On 2016 Apr 04, Ruopeng An commented:

Dr. Brown, we sincerely appreciate your comments on our paper. We agree with you regarding the limitations of self-reported 24-hour dietary recall data in the NHANES. However, despites these data limitations, the NHANES 24-hour dietary recall data have been a primary source to study dietary behavior at the population level. In the paper, we noted: “Dietary intakes in NHANES were self-reported and subject to measurement error and social desirability bias …. Dietary recall method in estimating plain water consumption is likely to result in underestimation because water intake occasions are often forgotten.” Due to the these study limitations, we warrant further research that adopts a randomized study design and objective measure on water intake, “… this work is observational in nature, and the findings warrants confirmation through controlled interventions.”

On 2016 Mar 23, Andrew Brown commented:

This article used self-reported energy intake and self-reported water intake to try to estimate the association between water consumption and actual energy intake. The use of self-reported energy intake as an estimate for actual energy intake has been widely demonstrated to be invalid over decades of research [BEAUDOIN R, 1953,Schoeller DA, 1990] and by expert consensus [Schoeller DA, 2013, Dhurandhar NV, 2015, Subar AF, 2015]. Considering much of the article and its conclusions focused on energy intake, much of the article is also invalid, particularly undermining the use of these results to support the conclusion that “promoting plain water intake could be a useful public health strategy for reducing energy...”

On 2016 Mar 23, Andrew Brown commented:

This article used self-reported energy intake and self-reported water intake to try to estimate the association between water consumption and actual energy intake. The use of self-reported energy intake as an estimate for actual energy intake has been widely demonstrated to be invalid over decades of research [BEAUDOIN R, 1953,Schoeller DA, 1990] and by expert consensus [Schoeller DA, 2013, Dhurandhar NV, 2015, Subar AF, 2015]. Considering much of the article and its conclusions focused on energy intake, much of the article is also invalid, particularly undermining the use of these results to support the conclusion that “promoting plain water intake could be a useful public health strategy for reducing energy...”

On 2016 Apr 04, Ruopeng An commented:

Dr. Brown, we sincerely appreciate your comments on our paper. We agree with you regarding the limitations of self-reported 24-hour dietary recall data in the NHANES. However, despites these data limitations, the NHANES 24-hour dietary recall data have been a primary source to study dietary behavior at the population level. In the paper, we noted: “Dietary intakes in NHANES were self-reported and subject to measurement error and social desirability bias …. Dietary recall method in estimating plain water consumption is likely to result in underestimation because water intake occasions are often forgotten.” Due to the these study limitations, we warrant further research that adopts a randomized study design and objective measure on water intake, “… this work is observational in nature, and the findings warrants confirmation through controlled interventions.”