Water doesn't prevent dehydration?

[Pi1otguy]

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/doc/1982.pdf (page 7)

The claimed effect is “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance”. The target population is assumed to be the general population. Dehydration is a condition of body water depletion. The proposed risk factors are measures of water depletion and thus are measures of the disease. The proposed claim does not comply with the requirements for a disease risk reduction claim pursuant to Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006.
(emphasis added)

In a roundabout way 20+ professionals spent 3 years and concluded that drinking water doesn't reduce the risk of dehydration. Obviously staying hydrated is a little more complex than just pure water, but for the general population of a 1st world country (reasonable electrolyte balance, etc) wouldn't that be a true claim.

 

[Jim Logajan]

At the risk of going against the general rules of the internet, I read the source document and it mostly makes sense to me. This is about advertising and labeling regulations and not a scientific claim in and of itself.

What the panel found that under their rules there wasn't anything that met the definition of "disease risk reduction" in the claim that water treats dehydration. It does seem like they had to split a hair on whether dehydration was a disease or not. It does seem like a stretch to me to call dehydration a disease.

Maybe I misread the linked-to document, but I'd say you and the authors are both making a false assumption. The original marketing claim is in German, but in the English language document their translation of the German marketing claim uses the word "performance" not "disease".

So it really doesn't matter whether dehydration is a disease, since that wasn't the word used in the marketing claim:

"Regelmäßiger Verzehr signifikanter Mengen von Wasser kann das Risiko für die Entwicklung von Dehydratation und damit einhergehendem Leistungsabfall deutlich senken."

I believe the usual German word for "disease" is krankheit. I don't see that word anywhere in the claim.

The appears to be another case of re-interpreting the meaning of words in a law or regulation in order to stop some activity somebody in power personally doesn't like.