The Truth About Lemon Water
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iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Lemon water is a two-ingredient drink hailed as one of the most popular magic potions in the wellness community, touted as the key to healthy digestion and healthy skin.
“If you look at any Instagram feed of a wellness guru, they’re going to proselytize, ‘Drink lemon water in the morning. It’s good for you,’” said Michele Promaulayko, editor-in-chief of Yahoo Health.
The idea is that after you wake up, you squeeze some lemon into a glass of warm water and drink it. The combination is said to help promote digestion, alkalize the body and boost your immunity.
As part of the Good Morning America Yahoo Your Day series, GMA met up with Promaulayko to see if lemon water is a legit wellness trend, or one you should quit.
“There are some health benefits and one of them is aiding in digestion,” Promaulayko said. “It actually slows the absorption of food, which sounds counterintuitive to helping digestion, but what it does is give your body time to break down that food and take the nutrients that it needs from it.”
Promaulayko says another benefit of lemon water is that anyone can do it. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Paleo or Gluten-free, you can do lemon water,” she said.
With all its benefits, Promaulayko calls lemon water a legit wellness trend.
“It’s absolutely legit,” she said. “Drinking lemon water aids in digestion [and] it boosts your Vitamin C level.”
“The Vitamin C is great for your skin,” Promaulayko added. “It’s immunity boosting so you’re getting double the profit and it helps your body break down so you can derive more nutrients out of it.”
Promaulayko describes lemon water as “pretty benign” but says there is one drawback that users should pay attention to.
“The acid from the lemon juice can erode the enamel on your teeth,” she said. “So you want to be careful with that.”
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