the temperature of your body? Just because you don’t feel anything bad or notice anything at the time doesn’t mean it’s not having a harmful effect.

If you want to do a little test, go drink warm water all the time for a couple months. After doing this, go drink a nice glass of ice cold water and see how “good” you feel.

As far as I know, there are no long term studies to this, so it’s hard to say if there’s really much harm to it. But, from both an Eastern (stated in earlier posts) and Western point of view, it seems to be a little harmful, in the long run.

17

Thank the Dark Lords that I’m no co-opted into Chinese quackery. Warm whisky tastes foul.

18

Interesting thread, Chris.

I personally have felt a sore throat or a cold coming on more often after I’ve had cold water than when I’ve had warm water. It could be coincidence, but I think there must be some correlation. I think it could be that the warm water has fewer bacteria in it, like urodacus says.

Similar thread here.
viewtopic.php?f=54&t=57155
It’s amazing the passion that this kind of thing stirs up! :slight_smile: It is a good topic for discussion, though. Along with the hot/cold foods topic.

I love how the whole argument of “Americans do this all the time” cannot be used due to the obesity problem that America has. How’s that for a trump card! :doh:

19

No.

20

I remember reading about and being told by a friend who is a licensed instructor that cool drinks are more readily absorbed -meaning absorbed faster- by the body after exercise. Cool, not ice cold. As always, extremes are not good for anyone.

Also, a doc acquaintance had mentioned that if you have a sore throat every time you drink cooler drinks, it might be a sign of a strep infection, in which case a hot tea instead of a cold, icy shot would be more advisable. :smiley: