Drinking Cold vs Hot vs Room Temp. Water

[For Prose]

Hey everyone,

 

I am curious as to if there may be some physiological difference in which your body handles drinking water at various temperatures.

 

I have a feeling that this is highly incorrect, but i have occasionally imagined that your stomach is like an oven when digesting food. Breaking of chemical bonds being the "energy", and to what effect "cooling" the oven might have on digestion. In my head, drinking hot tea stimulated and aids in the breaking of those bonds and drinking ice water does the opposite. Like I stated, I know this is probably wayyy off.

 

I also think, as an argument against my argument, that we have probably evolved to seek out colder water which would usually be less likely to contain harmful pathogens, microbes, ect., whereas warmer or even hot water may be an indication of stagnation or bacteria filled.

 

Feel free to discuss either the physiological effects or evolutionary mechanisms.

[Basic Biology]

From my days as an athlete, we were always told not to drink cold water straight after training because supposedly it upset your stomach and I have to agree with the idea from personal experience. I realise that is is not very scientific evidence though.

 

I would think that the enzymes and bacteria in our guts work within a temperature optimum and temporarily lowering or raising the temperature in our guts too far either way would reduce the rate of digestion.

[Strange]

I have a feeling that this is highly incorrect, but i have occasionally imagined that your stomach is like an oven when digesting food.

 

I remember reading that in about the 12th century (I think) there was a change in the way people believed digestion worked. Previously they thought it was something similar to decay. As such, it was thought that porridge-like and soup-like foods would be healthier because they were similar to things that were rotting. Then it was decided that digestion was closer to burning and so there was a change to eating "burnt" foods: roasted, baked, fried, etc.

 

I don't know how much truth there is in that. (Sorry it's off-topic, but after fiveworld's "contribution", surely anything is an improvement...)

 

As for drinking, I assume humans evolved to drink water at close to ambient temperature. There is some evidence that frequently drinking very hot liquids can contribute to diseases of the oesophagus, including cancer.

From my days as an athlete, we were always told not to drink cold water straight after training because supposedly it upset your stomach and I have to agree with the idea from personal experience. I realise that is is not very scientific evidence though.

 

I wonder if that is because you tend to drink more water (and faster) because you have been exercising?

 

p.s. I'm afraid I missed the Quote button and accidentally gave you a down-vote. Maybe someone could kindly undo it?

[swansont]

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Moderator Note

Posts about hypertonic vs hypotonic have been split off to the trash - the question is about thermal effects. Please don't hijack threads. If a thread prompts you to have a new question, open up a new thread.

 

 

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Chemical bond energies are of order 1 eV. Thermal energy (kT) is around 0.025 eV at room temperature, 0.027 at body temperature, 0.032 eV at boiling. I don't see how that will affect the chemistry in any meaningful way.

[Basic Biology]

Chemical bond energies are of order 1 eV. Thermal energy (kT) is around 0.025 eV at room temperature, 0.027 at body temperature, 0.032 eV at boiling. I don't see how that will affect the chemistry in any meaningful way.

 

Better evidence than anyone else so far, but reaction rates are increased with changes in temperature within this scale. Think about boiling an egg, the difference in the stability of proteins is massive between room temperature and boiling temp.

[swansont]

 

Better evidence than anyone else so far, but reaction rates are increased with changes in temperature within this scale. Think about boiling an egg, the difference in the stability of proteins is massive between room temperature and boiling temp.

 

There's a phase change going on at boiling temp, so while boiling you can add much larger amounts of energy without the temperature varying. It takes more than 5x as much energy to boil water than it does to raise it from liquid at 0ºC to the boiling point. Heat of vaporization is 40.65 kJ/mol, while the heat capacity is 75.3 J/K-mol (so 7.53 kJ/mol for that scenario). Being at or above the point where the proteins break down is another issue, but that doesn't seem to be part of the parameters of the scenario.

 

Also, you were talking of breaking bonds, rather than reaction rates, and somewhat faster reactions is a possibility. One the other side of the coin is that the water is going to thermalize fairly quickly anyway, regardless of whether you are a few degrees above or below body temperature.

[Basic Biology]

 

There's a phase change going on at boiling temp, so while boiling you can add much larger amounts of energy without the temperature varying. It takes more than 5x as much energy to boil water than it does to raise it from liquid at 0ºC to the boiling point. Heat of vaporization is 40.65 kJ/mol, while the heat capacity is 75.3 J/K-mol (so 7.53 kJ/mol for that scenario). Being at or above the point where the proteins break down is another issue, but that doesn't seem to be part of the parameters of the scenario.

 

Also, you were talking of breaking bonds, rather than reaction rates, and somewhat faster reactions is a possibility. One the other side of the coin is that the water is going to thermalize fairly quickly anyway, regardless of whether you are a few degrees above or below body temperature.

 

So would you say that the temperature of fluid and liquid would have little to nil effect on the rate of digestion?

[StringJunky]

 

So would you say that the temperature of fluid and liquid would have little to nil effect on the rate of digestion?

I would think whatever normal temperature range you consume anything will be more or less body temperature pretty quickly - in the order of minutes - so it's effect on digestion would be negligible.

[swansont]

 

So would you say that the temperature of fluid and liquid would have little to nil effect on the rate of digestion?

 

I have no idea. I was rebutting one specific mechanism that had been offered.