Are You Chronically Dehydrated?
As Featured in Food Matters
"Chronic pains of the body which cannot easily be explained as injury or infection, should first and foremost be interpreted as signals of chronic water shortage in the area where the pain is registered. These pain signals should first be considered and excluded as primary indicators for dehydration of the body before any other complicated procedures are forced on the patient." - Dr F Batmanghelidj
The human body is a bio-electrical water machine that requires a quart a day for every 50 lbs of body weight. The blood alone is made up of a large percentage of watery serum. The lymph fluids which transport waste and nutrients, comprising four times the volume of blood in the body, are made from the water we consume. Every cell that makes us who we are literally owes its life to an adequate supply of fresh, clean water.
When the body does not receive a constant, reliable supply of water, it has to ration what is available and cut back on certain functions to make the supply go round. Essential systems like the brain are prioritised, others are impaired or cut back until the brain has decided a reliable source of water has been garnered.
Here's the rub. Most citizens have become chronically and dangerously dehydrated (especially the elderly), since we decided water was too bland to drink and ignored it in favour of tea, coffee, beer, wine, addictive sodas, flavoured water and other chemical-laced water alternatives. A disastrous and dangerous move for the body and society's health in general, to be sure, compounded further since most doctors today cannot readily identify the many water-deficient diseases and associated pains. Thus the underlying dehydration process continues to wreak its havoc while the inevitable drugs given will switch off the warning signals (symptoms).
Consider the following conditions:
- Heartburn,
- arthritis,
- lupus,
- asthma,
- 'high cholesterol',
- high blood pressure,
- heart disease,
- cancer formation,
- hot flushes and menstrual problems,
- obesity,
- allergies,
- bulimia,
- chronic fatigue syndrome,
- ME,
- angina,
- lower back pain,
- gout,
- kidney stones,
- skin disorders,
- diabetes,
- fungal/yeast overgrowth,
- multiple sclerosis,
- migraine headaches,
- general aches and pains,
- morning sickness,
- depression,
- heavy/burdensome periods,
- colitis,
- dyspepsia and
- peptic ulcers...
Are all of these conditions linked to a chronic state of dehydration?
World-renowned water expert Dr Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, in his latest bestseller, Water and Salt - Your Healers From Within, maintains that the above conditions are the body's many cries for water, complaints dramatically improved with a consistent and long-term intake of the fresh, clean water. Dr Batman's timely work has helped thousands quash long-term health problems effortlessly and inexpensively.He writes: "The report of my having successfully treated with water more than three thousand people with symptoms and clinical signs of peptic ulcer disease was published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology in June 1983. I came away from that experience with the understanding that the people I treated were thirsty, and I uncovered the phenomenon that 'pain' in the body indicates thirst, even though the condition is classified as a disease." Water is used by the body for digestion, detoxifying cells, watering the lungs, lubricating joints, keeping the body alkalized and a host of cleaning duties.
Many warning signals ('symptoms') arise out of the body's inability to neutralize or rid itself of acid, a common enough complaint given the number of antacids sold around the world each day.
'I drink coffee, tea, diet sodas, beer and a host of other liquids. They contain water, don't they?'
This is a common and dangerous misconception. Many of today's designer drinks are diuretic in their effect (water-expelling) because their mostly acidic compositions require the body to give up water and alkalizing minerals to eliminate their harmful residues. Diet sodas especially are harmful in that they require large amounts of body-water to neutralize the phosphoric acid component (2.8 pH). Cells that started off healthy and 'plum-like' shrivel to prunes as water, the stuff of life, is progressively denied them. The sick in our hospitals are fed the sodas, tea and coffee they ask for in woeful ignorance of the damage wrought to the micro cell-world within them.Batmanghelidj's extraordinary work should rightly be considered by a mainstream medical community ever fixated on the drug cure. Below is a summary of body functions and that rely on an adequate intake of water:
