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Claim: A viral WhatsApp broadcast message asserts that warm water cures many human diseases.
Verdict: False. Although available medical resource materials highlight certain health conditions that warm water prevents, they do not suggest that it cures them. Moreover, medical doctors have dismissed the claim as untrue.
Full Text
Water is widely considered an essential food nutrient. Medically speaking, water takes up a great deal of the human body’s mass. Although it cannot be specifically stated how long one can go without water, dehydration has been judged to cause thirst, fatigue, organ failure, and even death.
However, a viral broadcast message is being circulated on Meta’s end-to-end encryption messaging application, WhatsApp, highlighting a host of illnesses that warm water can cure.
In the viral post, WhatsApp users are asked to share with family and friends a long list of human diseases that warm water can cure, including migraine, high blood pressure, epilepsy, asthma, and whooping cough.
“A group of Japanese doctors confirmed that warm water is 100 (per cent) effective in resolving some health problems such as migraine, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, joint (pain), sudden increase and decrease of heartbeat…” Part of the message read.
A screenshot of the viral WhatsApp post
A screenshot of the viral WhatsApp post
Due to the virality of the post and the harmful repercussions it could have on the country’s citizens if it were discovered to be untrue, DUBAWA decided to verify the claim.
Verification
DUBAWA located credible medical journal outlets that listed and described the body ailments that warm water could cure. However, we noticed that they only highlighted all the benefits of warm water consumption, without any mention of warm water’s curative power.
Healthline mentions that warm water intake can relieve nasal congestion, aid digestion, improve the central nervous system, relieve constipation, keep one hydrated, reduce shivering during colds, improve circulation, decrease stress levels, detoxify the body system, and relieve achalasia symptoms.
MedicalNewsToday also corroborates Healthline, adding that warm water reduces body weight and pain.
PharmEasy likewise highlights the “benefits” of warm water including constipation prevention and metabolism acceleration.
Does water offer a cure for anything?
In a brief interaction with Dr Olubode Kayode, a medical doctor at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Ido Ekiti, Ekiti State, he explicitly told DUBAWA that the claim was a “fallacy.”
He referenced the existence of contemporary pharmaceutical advancement and stated that if warm water cures a host of the diseases mentioned, then drugs would be needless.
Dr Kayode, however, mentioned that water has benefits that help the body system, but such benefits cannot be substituted as a cure for human diseases. He also noted that, people who believe such claims only end up in the hospital with obvious health complications.
Other medical experts’ opinions
DUBAWA came across a fact check, relevant to the claim and published by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), where we noticed what other medical doctors have said about the matter.
According to the ICIR, Dr Opeyemi Adeyemi, a medical doctor at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), expressly stated that warm water only benefits but does not cure any disease.
“Warm water has benefits but doesn’t cure an ailment. Once somebody has been diagnosed with an ailment, warm water will not affect or cure the disease,” she told the ICIR.
Dr Femi Ajose, another medical doctor at the same teaching hospital, queried how a single antidote can cure various human illnesses. He dismissed it as “highly non-scientific.”
Conclusion
The claim is false. Both medical journals and medical professionals indicate that although warm water does offer certain benefits to human beings, it cannot cure any disease.
