WATER … The Liquid of Life
November 15, 2008 by DrLauren
Filed under Uncategorized
The Significance of Water
Lack of Water and Dehydration
How Much Water Should I Drink?
Should it be Room Temperature or Ice Cold?
What Kind of Water Should I Drink?
The Significance of Water
It is scientific fact that water is involved with every metabolic process, electrical exchange, neurotransmission, biochemical pathway, physical and mental action in the body. Besides oxygen, water it the most important nutrient for the human body. Do you think there is a reason why three quarters of our body is water? And three quarters of the world is water? It isn’t a coincidence.
Let’s break it down further:
- Our muscles are 70% water
- Our blood is 82% water
- Our bones contain up to 25% water
- Our brain is made of 85% water
Hopefully you get it. Your body needs water. But how does your body get this essential supply? By consciously consuming it on a daily basis. If your body doesn’t get enough water it will have to recycle what it already has.
Your body has this filtering system for survival. We all know it is possible to survive a day without water. This is because your kidneys are able to filter the water that is in the body, to maintain homeostasis. When the kidneys become over-worked and stressed, the load is placed on the liver. Even one day of this places a burden on the kidneys and liver. This is why people have survived weeks, even months without food, but cannot survive without water.
So your body can filter its own water from what it has. Do you think it can do this and give you clean, pure, filtered water for very long? Take a cheap Brita filter. Everyone knows you have to replace the filter or it does absolutely nothing. If you put water through the filter, water still comes out. It looks the same. Has the same consistency. So it surely must be the same, right? You can answer that …
It’s not so easy to “change your filter” in your kidneys. After awhile, they will shut down. But before that happens, you are left with a very poor, clogged, filter that is slowly failing the rest of your body.
Lack of Water and Dehydration
Dehydration is one of the main causes of fluid retention. If the body does not get enough water, it’s survival mechanism kicks in and retains what little water you have left.
Dehydration is often the cause of chronic pain (including headaches and arthritis). There are two reasons why your body signals pain:
- The concentration of acids and toxins that re-circulate in the body send warning signals to the brain that something is wrong. These warning signals are perceived as pain signals.
- The lubricating layer of tissue that surrounds bones and joints dry out. This causes the surfaces to rub together which causes inflammation. The inflammatory response sends out similar chemical messengers to the brain that something is wrong. These warning signals are perceived as pain.
How Much Water Should I Drink?
Many authorities suggest 8-10 glasses per day (2-2.5 liters). It would make sense that everyone should drink the same amount of water if everyone weighed the same, exercised the same, ate the same, and were at the same level of health. In medicine and in health, there is no golden rule that stands true to everyone. All treatments should be customized to fit the unique individual.
I personally have seen drastic improvements with patients when they drink half of their body weight in ounces of pure water per day as a baseline.
Body Weight (LBS) / 2 = XX OUNCES of water/day
If you suffer any illness, constipation, exercise heavily, are exposed to extreme heat or cold, are on any medication, or are detoxifying your body, you should up that to two-thirds of an ounce of water per pound of body weight.
Body Weight (LBS) * 0.6666667 = XX OUNCES of water/day
**It is important to work up to this amount if you are not used to drinking this much water. Drastically increasing the amount of water you drink can over-stress the kidneys and cause serious problems. I suggest adding 6-8 ounces a day until you are at your ideal level**
Begin and End with Water
I always recommend to start and end your day with positive habits. Drinking a large glass of pure, room temperature water first thing in the morning wakes up your body and your metabolism. After resting for 6-8 hours, your body is ready to excrete the toxins it detoxified overnight and is ready for liquid life to nourish those hard-working cells in your body.
Always finish your day with a large glass of pure, room temperature water as well. This will help your body detoxify overnight and will provide the fuel your cells need to cleanse and purify while you are at rest. You may find yourself waking up to eliminate in the middle of the night until your body gets used to having proper hydration. Be patient. Allow your body to adjust to this positive change.
**You will visit the restroom more frequently. This is normal and a good sign. Remember, your body retains more water in a state of dehydration. If it is given the proper amount daily, your body will not hold on to extra water. This is why it is not uncommon for people to actually LOSE WEIGHT when their body adapts to the proper hydration state.**
Should it be Room Temperature or Ice Cold?
In my professional opinion, water is best consumed at room temperature. You typically can consume much more water at room temperature than if it is ice cold. This is hard for most people to do because most water consumed is full of chemicals and contaminants that make the water taste bad. When chilled and served with ice, the contaminants are not as strong to the tastebuds.
I believe many sources will tell you to consume cold water because it covers up the taste of impurities. Others state that cold water makes you burn more calories. I have never seen any research supporting for or against this statement. For that fact, I remain neutral because if it is true, the amount of calories burned is insignificant in promoting weight loss. Healthy lifestyle choices are a better route.
So drink pure, good quality water (see below) at room temperature for optimal absorption and use.
What Kind of Water Should I Drink?
Yes, you need water to survive. However, drinking poor quality water can introduce a variety of contaminants into the body that can have serious long-term health effects. It is scientific fact that all matter and energy has a vibration. Its chemistry, structure and electromagnetic vibration will have either a positive or negative effect on your chemistry, structure, electromagnetic vibration and function. If you are putting toxic chemicals into your body, do you think this will have a positive or negative effect on your body?
North Americans pride ourselves in having very high quality water and assume that all water is the same. A thorough study of water in America and the world in general tells a different story. Hundreds of contaminants have been identified in our water by the EPA. Depending on what part of the country one lives in, it is easy to find trace amounts of nitrates, pesticides, heavy metals, radioactive compounds, petrochemicals and parasites coming from the local municipal water supply.
We are beginning to become aware of our water crisis. Now, 2 out of every 5 households have a water filter or drink bottled water. But is there in assurance of this water’s safety? We put all of our trust into the companies that sell the products because we lack the knowledge of good water sources and we are too busy or too lazy to figure it out.
So let me assist you in this very important health decision.
TAP WATER: Today’s tap water is “dead water”. It’s molecular structure and ability to carry chemical elements such as oxygen and nutrients is very poor. Any essential nutrients that may be in the water are most often locked up and bound to chemicals and debris that make them useless or of little benefit.
BOILED WATER: You can evaporate off chlorine and kill some micro-organisms by boiling water. However, when these substances are killed, they leave behind endotoxins. Endotoxins can produce pyrogens, which are actually more harmful than the live bacteria they replace.
RAIN WATER: Hundreds of years ago, rainwater was probably a good source. Today, our air is so polluted that our rain is now a great source of sulfuric acid, lead from petrol and diesel fumes, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and benzine derivatives from industry. Do these sound appetizing?
BRITA FILTERED WATER: Brita uses activated carbon filters to remove contaminants. The first problem, the filters contain only a small amount of activated carbon. Since the water is passing so quickly through pitcher and especially faucet filters, it doesn’t allow enough time for full absorption of contaminants. It also does not remove arsenic, bacteria and viruses, nitrates, or iron and does not remove heavy metals effectively.
SPRING or MINERAL WATER: This source comes straight out of the ground – which is great … if the ground is a good, pure source. These bottled waters contain varying quantities of metals like aluminum, magnesium, potassium and sodium, as well as their sulfates and chlorides. To the un-informed consumer, some of these may sound good. The problem with these is the quantity of the elements make the water highly acidic.
DISTILLED: Distilled water is a hot topic for debate. It is a very “clean” water and is often used to sterilize and clean in laboratories. The water is boiled at high temperatures to destroy any contaminates. As the water evaporates and turns back into liquid, you are left with distilled water. It is void of a lot of nutrients that can typically be found in water. It is important that you are consuming adequate minerals when drinking only distilled water.
Your optimal water choices should be one of the following:
REVERSE OSMOSIS: Reverse Osmosis (RO) is a hyper-filtration process. It removes contaminants and toxic particles as small as individual ions. It effectively removes arsenic, bacteria and viruses, chlorine, fluoride, heavy metals, nitrates, sediment iron, and more. It is best to have carbon filters installed with RO filters for optimal filtration. This is a cost-effective, excellent choice for all almost all home water purification needs. It is highly recommended solution for homes on a pre-treated municipal water system.
ALKALIZED-IONIZED WATER: In today’s world, it is essential for you to invest in a good water treatment device. This type of water machine is one of the few that does not result in acidic water. The pH of water is extremely important to your health and you must BE CAREFUL when buying water and water filters. They are NOT all the same. I strongly suggest a filtration system that also alkalizes, ionizes and micro-clusters the water. For more information, click here.
To further educate yourself on the importance and difference in water and health, check out these other blogs:
