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FACT CHECK: Viral Image Claims Drinking Warm Water Cures Various Medical Conditions

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A post shared on Facebook more than 245,000 times claims that drinking warm water can cure various medical conditions while drinking cold water can cause serious harm.

Verdict: False

There is no scientific evidence proving warm water can cure various illnesses. Medical experts confirmed that warm water cannot cure diseases.

Fact Check:

The lengthy post includes an image of two jars that appear to be filled with water, one labeled “cold” and the other “hot.” Each jar appears to be mixed with a red dye, seemingly meant to represent how blood reacts to the different temperatures of water. In the jar labeled “cold,” the dye remains at the surface of the water and pools at the bottom, while it seems to disperse in the jar labeled “hot.”

The post includes a list of ailments and conditions that can allegedly be resolved by drinking warm water, including epilepsy, paralysis, asthma, “blockage of veins,” diabetes, “women problems” and “all diseases related to the eyes, ear & throat.” Further down, it claims “COLD WATER IS BAD FOR YOU” because it can allegedly negatively affect the heart, liver and stomach and cause cancer.

“Get up early in the morning and drink approximately 4 glasses of warm water when the stomach is empty,” the post instructs. “You may not be able to make 4 glasses at the beginning but slowly you will. NOTE: DO not eat anything 45 mins after taking the water. The warm water therapy will resolve the health problems within reasonable period.”

The post fails to cite any source to back up these claims, other than a “group of Japanese Doctors,” and the Daily Caller News Foundation found no evidence to support the post’s claims. While some alternative health advocates believe there are small health benefits to drinking hot water like fighting colds and improving congestion, Medical News Today states that “drinking hot water will not cure any diseases.”

“My brief review is that these are indeed unfounded, ridiculous and even dangerous statements,” Mitchell Rosner, a professor of medicine and the chair of the department of medicine at the University of Virginia, said in an email to the DCNF. Dr. Warner Greene, professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco, agreed.

“I am unaware of any facts supporting an improved therapeutic benefit of warm over cold water for the treatment of hypertension or that cold water can cause heart attacks,” Greene confirmed in an email.

Neither the American Heart Association, the American Epilepsy Society nor the American Cancer Society mentions drinking warm water as a cure for illnesses on their respective websites. Drinking water has a positive impact on overall health, according to Today.

This is not the first time misinformation suggesting simple home remedies can cure various medical afflictions has gone viral. Check Your Fact has previously debunked several such claims, including one that falsely claimed drinking hot water with lemon can cure the coronavirus.