The authors of the study say that for healthy adults, there is no real benefit to drinking eight cups of water a day. Nor is it dangerous: Your body will just excrete the extra water you consume in your urine.

“If you drink eight cups of water a day, you’ll be fine — you’re just going to be spending a lot more time in the bathroom,” said Herman Pontzer, a professor of evolutionary anthropology and global health at Duke University and a co-author of the study.

The advice to drink eight cups of water a day stems from a 1945 recommendation from the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, which encouraged adults to consume about 64 ounces of water daily. The recommendation referred to a person’s total