As many countries urge populations to stay at home, many of us are paying more attention to our diets and how the food we eat can support our health. To help sort out the fact from the fiction, BBC Future is updating some of our most popular nutrition stories from our archive.

Our colleagues at BBC Good Food are focusing on practical solutions for ingredient swaps, nutritious storecupboard recipes and all aspects of cooking and eating during lockdown.

In the early 19th Century, people had to be close to death before deigning to drink water. Only those “reduced to the last stage of poverty satisfy their thirst with water”, according to Vincent Priessnitz, the founder of hydropathy, otherwise known as “the water cure”.

Many people, he added, had never drunk more than half a pint of plain water in one sitting.

How times have changed. Adults in the UK today are consuming more water now than in recent years, while in the US, sales of bottled water recently surpassed sales of soda. We’ve been bombarded with messages telling us that drinking litres of water every day is the secret to good health, more energy and great skin, and that it will make us lose weight and avoid cancer.

You might also like:

• Is juicing actually good for you?

• What happens when you drink too much water

• Is drinking extra water good for your skin?

Commuters are encouraged to take bottles of water onto the London Underground, school pupils are advised to bring water into their lessons and few office meetings can commence without a giant jug of water sitting in the middle of the desk.