The Water of Life.

Life on earth began in water. The human body is composed of seventy-five per cent water, the brain is said to be eighty-five per cent water. It is hardly surprising therefore that any shortage will affect the body’s performance, and should be replenished immediately. What is absolutely amazing is that many people take in hardly any water! A recent survey in America found that one in ten of those interviewed never drank any water at all. I suspect that is also true in Great Britain.

Equally breathtaking is that very few qualified medical practitioners would ever dream of prescribing water as the cure for your condition. Indeed, most patients would think him a ‘quack’ if he did.

Medical science has brought us many advances, yet it has also led us a merry dance to come so far before we realise that the majority of doctoring is about treating symptoms rather than addressing the cause. Dulling the pain with foreign chemicals, when the root problem can be so easily resolved. Scientific advance has built storey upon storey upon foundations of sand. Time for a change in perspective.  Time for back to basics.

So many of our ‘pains’ and ‘ills’ are merely manifestations of a shortage of water. Water is what the body wants, and water is the finest, the most natural – and should be the first –medicament applied to the ‘dis-ease’. Best of all it’s virtually free, and you don’t need to wait for an appointment to get it!

Water plays a role in nearly every body function, from regulating temperature and cushioning joints to bringing oxygen to the cells and removing waste from the body. It acts as a solvent, a coolant, a ‘glue’; it generates ‘hydro-electricity’, and may be key to not-yet-understood magnetism within the body. Vitally, it is a significant determinant between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria in the body. 75% of the weight of the upper body is supported by the hydraulic effect of water within the spinal discs. Your cells could not exist without a constant supply of fresh, clean water, in and around them. Blood may be thicker than, but is mainly made up of, water.

Water is an essential component of that wondrous mechanism you call your body, which is all under the perpetual control of your sub-conscious brain. Your sub-conscious brain has one over-riding priority – survival. Faced with a shortage of materials, it will look to manufacture, then scavenge, then prioritise. In the case of water the brain will ration supplies for as long as possible, then progressively shut down what it considers to be non-essential functions in order of priority. 

It is this ‘shutting down’ as unnoticed dehydration progresses, that causes us dis-comfort,  ‘dis-ease’.

The oft-forgotten wonderful news is that given a return to adequate supply, the body will in most cases repair itself.

Today, most ‘first world’ people are seriously dehydrated, because water has ceased to be the preferred drink. In our modern sophisticated society we drink tea, coffee, diluted fruit cordials, carbonated drinks. But not water. Yet it is water our body wants, and nothing else will do. The preferred alternatives of today have many properties, but most contain caffeine, all cordials and carbonated drinks contain sugar or a sugar-substitute, and all are diuretics: they stimulate urine production. In other words, by drinking these, you are actually dehydrating your body, which is the last thing you want to do.

Caffeine is an addictive drug: the more you take, the more you want – which is good news for the Nesco sales department, but not for your body. The sugar in juices and sodas is usually sucrose which is damaging to the whole metabolism; sugar-substitutes (saccharin, sucralose, aspartame) have all sorts of bad effects on the body and the brain, including creating a hunger sensation. So by regular intake of these chemicals – caffeine, sucrose, sucralose, saccharin, aspartame, -and alcohol – you are attempting to condition your body chemistry to operate in a way the system was never designed for. Would you run your new family saloon on leaded petrol?  

Let’s take a closer look at coke drinks:
1. In many states (in the USA) the highway patrol carries two gallons of coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days.
3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coke into the toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous China.
4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of aluminium foil dipped in Coke
5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coke over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coke to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coke into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminium foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coke will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

Think about this:
•    1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis.
•    2. To carry Coke syrup (the concentrate), the commercial truck must use the Hazardous Material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
Now what would you give your child? Research regularly reports that students on campus in America routinely drink several cans of coke drinks per day.

Severe dehydration will affect blood pressure, circulation, digestion and kidney function. But even on a daily basis, not getting enough water can cause fatigue, dry skin, headaches and constipation.

One of the most effective things you can do to improve your health and that of those near and dear to you, is obtain a copy of Dr. F. Batmanghelidj’s amazing book, “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water”. Although a highly qualified medical doctor and researcher, Dr. ‘Batman’s’ book is easily understood, and will open your eyes to the solution of many of today’s ills. He includes testimonials of success with weight-loss, asthma, angina, even Alzheimer’s.

And you can do more. Get your doctor to buy a copy – and read it. Next time you visit your doctor, ask him, seriously, if postponing taking the chemicals he has prescribed for a few days will be critical: can you try increasing your water intake instead?

Ask you doctor if he is aware of the following:
•    Lack of water is the 1st trigger of daytime fatigue.
•    Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
•    A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
•    Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.


There is no way any government can afford the burgeoning costs of our health service; the ‘under-funded’ budget is running at around £65Billion! Yet, if by simply re-hydrating our bodies, we can reduce the demand on our vainly striving medical professionals for many of today’s ills, think what a tremendous difference that would make. A meagre 10% saving in cost would put over £100 back into the pockets of every man, woman, and child in Britain!

A word of caution about water. There is water and there is water. Here, in the West of Scotland, we are blessed with good quality water. In other less fortunate areas, ask your local water company for details of the purity of the water; they cannot refuse you. If in doubt, there are a number of domestic ceramic, carbon, or reverse osmosis filters available either for fitting in-line or free standing. If your water is dosed with fluoride, check that the filter will remove it. Drinking fluoridated water is not good for your health!

Or you can rely on bottled water. Really good water is usually bottled in glass. Incidentally, water dissolves polyethylene containers.

Also, in general, avoid distilled water. Distillation is the process in which water is boiled, evaporated and the vapour condensed. Distilled water is free of dissolved minerals and is therefore an aggressive absorber: when it comes into contact with air, it absorbs carbon dioxide, making it acidic. The more distilled water a person drinks, the higher the body acidity becomes, - and your body likes to be alkaline. Incidentally, distilled water dissolves many metals!

So, how do you start this simple, natural regimen to good health? Each day, you should aim to drink two pints of water for every fifty pounds of body weight, more if you exercise regularly. That is, at seven stone, you need four pints, at eleven stone, six pints and so on. Build up your intake gradually. Drinking several pints at once will do no good; as with all things, over-indulgence is actually harmful Most people cannot process more than about a glass of water each hour, so spread your drinking through the day. Water will dilute the digestive juices in the stomach, so plan your drinking around your meals, one glass half an hour before, and one to two glasses about two hours after a substantial meal. It will be easier if you map out a rough timetable, and make drinking a habit; that way you don’t have to count.

Ice cold water will chill the stomach and can cause cramps. Room temperature is best, so fill an open jug, cover with a clean cloth, and let it stand for twenty minutes or so. Both taste and temperature will be better.

A final tip: replace that life-giving, first -in -the -morning cup of tea or coffee with a glass of water. It really will set you right for the rest of the day. As one who until recently took seven or eight mugs of sweet tea daily, believe me, I know: I’m brighter, livelier, free from heartburn and digestive discomfort, and feel really good! Try it: it will work for you.
 

Dr Batman’s Book “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water”, price £10, can be obtained from Tagman Distribution, PO Box 754, Norwich NR1 4GY or  www.tagman-press.com.


The Dangers Within


© Neil Haddon 2005