NEW YORK: There is no clear-cut scientific rationale for the average healthy individual to drink a lot of water - and it may be downright harmful - according to two kidney experts.

Drinking a lot of water is claimed to be helpful for everything from clearing toxins and keeping organs in tip-top shape to keeping weight off and improving skin tone. At best, however, the evidence to back up these claims is weak, according to a new scientific review published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

"There is what I call an urban myth that drinking a lot of water is a healthy thing to do and it leads to people toting around plastic water bottles all day drinking water," Dr Stanley Goldfarb, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, told Reuters Health.