pure myth

http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/coldwater.asp

However, if you want to dispute a statement make sure you have your own facts straight. The temperature of any substance that enters the body is not true if that substance is at a higher temperature than the body. Moreover, I think you’d find that eating a large quantity of dry ice quickly would rapidly lower your core temperature to a lethal level and would not be advisable.

Another stupid lie to fuel the never ending useless chain letters.

The truth shall set you free…

“It is nice to have a cold drink after a meal. However, could it be that the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed.”
—First, core body temperature will be maintained at all costs, and the water will be heated up by your body much faster than the digestive process occurs (think how quickly ice water warms up holding it in your mouth for even a minute). You said something similar, already. Let’s take it further. Many fats aren’t solid, even in ice water. With the exception of palm oil, vegetable oils are liquid, and even many animal fats don’t really solidify unless refrigerated. This is why they make trans-fats, so they can cook like the solid-at-room-temperature lard without all the other health problems. Unfortunately, trans-fats are poorly digested and THEY will lead to heart problems for stereochemical reasons. Thus, even if you drank ice water, it would solidify only those fats that will already be giving you heart problems (trans-fats and animal fats in quantity).

” It will slow down digestion and once this “sludge” reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine.”
—If it slows down digestion, why would it be absorbed faster? I assume by ‘absorbed by the intestine’ the writer meant pass through the pyloric opening from the stomach TO the intestine, since he/she then goes on to say it wouldn’t be absorbed but would ‘line the intenstine.’ How is the fat supposed to go through to the intestine too fast if it is busy slowing digestion by binding up the food in a congealed mass? If it isn’t binding it, then the rest of the food can come along for the ride through the small intestine. Even to the degree that the fat passes through first, then the intestine digests it; that is its purpose in life.
—It isn’t going to line the intestine, because we have cholesterol-based compounds to help us absorb and utilize fatty acids as potent energy sources. Our body loves to absorb fat so much that we eat too much of it and get fat ourselves. This sounds so believable because it lines our dirty dishes and because cholesterol buildup DOES line our arteries, and excess cholesterol comes from eating too much fat, especially animal fat.

“Very soon, this will turn into fats and can lead to cancer. ”
—In an urban legend / chain letter type of writing, if you can drop enough scary words together, they often start to sound credible. The “oily stuff” that was supposed to have lined the intestine IS fats, and so why they need to turn into it is only to keep scaring the reader. Now, getting too many calories from eating fatty foods (or calories from any source; a calorie is a calorie) will make fats. Guaranteed. But out body makes those fats after we digest and absorb our food because the body likes to store energy in case of famine.
—Cancer of the colon (=intestine) is NOT related to fat intake. The intestine is happy to digest all the fat we give it, and later it will show up on our waistline. There ARE cancers that are related to fat, but they’re related to BEING fat not EATING fat followed by water temperature. Eating less saturated fats (generally animal fats) and very little trans-fats is known to reduce cancer risk. Unsaturated “oily stuff” in your diet has no effect or even decrease cancer risk.
—Speed of digestion MAY have something to do with cancer, however. Rather than cold fats slowing it down, fiber in the diet changes digestive rates for the better. Dietary fiber has sometimes been linked to decreased cancer rates, and always to better overall health. High fat diets rarely have adequate fiber in the diet, but water has nothing to do with it.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12566141&dopt=Abstract

The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals…not cold water.. maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating!”
—Yes, but they also write vertically instead of left to right, and that doesn’t prevent cancer either. I should have sent you to http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/coldwater.asp first. This is a classic urban legend attached to some tolerable medical advice to confuse matters, and any fantastic claim is usually going to appear on SNOPES.COM first.

—IN FACT, we should be drinking COLD WATER to lose weight and prevent cancer!
Here’s the argument. Drink a glass or two of ice water a few minutes before a meal. It will fill you up a tiny bit and maybe displace a glass of soda or juice ( saves 100 calories right there). Too many calories will make you fat, cause heart attacks (see the rest of that e-mail for recognizing how bad they are for you), and can contribute to cancer.
—Now, ice water will have to be heated up to body temperature by our stomach. At 8 ounces of water = 236 grams of water. One food calorie is equal to heating 1000 grams of water one degree Celsius, thus, heating 236 grams of water 4.2 degrees C. If ice water is at 0 C and body temp is 37 C, then it would take 8.7 calories to heat that water up. Not a lot, but nearly one sugar packet’s worth, which would let you skip the Splenda or Equal. If we go through all that trouble to save a sugar packet, might 8.7 calories add up over the year? That is a pound of pure fat off the waist every 13 months, just with one glass of ice water and clicking on fewer chain letters!
http://health.howstuffworks.com/question447.htm