What Are the Benefits of Lemon Water in the Morning?

What benefits does drinking lemon water offer? The health benefits of drinking lemon water are endless. From detoxifying your body to improving digestion, from reducing inflammation to boosting energy levels, lemon water has something for everyone.

Drinking lemon water helps improve overall health because it contains high amounts of vitamin C, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, phosphorus, sodium, and chloride. These minerals are essential for maintaining good health.

For centuries, lemons were highly regarded for treating scurvy, a now rare condition that can develop through a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Vitamin C is often claimed to support the immune system however, studies remain inconclusive.

Source of vitamin C: One study found that although vitamin C did not prevent otherwise healthy people from catching a common cold, it may shorten the duration of symptoms, and it may halve the common cold risk in people exposed to short periods of extreme physical stress (e.g. marathon runners).

Nutrition

Lemons are a rich source of vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant. In fact, one squeezed lemon provides around 21% of a person's daily value (DV).

Like other citrus fruits — including oranges, grapefruit, and limes — lemons are rich in flavonoids. These are compounds that help boost health and fight disease.

Although a single glass does not seem to provide a lot of nutrients, lemon water is a healthful, low calorie, and low sugar beverage that can boost a person's vitamin C intake.

For comparison, replacing the lemon with the juice of half an orange

The nutritional value of each glass of lemon water depends on how much lemon juice it contains, as well as any other ingredients.

What Are the Benefits of Lemon Water in the Morning?

I've been drinking lemon water in the mornings since I was about 15 years old. But recently, I began wondering whether this habit had some real health benefits. So I did my own little experiment: I drank half a glass of lemon juice every day for three weeks. Here are the results.

The Basics

Lemon water is simply plain water with a splash of lemon juice added. You can add sugar, honey, stevia, etc., to sweeten it, but you don't want too much because that dilutes the flavor. If you're looking for something else to drink in the morning, try adding a touch of salt, ginger, cinnamon, or turmeric.

 Benefits of Drinking Lemon Water / Benefits of Lemon Water

Aids in digestion

Lemon juice not only encourages healthy digestion by loosening toxins in your digestive tract, but it also helps to relieve symptoms of indigestion such as heartburn, burping, and bloating.

The acid helps break down food. That's why there's so much of it in our stomachs. The acid in lemons may be especially helpful in supplementing stomach acid levels, which tend to decline as we age.

Lemon juice helps flush out unwanted material. It encourages the liver to make bile, which is needed for digestion.

That's important when you consider the fact that a study found that over 30% of people over 60 had an atrophic gastric disease, a condition marked by low levels of stomach acid.

Drinking warm lemon water is good because it can help get the digestive system moving in the morning without overwhelming it. Inefficient digestion causes heartburn and constipation. So drinking warm lemon water can reduce both heartburn and constipation and keep the digestive tract working efficiently.

Freshens breath

Warm lemon water makes your breath smell better. A study published in the journal Nutrition found that people who gargled with warm water had less bacteria in their mouths compared to those who drank cold water. Warm water hydrates the mouth and throat, making it easier to breathe.

But be careful about brushing your mouth after your warm lemon water because the citric acid in the lemon juice can erode your teeth enamel. If you brush too soon after drinking warm lemon water, you could end up damaging your teeth. Consult with your dentist if you are concerned.

It's good for the liver

Lemon juice may be helping your liver do a better cleaning job. A study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that compounds in lemon called flavonoids may protect the liver against damage from toxins. This is important since many people are exposed to environmental toxins daily, such as pesticides, heavy metals, air pollution, alcohol, drugs, and processed foods. The researchers tested how well the fruit extract protected the liver in mice. They gave half of the animals a dose of acetaminophen, which causes severe liver damage, and half of the animals no treatment at all. After 24 hours, both groups had lost weight, but those who received the flavonoid extract gained weight while losing water. The scientists concluded that flavonoids might play a role in protecting the liver against toxin exposure.

Helps you stay hydrated

Most of us don't drink enough water. A daily lemon water habit is an easy way to get your day off on the right foot. How do you know if you're drinking enough? Your urine is almost clear.

Prevents oxidation

Like all produce, lemons contain phytonutrients, which protect your body against disease. These phytonutrients have powerful antioxidant properties, which prevent cell damage from oxidation, the same mechanism that causes rust.

Supplies a healthy dose of vitamin C

Juice half a lemon into your water and you'll add a mere 6 calories to your diet. Plus you'll get more than a sixth of your daily vitamin C, which is needed to protect us from cell damage and repair injury.

Provides a potassium boost

Your body can't function without potassium. It's necessary for nerve-muscle communication, transporting nutrients and waste, and blood pressure regulation. Fruits and vegetables are important sources of potassium.

Helps prevent kidney stones

Lemon water helps prevent painful stones in those deficient in urinary citrate (a form of citric acid). More importantly, increased fluids help prevent dehydration — a common cause of kidney stones.

May support weight loss

Drinking lemon water may help you increase your water intake, which is often recommended

When participants drank water before eating a test meal, they did not feel significantly less satiated, despite eating less food.

The study's authors concluded that pre-meal water consumption may be an effective weight-loss strategy, although the mechanism of action is unknown.

An easy alternative to sugary drinks

Sugar-sweetened beverages — like juice, soda, sports drinks, sweetened water, and energy drinks — are the leading added sugars in the American diet.

Regularly drinking these beverages is associated with a range of health conditions, including:

If you regularly reach for sweetened, fruit-flavored beverages to quench your thirst, switching to lemon water could help you cut back on sugar without sacrificing flavor.