Now barmy EU says you CAN'T claim drinking water stops dehydration

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Daily Mail

Drinking water does not ease dehydration, the European Union has ruled – and anyone who disagrees faces two years in prison.

The decision – after three years of discussions – results from an attempt by two German academics to test EU advertising rules which set down when companies can claim their products reduce the risk of disease.

The academics asked for a ruling on a convoluted statement which, in short, claimed that water could reduce dehydration.

Dehydration is defined as a shortage of water in the body – but the European Food Standards Authority decided the statement could not be allowed.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063031/Dehydration-EU-says-CANT-claim-drinking-water-stops-body-drying-out.html#ixzz1e30SgH8d


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063031/Dehydration-EU-says-CANT-claim-drinking-water-stops-body-drying-out.html

[No Elephants]

1. Not hard to make something seem barmy if you misstate it as badly as that headline does.

*Exits before the nanny staters, or the nanny EUers, as the case may be, get alerted to this thread*

[dipsydoodle]

2. Wouldn't worry about odd headlines in the UK too much

Look what happened earlier this week in The Mail with regard to an alleged bunch of emails in India re. News International which provoked a huge response here on DU, Daily Toss made complete fools of themselves using a tweet from Sky's hacked account saying James Murdoch had been arrested, and then sweet fuck all on the subject.

Similarly The Mirror Group made the claim that 9/11 victims had been hacked - a fact they've been unable to support.

It happens : it sell newspapers.

[No Elephants]

6. Thanks, Dipsy. Must be almost as much fun as watching FAUX News.

Which is so much fun, I would never do it longer than it takes to change the batteries in my remote.

(I am allowing for the possibility that my batteries might die while I am momentarily tuned to FAUX as a result of channel surfing.


That's channel surfing, not Channel surfing, which sounds like much more fun than channel surfing. And everyone knows what a Channel is, but what the hell is a channel?


Rhetorical question. Desperate. Need coffee. Get now.

[dipsydoodle]

7. I cannot relate to your own US newpspapers

and the various reasons why people buy specific ones. All I can say is that here in the UK its doubtful that they are chosen due to their political leanings, other than maybe the Guardian ,the actual reasons being more associated with anything from the crossword puzzle up.

My only use for hard print newspapers is that of rounding them up from neighbours to use to line the litter trays for my 4 house cats.

Apparently The Mail has the world's 2nd highest online readership - second only to the NYT. I don't know what had given rise to that.

On the subject of Fox I do glimpse odd isolated bits when surfing multiple tv news channels stopping only if they've got any decent blond crumpet doing the "news". Even if I do stop there I move on as soon as adverts come on and finish up with the brunettes on France24 ,which is a good news channel anyway , before returning to BBC and Sky.

Enjoy your coffee. :hi:

[jerseyjack]

11. Which Murdoch newspapers have the best absorbancy?

[dipsydoodle]

12. The Sun

:rofl:

If of interest our newspaper circulation figures are here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation

In the event of the demise of The Sun the figures for the Mail and the Mirror would escalate substantially I'd say.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. Surfing a perfume? . . ?

[ieoeja]

18. I blocked FNC for two reasons.

First, the kid was young when I did it. He was young enough he had difficulty remembering that WWE was fake. I certainly didn't need to go through the fake news with him at that age.

Second, I assume cable companies keep track of how much each channel is watched. If we didn't have so many liberals, like my dad when he was alive, watching FNC "to keep tabs on what they are doing", FNC's numbers would probably be so bad that they would have been dropped years ago. Further to that, I imagine marketing watches to see which channels are blocked the most. Wouldn't you love it if FNC beat out The Playboy Channel on that statistic!

[quakerboy]

3. Interesting read

The telegraph version has a bit more detail at the end

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/EU-bans-claim-that-water-can-prevent-dehydration.html

Seems to me what they were actually saying is that Bottled water companies cannot claim(even if only by implication and omission) to be the best way to keep from dehydration when tap water will usually do the same just as effectively at a small portion of the cost.

I would also be interested to see the facts behind it all. Did the bottled water companies want to add the claim to flavored waters? I would not be shocked to later find out that was another part of this seemingly strange decision.

[dipsydoodle]

4. The way I read it

was that the reason the issue was raised to point out a general absurdity by seeing what the outcome was.

The EU does come up with some pretty daft rules from time to time. From your Telegraph own link : Rules banning bent bananas and curved cucumbers were scrapped in 2008 after causing international ridicule.

[DetlefK]

9. re: bananas and cucumbers

I guess those rules were implemented to prevent the sale of food that doesn't "look alright" or maybe so all fruits on the market would adhere to some standards fit for industrial processing.

Would you buy a cucumber shaped like a fishing hook? (Yes, that happens. It looks weird, but they taste all the same.)

[Celefin]

10. Banana & Cucumber absurdity was the result of lobbying

The -EU- as such would never have come up with this stupidity, but the big agricultural companies spent a ton of money lobbying for these rules. The reason is fairly simple: small producers can't afford to throw out 10-20% of their produce because it isn't grown 'bent' (bananas) or 'straight' (cucumbers) enough. Large corporations can - at least until the competition from small producers has been killed off. Then the rules can be lobbied away again.

The damage was immense until the -political- (as opposed to the lower administrational lobbyist heavens) EU stepped in because of international ridicule.

It's sad that this is always portrayed as 'EU madness' when in fact it should rather be called corporate bribery.

[Nihil]

13. Thank you.

Mind you, it shows how bad it got if even the junketing wasters at
the political level started to feel embarrassed ...!
:-)

[hedgehog]

15. There are similar regs in the US, for example, apples below a certain

size won't meet grade:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5050339

[hedgehog]

16. I'm suspicious whenever someone "plays" a regulatory agency

in order to prove how absurd the rules are. One of the first ordinances to come out of OSHA was a many paged document describing ladders. The detailed specifications seem ridiculous until you find out that falls from ladders, injuries from broken ladders and accidents from ladders being hit caused many, many serious accidents before the regs went into place. Before OSHA, people would keep using ladders even if "only one or two rungs are cracked" or would set a ladder in an aisle used by fork trucks without setting out warning flags.

[truthisfreedom]

5. Oh wait, but my water's wetter!

Way way wetter! 30% more wet!

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Not just tap water as well - tea, coffee, juice etc.

A normally functioning human body gets water from any liquid you drink, and as long as it's not a strong dehydrator too (eg alcohol), it hydrates. You can become dehydrated by drinking too little of any liquid at all, but very few people do. What that prof is saying at the end of the article is that normally it's a medical condition, in which case the cure will be more complicated than 'drink more water'.

However, it seems to me, reading the ruling, that it was rejected on a technicality - that anyone wanting to make a claim like this has to identify 'risk factors' for a disease; in this case, the disease is dehydration, and, when asked what they thought were risk factors for dehydration, the 2 applicants said “water loss in tissues” or “reduced water content in tissues”, and the panel points out that is dehydration, and so they say they're not going to support a badly thought-through proposition like that.

Following an application from Prof. Dr. Moritz Hagenmeyer and Prof. Dr. Andreas Hahn, submitted pursuant to Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 via the Competent Authority of Germany, the Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies was asked to deliver an opinion on the scientific substantiation of a health claim related to water and reduced risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance. The scope of the application was proposed to fall under a health claim referring to disease risk reduction. The food, water, which is the subject of the health claim, is sufficiently characterised. 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. The Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 defines reduction of disease risk claims as claims which state that the consumption of a food “significantly reduces a risk factor in the development of a human disease”. Thus, for reduction of disease risk claims, the beneficial physiological effect results from the reduction of a risk factor for the development of a human disease. The Panel notes that dehydration was identified as the disease by the applicant. Dehydration is a condition of body water depletion. The Panel notes that the proposed risk factors, “water loss in tissues” or “reduced water content in tissues”, are measures of water depletion and thus are measures of the disease. The Panel considers that 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.

The Guardian's Lay Scientist blog on this: Daft hysteria over the EU's ruling on water and dehydration

[CanSocDem]

14. Not to 'pile on' the EU, but...

....today I got this news release:

With Euro going down, Ford to acquire Renault


Ford has announced plans to acquire French automaker Renault and engineering teams have already joined forces to create the perfect small car for women. Mixing the Renault “Clio” and the Ford “Taurus”, they have designed the “Clitaurus”.

It comes in pink and the average male car thief won't be able to find it, let alone turn it on, even if someone tells him where it is and how to do it. Rumour has it though, that it leaks transmission fluid once a month and can be a real bitch to start in the morning! Some have reported that on cold winter mornings, when you really need it, you can't get it to turn over. New models are initially fun to own, but very costly to maintain and horribly expensive to get rid of.
Used models may initially appear to have curb appeal and a low price, but eventually have an increased appetite for fuel, and the curb weight typically increases with age.
Manufacturers are baffled as to how the size of the trunk increases, but say that the paint may just make it LOOK bigger. This model is not expected to reach collector status. Most owners find it is best to lease one, and replace it as needed.

.

[FreeBillClinton]

19. The Daily Mail Song

It would be nice if the new site design had a script that automatically posted this with every link to a Daily Mail article.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

[dipsydoodle]

21. Accompanied by a note, just for a bit more fun,

comparing their sales with the Grauniad : currently nine times as much. That implies the Associated Newspapers know what they're doing and Grauniad Media Group don't and also helps explain why the Grauniad is only foreseen to have 6 years max of life left before it folds. If the thought of that concerns you then I'm sure they'd be happy to sell it to you. Actual circulation figures for comparison here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation

They're both UK anyway and if for some strange reason you think that our public buy newspapers due to their political leanings then dream on - its probably the last reason overall.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. You'll never go broke underestimating public taste

I'm amazed to see anyone on DU saying "it sells, therefore the Mail people are better at producing a newspaper than the Guardian lot".

And yes, quite a few people do buy their newspaper form its political stance. Ask DUers if they watch their TV news with an eye to the politics - how many here are avid Fox viewers? No-one likes being fed a diet of propaganda from people they disagree with. Yes, many Mail readers won't start off as right-wing reactionaries. But those who are neutral are those who can be most affected by the endless "the EU is evil", "house prices are the measure of how the economy is doing", "immigrants are always suspicious" mindset that the Mail exudes.

[Xithras]

20. Thank you, EU, for regularly reminding me that the U.S. doesn't have a monopoly on "nuts".

:toast:

[freshwest]

22. You gotta be kidding me. Sounds like the Onion. Do they give an alternate solution to dehydration?

Like, say, hold your breath until you die?

That way you won't lose any water vapor through your respiratory system.

Yeah, that'll work.

How asinine.

:thumbsdown:

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. As documented in reply #17, this looks more like the EU rejecting a badly worded attempt

to criticise their process. As a link from the Guardian blog to the soft drinks industry website says:

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. These recommended claims are awaiting formal confirmation from the European Commission.

http://www.britishsoftdrinks.com/Default.aspx?page=966

These 2 people are just pissed off their wording was one of the ones rejected. The technicality in their case was they were effectively saying dehydration causes dehydration, and the Authority said they weren't going to support that as a statement,

[freshwest]

24. Not as crazy as the other source made it sound. The Guardian is better allt the way around. Thanks.

[astral]

27. It is also very useful for staying alive.

Can't talk about vitamins, can't talk about water, next it will be forbidden to say that breathing air is a healthy thing to make a habit of.

[Ter]

25. Fuck the European Union

I was a teenager and I knew the dangers of that dictatorship. European nations who joined it are fools.

[Psephos]

26. It looks like current events bear you out. n/t

[Codeine]

29. Ah, the Daily Mail. nt