I was in a pub in Farringdon last night when a picture of the front page of The Express materialized on a TV screen, screaming semi-literately that, "EU SAYS WATER IS NOT HEALTHY." We swiftly neutralized the offending appliance, but stupidity is highly contagious, and this morning an newborn EU myth oozed from the presses, that the EU's European Food Standards Authority have ruled water to be unhealthy. Youcouldntmakeitup.

Or maybe you could, because The Express headline is made up. The Mail's effort, "Now barmy EU says you CAN'T claim drinking water stops dehydration," is more accurate, but Steve Doughty writes obtusely, and his agenda is made pretty clear by his choice of 'quotees'. Or perhaps I should say the Express's choice, since Doughty apparently used the exact same people to get remarkably similar quotes from.

Political comment comes from Euroskeptic Tory MEP Roger Helmer, and Euroskeptic UKIP MEP Paul Nuttall, (full disclosure: my views on the EU fall somewhere between 'huh' and 'meh'), while the two professors quoted are the same people who submitted the claim in the first place, although you'd be hard-pressed to tell from Doughty's copy. So that's a nice balanced range of opinion, although I do appreciate the irony of Euroskeptics seeking the views of German food scientists to attack European scientists daring to offer British people advice about science.

(If you look at the date on the document I just linked to, you'll notice that this was all published in February, which makes it remarkable that so many journalists happened to leap on this story at the same time, completely independently of each other, without anyone copying what anyone else did or churnalizing each other in any way whatsoever).

So what about the actual claim? Well you can read the EU's ruling here (PDF), and the first thing to note is that this isn't really a rule so much as a piece of advice, which member states are free to interpret as they wish. The Express finally admit this in the very last line of their hysteria, when they eventually allow an EU spokesperson to get a line in edgeways: "This is a specific case with specific characteristics. Either way the final decision is for member states."

The specific health claim tested is outlined in the ruling:

The regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance.

The claim wasn't submitted for a genuine product, but was created as a deliberate 'test' exercise by the two professors, who were apparently already unhappy with the European Food Standards Authority. The panel were well aware of it's absurdity too, noting drily that "the proposed risk factors," the conditions addressed by the hypothetical product, in this case water loss, "are measures or water depletion and thus are measures of the disease (dehydration)."

Leaving that aside, there are two major problems with the claim: drinking water doesn't prevent dehydration, and drinking-water doesn't prevent dehydration.

Firstly, "regular consumption" of water doesn't reduce the risk of dehydration any more than eating a pork pie a day reduces the risk of starvation. If I drink half a pint of bottled water while running through a desert in the blistering sun, I'll still end up dehydrated, and if I drink several bottles today, that won't prevent me from dehydrating tomorrow. The key is to drink enough water when you need it, and you're not going to get that from any bottled water product unless it's mounted on a drip.

Secondly, dehydration doesn't just mean a lack of water, or 'being thirsty'; electrolytes like sodium are important too. If salt levels fall too far, the body struggles to regulate fluid levels in the first place. That's why hospitals use saline drips to prevent dehydration in patients who can't take fluids orally, and why people with diarhhoea are treated with salt-containing oral rehydration fluids. Presumably the next big investigation at the Express will expose the shocking waste of NHS money on needless quantities of saline solution, when jolly old tap water would work just as well.

So the ruling seems pretty sensible to me, or at least as sensible as a ruling can be when the claim being tested is vexatious in the first place. It's accurate advice, and it prevents companies selling bottled water from making exaggerated claims for their products, which is a good thing. They even have the support of the British Soft Drinks Association, who tweeted just as this piece was going live with the following statement:

The European Food Safety Authority has been asked to rule on several ways of wording the statement that drinking water is good for hydration and therefore good for health. It rejected some wordings on technicalities, but it has supported claims that drinking water is good for normal physical and cognitive functions and normal thermoregulation.

It's also an great opportunity to challenge received wisdom, and to make the point that keeping the human body hydrated is about much more than just drinking tap water when you're thirsty. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of journalists are more interested in promoting second-hand hysteria than informing their readers. Which is a bit sad.