The more water in the food you eat, for example in yoghurt, fruit, meat or fish, the thinner you are likely to be. And the other way round, a diet consisting largely of foods that contain little water leads to obesity. Japanese epidemiologists have published an article on the subject in Nutrition. Drinking water during a meal does not help to reduce caloric intake, but if you prepare rice dishes using more water, then the caloric intake does decrease, studies have shown. The Japanese examined the relationship between bodyweight and the amount of water you consume daily through drinks and...

When covering long distances men dehydrate faster than women. Dutch physiologists at the Radboud University Nijmegen discovered that men drink less and probably lose more fluids through transpiration than women. Men are four times as likely to suffer from dehydration than women. The physiologists studied a total of 99 male and female participants aged between 21 and 82. They all took part in the annual International Four Days Marches, the largest multi-day walking event in the world. Three-quarters of the subjects exercised every day. The participants walked 30, 40 or 50 km. As the first figure below on the left...

After an intensive workout the body expends extra energy. Researchers suspect that because of this, strength training can help in maintaining a healthy weight, and they are studying ways of increasing the 'after burn'. One such method is to consume caffeine before pumping iron, as sports scientists at California State University discovered. After a demanding workout muscle cells need to recover. They need to replenish their creatine phosphate and glycogen reserves and restore their buffers. We're not even talking about the recovery of damaged muscle proteins, but this process costs energy too. Researchers measure this increased energy expenditure by measuring...