TORONTO, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Drinking water when not thirsty could be harmful to one's health, a surprise Canadian research finding says.
The Walkerton Health conclusion was a follow-up to the tainted water problem at Walkerton, the Toronto Sun said.
The research group discovered 107 of the town's 5,000 residents produced an abnormally high volume of urine that contained protein.
"It looks like people who are taking large volumes of fluid develop protein in the urine," said Dr. Bill Clark, a kidney specialist and head of the research group. "We know that, over an extended period of time, will cause kidney damage.
"We suspect people on the Atkins diet and all these other groups that are encouraged to drink large volumes of fluid every day, that it may actually be deleterious," Clark said. "We think you should actually drink water (only) when you are thirsty."
