Does drinking one to two glasses of water in the morning help prevent heart failure? No, that's not true: The Heart Association of Thailand stated that drinking water in the morning is irrelevant to heart failure and heart attack. Various additional factors play a role in contributing to the development of heart diseases.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on December 22, 2022, under the title (translated from Thai to English by Lead Stories staff): "เนHow to drink water to prevent heart failure." It began (as translated):
90% of heart failure cases happen in the morning. We can prevent it by drinking 1-2 glasses of water.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jan 24 06:41:33 2024 UTC)
The Heart Association of Thailand (archived here) told Lead Stories on January 26, 2024, that heart failure can happen at any time of the day and there is no proof that drinking water after getting up can prevent it. The organization explained that many people don't understand that drinking insufficient amounts of water can cause polycythemia, a type of blood cancer, which can lead to heart failure or a heart attack. In some cases, polycythemia may develop due to severe dehydration, but drinking water does not necessarily serve as a preventive measure for this condition (archived here).
The video also claimed that drinking a glass of water before taking a shower can help reduce blood pressure. The Heart Association of Thailand confirmed that this claim is also false, stating that there is no correlation between these actions.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, key measures for the prevention of heart failure (archived here) include maintaining a healthy diet, managing weight effectively, engaging in sufficient physical activity and abstaining from smoking. These measures also apply to preventing heart attacks (archived here) and strokes (archived here).
