When I first started getting interested in this science of body analysis I was just like everyone else. I had heard a lot about water but didn’t realise how important it really is.
I knew I was supposed to drink 8-10 glasses a day because that information is everywhere.
I just didn’t know how critical it was that I drink according to my body weight. Some days I would get so involved in other things that I might only have 2 glasses of water and make up the rest in other fluids thinking that would be enough.
This is an article in a series of articles that talks about the four pillars, absolutely necessary for optimal health.
The first article is on Water and How Important it is to have Correct Hydration.
Following this article is a more in depth article written by fellow Naturopath, Kyle Grimshaw-Jones that has been taken from a very interesting book “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water” written by Dr. Batmanghelidj MD.
When I first started getting interested in this science of body analysis I was just like everyone else. I had heard a lot about water but didn’t realise how important it really is. I knew I was supposed to drink 8-10 glasses a day because that information is everywhere.
I just didn’t know how critical it was that I drink according to my body weight. Some days I would get so involved in other things that I might only have 2 glasses of water and make up the rest in other fluids thinking that would be enough.
Imagine my surprise when my first RBTI Analysis showed that I was chronically dehydrated and it was affecting the thickness of my blood, my ability to think clearly, the pressure on my heart and digestive system as well as all other organs in my body.
I just didn’t know how important it was to drink the right amount of water.
So I had high carbohydrates showing and that was leading to variable energy, high salts putting extra pressure on my heart and vascular system, high protein wastes showing that my digestive system wasn’t working properly and imbalanced pH’s showing that I wasn’t able to absorb nutrients properly.
What a surprise that was. So since that time I have made sure to keep up my water intake to the correct amount for my body. My body weighs 82 kg so for me as for every one else I need 33 ml of water for each kilogram of weight or 2.7 litres of water every day.
The funny thing is that when Carey Reams (The creator of RBTI Analysis) worked all of this out over 80 years ago he found that nearly everyone felt better and performed better when they had the right amount of water in their body.
Do You Know How Much Water To Drink & Just As Importantly When To Drink It?
If you want you or your child to have optimum performance at work, home, school, in sports or just generally it will pay to make sure that you and they consistently drink just water at the rate of 33 ml per kg of weight.
So if you weigh 100 kg that is 3.3 litres of water per day best drank at the rate of 110 to 120 ml per half hour to properly hydrate your body. If you have a child and they weigh 40 kg that is 1.3 litres every day.
Best drank systematically through the day. And remember nothing else does what water does. And the best way to drink it is in small frequent amounts taken right through the day. Making sure that it is all gone before bed.
There is so much more that I would love to share with you about water.
Sometimes clients come back to me as one did just recently and said that “since I started drinking all of that water my blood pressure has dropped and I don’t get the pressure around my heart any more.”
One of Carey Reams most famous sayings was that if everyone would just drink the right amount of water for their body it would stop most pectoralis heart attacks. What a way to save a life. Just drink more water!
The more consistent use and the better quality of the water the better the outcomes for you and your child’s body.
Summary Of Research On Water
Mostly the work of F. Batmanghelidj, M.D. Kyle Grimshaw-Jones ND, RT. Almost all of the below is extracted directly from his excellent book “Your body’s many cries for water”: you are not sick, you are thirsty! Don’t treat thirst with medications.
The above book is available from: Global Health Solutions, inc., PO Box 3189, Falls Church VA 22043, USA telephone: +1 703 848 2333 distributed in Australia by the Sydney esoteric bookshop
I have created this document in the hope of spreading the truth for the good of all. This document has been created without the supervision, knowledge, or consent of Dr. Batmanghelidj.
It is possible that I have made some errors in interpreting his work, for which I am totally responsible.
The below is for purposes of health education for self-healing purposes to improve our collective situation on Mother Earth, and to promote the awareness of Dr. Batmanghelidj’s book.
1. The acidic food mass when ready to leave the stomach, will not be allowed to pass through the pyloric valve until the pancreas has secreted a watery bicarbonate solution into the small intestine.
This cannot happen efficiently or properly in dehydration, and this is the first step in the production of dyspeptic pain which precedes other stomach ulcer problems.
2. In dehydration the body absolutely will not allow the highly acidic contents of the stomach, therefore, to come into contact with the delicate intestinal walls. For this reason the strength of contraction on either side of the stomach reverses.
This results in reverse peristalsis and predisposes to heartburn, hiatus hernia, nausea, vomiting, and cancer of the lower oesophagus.
3. Proportional to the volume of water that enters the stomach, a hormone/neurotransmitter called motilin is secreted by the intestinal tract and can be measured in blood circulation.
Motilin produces rhythmic contractions of the intestines -peristalsis – which move food virtually the entire length of the digestive tract. Therefore dehydration causes right lower abdominal, constipation, and colitis pain.
4. Dyspeptic pain is a cry of your body for water.
5. On the average, less severe cases of dyspeptic pain in peptic ulceration recover totally from the pain in eight minutes when water is administered.
6. Dr. Batmanghelidj treated 3000 persons with dyspeptic pain and associated complaints using ONLY water. The report on this was published as the editorial article in the Journal of Gastroenterology in June of 1983.
All pain and pain-associated clinical problems disappeared for these patients.
7. If the problem has persisted for many years, those who wish to test the pain-relieving property of water should make sure their kidneys can make sufficient urine so that they do not retain too much water in the body.
They should therefore increase their water intake gradually over a few weeks, building up to about 2 quarts (minimum).
8. Increase in age has usually been proportional to decrease in cell hydration (dehydration).
9. The new PARADIGM SHIFT is: Water, the solvent of the body, regulates all functions, including the activity of the solutes it dissolves and circulates.
10. The dry mouth is the very last sign of dehydration. The body can suffer from dehydration even when the mouth may be fairly moist. Still worse in the elderly, the mouth can be seen to be obviously dry and yet thirst may not be acknowledged or satisfied.
11. Water has an essential hydrolytic role important for many chemical reactions. Water liberates the growth energy in seeds and plants.
12. The osmotic flow of water through the cell membrane can generate hydroelectric energy that is converted and stored in energy pools of ATP and GTP. This is important for all cellular processes, esp. neurotransmission.
13. Neurotransmitters produced in the brain are transported along microtubules out to their destination in the nerve endings. This can be visualized as a flotation process, which can fail or be impaired by varying degrees of dehydration.
14. Proteins and body enzyme function are more efficient in solutions of lower viscosity – this is true of ALL receptors in the cell membranes.
15. In dehydration, the body resorts to a priority distribution network as a form of drought management.
16. Humans seem to lose their thirst sensation and the critical perceptions of needing water. NOT recognizing their water need, they become gradually, increasingly and chronically dehydrated with progress in age.
17. A rheumatoid joint is a thirst signal of the body. Water held in the cartilage of a joint is the lubricant that protects the contact surfaces of the joint. Dehydration causes drought management priority of fluid distribution.
The top priority is growing blood cells in bone marrow. The normal bone route (tubules in the bone) of serum diffusion to joint surfaces shuts down. Nerve endings in the joint surfaces request water which causes compensatory vascular expansion which is the dilation and oedema around an arthritic joint.
18. 75% of the weight of the upper part of the body is supported by the water volume that is stored in the disc core; 25% is supported by the fibrous material around the disc. So, hydration and spinal exercise are priorities to rehydrate the 5th lumbar disc in low back and sciatic problems.
19. Dehydration plays a major role in the precipitation of migraine headaches, caused by temperature regulation problems. Many migraine people have completely recovered simply by rehydrating the body. The general tendency to migraine disappears almost completely with rehydration.
20. Dehydration causes stress, and stress will cause further dehydration.
21. The following hormones are triggered as part of a dehydration stress response: endorphins, cortisone releasing factor, prolactin, vasopressin, and renin-angiotensin.
22. Endorphins raise the pain threshold. Cortisone mobilizes the body reserves and basically makes the body feed off itself. Prolactin primes gland cells in breast tissue to regenerate, increase in quantity, and grow. Vasopressin is produced in greater quantity so there is an increased water influx into the cells.
This is achieved by its causing a vasoconstriction that puts a squeeze on the local regional fluid volume causing increased water influx into the cells. Vasopressin secretion is suppressed by alcohol, thus causing brain cell dehydration. This then leads to endorphin secretion and addiction.
23. Alcohol and caffeine cause a lack of nerve cell hydration in severe dehydration, causing the body to bring more blood to the nerve cells. This process involves the release of histamine from cells in the nerve lining. This eventually causes damage to the nerve lining, manifesting nervous disorders
24. Rein-Angiotensin (RA) is activated to retain water and absorb more salt. Hence water or sodium deficiency causes an increase in RA secretion. RA tightens capillary bed and vascular system causing hypertension.
25. Stress causes use of available water for breakdown of stored materials. This leads to body compensation mechanisms causing increased hormone secretion.
26. Decreased filtration pressure in the kidney causes RA secretion and tightening of blood vessels causing hypertension. Water and salt, in that order, are the off switches for RA secretion.
27. Salivary glands produce kinins in sodium shortage causing increased saliva formation and triggering the body’s RA system, affecting all parts of the body.
28. Salt shortage leads to a devastating water shortage outside cells, causing essential hypertension and chronic pains in humans.
29. Constant substituting of caffeine-containing drinks for water will deprive the body of its full capacity for the formation of hydroelectric energy. Caffeine overrides the body to liberate energy even when it does not wish to and continues this override effect until a lower level of energy shortage is reached.
30. Excess caffeine depletes the ATP stored energy in the brain and body causing attention deficits and chronic fatigue, and eventually exhausts the heart muscle from overstimulation.
31. Caffeine inhibits PDE enzyme system involved in learning and memory development. So people with Alzheimer’s disease and learning disabilities should drink only water — NO caffeine drinks of any kind (tea, coffee, cola drinks).
32. Dehydration is the number 1 stressor of ANY living matter.
33. High Blood Pressure is the result of an adaptive process to a gross body water deficiency.
34. Decreased total fluid volume leads to a decreased aperture of the blood vessels. Otherwise gases would separate from the blood and fill the extra space forming gas locks.
35. In body water shortage, 66% is taken from the water volume normally held inside the cells; 26% is taken from the volume held outside the cells; and 8% is taken from the blood volume.
36. The vascular system all over the body adapts to blood volume loss by selective closing of the lumen. One major cause for blood volume loss is the loss of body water or it’s under supply through loss of thirst sensation.
37. The more the muscles are exercised, the more their capillaries will open and hold a greater volume of blood within the circulation reserves.
This is the reason why exercise is a most important component for physiological adjustment in those suffering from hypertension.
38. When there is a shortage of water, some cells will go without a portion of their normal needs and some others will get a predetermined rationed amount to maintain function (as it was explained, the mechanisms involve water filtration through the cell membrane).
However, blood will normally retain the consistency of its composition. It must do so to keep the normal composition of elements reaching the vital centres.
This is where the solutes paradigm is inadequate and goes wrong. It bases all assessments and evaluations of body functions on the solids content of the blood. It does not recognize the comparative dehydration of some parts of the body.
All blood tests can appear normal and yet the small capillaries of the heart and the brain may be closed and cause some of the cells of these organs a gradual damage from increasing dehydration over a long period of time.
39. Unless we get wise to the paradigm shift and professionally and generally begin to recognize the problems associated with water metabolism disturbance in the human body and its variety of thirst signals, chronic dehydration will continue to take its toll on both our bodies and our society!
40. Essential hypertension should primarily be treated with an increase in daily water intake. The present way of treating hypertension is wrong to the point of SCIENTIFIC ABSURDITY.
41. The mechanism of sodium retention in hypertensives is in an overdrive mode.
When water intake is increased gradually and more urine is being produced, the oedema fluid swelling that is full of toxic substances will be flushed out, and the heart will regain its strength.
42. Higher blood cholesterol is a sign that the cells of the body have developed a defence mechanism against the osmotic force of the blood that keeps drawing water out through the cell membranes; or the concentrated blood cannot release sufficient water to go through the cell membrane and maintain normal cell functions.
Cholesterol is a natural clay that, when poured in the gaps of the cell membrane, will make the cell wall impervious to the passage of water.
Its excessive manufacture and deposition in the cell membrane is part of the natural design for the protection of living cells against dehydration.
43. Imagine that you are sitting at a table and food is brought to you.
If you do not drink water before you eat the food, the process of food digestion will take its toll on the cells of the body. Water is used in the stomach, the intestines, the liver, and the lungs, in processing food materials.
The blood thus becomes excessively concentrated from eating food in dehydration. The thirst message that comes during the meal is too late. Damage has already occurred to the larger blood vessels and capillaries of the heart and brain.
44. If we begin to appreciate that for the process of digestion of food, water is the most essential ingredient, most of the battle is won.
If we give the necessary water to the body BEFORE we eat, all the battle against cholesterol formation in the blood vessels will be won.
45. The hormone-sensitive, fat-burning enzymes of the body have been shown to become active after one hour’s walk, and remain active for 12 hours.
Thus, walking two times per day will maintain the activity of the hormone-sensitive, fat-burning enzyme (hormone sensitive lipase) day and night and help clear away the excess lipid deposits in the arteries, especially when combined with adequate water intake.
46. Excess cholesterol formation is the result of dehydration.
47. In my professional and scientific view it is dehydration that is the biggest killer, more than any other condition you could imagine.
48. People don’t know when they are thirsty; they also don’t know the difference between fluids and water.
49. Hunger and thirst are generated in response to the brain’s need for water. We mistake both indicators as a need for food, and thus fail to drink appropriate water.
By drinking water before eating food, we can learn to separate the two sensations. This can help to avoid overeating to satisfy an urge for the intake of water.
50. Recently it has been discovered that the human body has the ability to generate hydroelectric energy when water, by itself, goes through the cell membrane and turns some very special energy generating pumps; very much like the hydroelectric power generation when a dam is built on a large river.
51. The mistaken assumption that all fluids are equivalent to water for the water needs of the human body is the main cause of many of the ills of the human body, and it is frequently associated with the initial excessive gain in weight.
Dehydration caused by caffeine-containing sodas, in due time, will cause a gradual gain in weight from overeating as a direct result of confusion of thirst and hunger sensations.
52. Do not overdrink thinking you can undo the damage of many months or years of dehydration by excessive intake of water in a few days.
You need to drink a normal amount of water every day — eight to ten 8-ounce glasses — until full hydration of the body is achieved over a longer period of time.
53. In dehydration, mucous secretion increases to protect air passages from drying. This occurs in asthma. Eventually the mucous stays put, preventing normal passage of air through the airways.
54. In dehydration, during digestion, Prostaglandin E (PGE), which is activated by histamine, is secreted.
This causes the shunting of the circulation to the pancreas so that the watery bicarbonate solution can be made to neutralize the acidic stomach contents as they enter the intestines.
Simultaneously, PGE inhibits the pancreas’ insulin secretion, which would otherwise cause the water, instead of being available for digestion, to be absorbed into the cells.
55. Hence, the paradigm shift can scientifically explain the role of water in disease prevention and/or their cure.
With strict and absolutely regular daily water intake to prevent the stresses and associated damages of dehydration, the chief conductor and supervisor of the body’s wellbeing — tryptophan and its neurotransmitter derivatives, serotonin, tryptamine and melatonin — will be well-positioned to regulate all functions.
A balanced amino acid intake in simple proteins will make sure enough of all of them is available to the body.
Regular daily walks will keep muscles well-coordinated and correct any physiological processes that are established in the body as a result of anxiety and emotional stress.
56. Your body needs an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM of 6-8 eight ounce glasses of water a day. The best times to drink water are: one glass one half hour before taking food — breakfast, lunch and dinner — and a similar amount two and a half hours after each meal.
Also take two more glasses around the heaviest meal or before going to bed.
57. Thirst should be satisfied at all times. With increase in water intake, the thirst mechanism becomes more efficient. Your body might then ask you to drink more than the above minimum.
58. For people who can’t sleep, drinking a glass of water and putting a pinch of salt on the tongue has been found very useful, as has adequate exercise during the day before. Be careful the salt does not irritate the palate of the mouth.
59. In Multiple Sclerosis and other nerve diseases the intake of essential fatty acids is a must.
Also loss of hair, sterility, weakness, impaired vision, growth retardation, eczema, liver damage, kidney damage, and other degenerative conditions may involve a deficiency of EFA’s. These are most easily found in soaked linseeds.
60. Urine should be almost colourless to light yellow. Dark colour urine is a sign of dehydration.
61. The first place that will show signs of being over-watered will be the lungs if your kidneys do not filter excess water.
62. When urine formation is reduced and some oedema (swelling) of the legs and eyelids is present, increased water intake should be proportionate to increased urine production.
63. According to Dr. Sheldon Saul Hendler, author of The Oxygen Breakthrough, cell membrane fluidity directly affects the ability of the cells to absorb, and thus utilize, oxygen to produce energy. Dehydrated cells cannot use oxygen.
Buy a copy of Dr. Batmanghelidj’s book and lend it to friends — Get motivated! Get your priorities straight! Dedicated with reverence and respect to life itself and all those who honor it. may all beings be happy!
Respectfully submitted, Kyle Grimshaw-Jones ND, RT
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