Not drinking enough water could be as harmful to a person’s heart as smoking, according to a study released last month by the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Loma Linda University and Medical Center. Researchers at the California-based institution said that drinking a sufficient amount of water every day significantly lowers the risk of coronary heart disease.

Jacqueline Chan, chief researcher on the project, told reporters at an April 25 news conference that sufficient water is as important to heart health as other factors such as diet, exercise, and abstinence from smoking. The study is the first to show a connection between levels of water intake and heart health.

Statistics gathered from a study of Adventists in California showed that healthy men who drank five or more glasses of water every day had a 54 percent decrease in the risk of fatal coronary heart disease, compared with those who drank only two glasses of water. Women who drank five glasses of water each day lowered their fatal heart attack risk by 41 percent.

The data for these findings comes out of the Adventist Health Study, a massive research project begun in 1973 that tracked the health of more than 20,000 Californian Adventists.

“This study needs to be replicated, and if similar results are found, then this would be the cheapest and simplest method of preventing heart disease that could be imagined,” says Gary Fraser, who heads up the Adventist Health Study.

Researchers believe that drinking a high volume of plain water works to thin the blood, thus lowering the risk of blood clots. People who replaced some of the water with other fluids, such as fruit juice, milk, or soda, did not receive the same protection, researchers found.

Loma Linda University and Medical Center, established by the Adventist Church in 1905, is internationally renowned for its medical research and treatments in areas such as heart transplant surgery and non-invasive proton beam therapy for prostate and breast cancer. In its mission statement, LLUMC affirms that its purpose is to continue the “healing ministry of Jesus Christ” within “a setting of advancing medical science.”