Water Therapy
HYDRATION FOR OXYGEN HOMEOSTASIS
From Volume 5 of The Principles and Practice of Integrative Medicine
Integrative Nutritional Medicine

In earlier chapters, I presented my case that cellular oxidosis and acidosis eventually lead to cellular oxygen homeostasis — a state of dysoxygenosis that fans the fires of oxidosis and acidosis and perpetuates itself. Water is unquestionably the simplest, safest, cheapist, and the single most effective therapy for preserving cellular and matrix oxygen homeostasis. From that one may conclude that a optimal state of hydration is essential for optimal health. The reader is referred to Dysoxygenosis and Oxystatic Therapy, the third volume of this series, for a large body of clinical and experimental data that support my view.

Most of us, when not making a conscious effort, stay in a state of mild dehydration. Dehydration stresses our metabolic pathways, and in particular exaggerates the acidotic stress caused by our food and our environments. In general, aging-oxidant foods increase the dehydration stress and lifespan foods diminish it. A simple remedy for the metabolic problems of dehydration and acidosis is a habit of drinking life spanfluids.

The ideal drinking water is a fresh, natural, nonchlorinated spring or deep well water obtained from natural, noncommercial sources. (Problem: where are we to find such water?) Bottled spring waters generally go through a packaging process: Some are good; others are not. Cow's milk appears in the third category for reason of its allergenicity.

The best vegetable juices are fresh unsalted juices. Cans of most commercially available vegetable juices contain as much as 500-600 mg of sodium (a "life span mineral" turned into an "aging-oxidant mineral" by the American food industry). Unsalted canned vegetable juices are next best choices.

How Much Water?

Table 3 gives my guidelines for achieving overhydration in the morning and optimal hydration during the rest of the day. For many persons, it is desirable to drink water every three to four hours except during the late evening and night hours.

Table 3. Guidelines for Daily Water Intake According to the Body Weight in Pounds
 

Water Therapy Sheet

Unrelenting emphasis on optimal hydration is essential in the clinical setting. To underscore the importance of water as a prescription item, my colleagues at the Institute and I use a "Water Therapy Sheet" (which I included in Life Span Nutrition) written for patient education. Below, I include the text on that sheet for the reader's interest.

Following is the specific dose of water therapy prescribed by your physician:

Please drink 3 4 5 quarts of pure water between morning and 6 PM.
Please take 1/3 1/2 2/3 teaspoonful of sea salt daily—in any desirable form. (LaBaleine is a good brand of sea salt.) Persons with history of heart disease need to discuss this with their physicians.

Organic vegetable juices and herbal teas are included in the daily water dose.
Coffee, tea, sodas, and fruit juices do not qualify for water.

Lemon juice may be added to hot or cold water for change of taste.
Seltzer water is permissible.
Please do limbic/lymphatic rebounding exercise in the morning to distribute the water into the tissues.
(See Limbic Exercise video for details.)

The human body is a water pond in which float all human cells. When a drought lowers the water level in a pond, all pond life suffers; many life forms die. Chronic dehydration does the same to human tissues and cells. This is not melodrama. It is a simple truth.

Is there any disease in which water dysregulation does not play a role? The answer is none. Consider the following:

The primary difference between a young and an aged cell is that the aged cell is dehydrated and shrunken.
The primary difference between a vigorous and a tired cell is that the tired cell is dehydrated and shrunken. The primary difference between a healthy and a toxic cell is that the toxic cell is dehydrated and shrunken.

Water is the best cell energizer and resuscitator. (Caffeine, by contrast, drains energy. In the brain cells, water generates energy, coffee only releases it for brief periods.) Water is the best tissue detoxicant. It is the best diuretic. It is the best enhancer of enzyme functions of energy, detoxification, digestive, and neurotransmitter systems. It is the best antidote for acidotic stress.

Following are some more reasons why we prescribe water therapy for patients with chronic fatigue states, ecologic, immune, and nutritional disorders, heart disease, lung disorders, and cancer. All cells contain microchannels of water that make possible the traffic of materials and information among cells. In the brain cells, water is essential for nerve impulses to be generated and transmitted. In the heart muscles, it makes it possible for them to contract—and so let the heart beat. In the bowel, it allows digestive and absorptive functions. In the liver cells, it catalyzes all detoxification processes. In the kidneys, it carries toxins into the urine. In the cartilage, it protects the ends of bones in a joint—and so prevents arthritis. Indeed, no life processes are possible without water.

SNACKING ON WATER

Snacking on water? Patients often express surprise at my choice of the word snack for a drink of water. I do so to underscore something I discovered to be very effective several years: the use of water to curb a desire to eat something. It is my sense that frequent snacking is a peculiarly American trait, which, of course, we have exported worldwide with transcending zeal.

I cannot overstate the clinical value of teaching all patients to keep a mug of water on their desks or elsewhere in their work areas. If the water is readily available, it will be drunk without the usual I- will-drink-water-as-soon-as-I-finish-this-thing delaying technique.

I may add here for amusement that in all the years I prescribed drugs as the sole treatment, I do not recall if I ever emphasized to my patients the need for extra water with those pharmacologic therapies. All blocker drugs dehydrtate. But, then, in pharmacologic medicine whoever thought about chronic dehydration.

OPTIMAL HYDRATION FOR ROBUST BOWEL ECOLOGY

In my clinical experience, the single most common cause of prolonged bowel transit time and constipation is chronic dehydration. Literally hundreds of my patients with chronic constipation reported satisfactory improvement with the simple measure of keeping themselves optimally hydrated.

Beyond the issue of proper transit time are the equally important issues of providing fluids for the production of digestive fluids as well as for the digestive-absorptive functions. For instance, under optimal conditions the 24-hour output of saliva alone should be about 1,500 milliliters, whereas the volume of intestinal secretions should be 2,500 to 3,500 milliliters.

CONSIDERATION IN WATER FILTRATION

Impressive advances have been made in water filtration technology for household use. This is especially welcome since there are increasing doubts about the validity of claims of natural water bottling companies concerning the characteristics of their bottled water. Very large-scale bottling plants carry many potential sources of water contamination, as has been reported widely in the media.

The kitchen carbon-reverse osmosis water filtration system used by the author has the following features:

1. A 5-micron sediment pre-filter
2. A 10-micron second-stage carbon filter
3. 36 gallon per day TFC membrane
4. Permeate pump
5. A 10" in-line carbon filter

Relatively low-cost water testing units are widely available for measuring the total dissolved solid (TDS) in waters from taps which are fed (or not fed) by the water filtration system. The desirable range for TDS value of the optimally filtered water is 0 to 20 mg/L (zero to twenty parts per million) of dissolved solids. Once monthly or so use of such TDS water testers is advisable.

Recently, I had an amusing experience with water filters. I tested the water from each of the two faucets in our kitchen, one with a water filter and the one without it. I was surprised to find a TDS value of 338 in water coming out of my filtration system while the value from the faucet without a filteration system showed a lower value of 314. My filtration system was actually adding dissolved solids to my water rather than taking it out. One week after installing my new system, the TDS reading of the filtered water ranged from 001 to 006 mg/L (one to six parts per million). The performance characteristics of TDS meter I use (manufactured by Hanna Instruments, www.hannainst.com) are given in Table 5.


Table 5. The performance characteristics of TDS Meter Used by the Author
Range                                                     0-999 mg/L Resolution 1 mg/L
Accuracy                                                 + - 2%
Temperature Automatic from compensation     5 to 50Co
Weight                                                     85 g
Size                                                         150x30x24 mm

CLOSING COMMENTS
A new day calls for a new commitment to one's total being. An essential part of that commitment is to nourish the physical frame that houses the human spirit. That — in my view — makes a nourishing breakfast the most important meal of the day. Two essential components of that nourishment are the correction of dehydration and hypoglycemia created by sleep hours during the night. And those are two issues which I address during my clinical hours with every single patient.

Chronic dehydration of varying degrees is present in most Americans today. Chronic anger is dehydrating. And so is stress. Coffee dehydrates. Nearly all of our elderly are on drug therapies that cause dehydration to varying degrees. Diuretics are widely used without any consideration given to their dehydrating effects. Indeed, all those who do not undertake special measures to assure optimal hydration are likely to be dehydrated often during the day.