The Body’s Great Need for Water

“Water is the basis of all life and that includes your body. Your muscles that move your body are 75% water; your blood that transport nutrients is 82% water; your lungs that provide your oxygen are 90% water; your brain that is the control center of your body is 76% water; even your bones are 25% water”

I want to speak about the importance of water as a follow-up to my cleansing post last week. You water intake is a great way to start positive, sustainable changes to your diet and lifestyle. It’s cheap, easy and profoundly affects your health. Please read on…

I was introduced to the concept of the body’s real need for water several years ago when I worked in the supplement industry. I already knew of the basics of human need for regular hydration but one particular book, The Body’s Many Cries For Water - by F. Batmanghelidj M.D. really opened my eyes to just how important water is and just how so many of us ignore our own needs and therefore suffer, unnecessarily, due to this self-induced dehydration. It manifests as many different ailments and occurs from minor to severe.

“The simple truth is that dehydration can cause diseases. Everyone knows that water is good for the body. They seem not to know how essential it is to one's well-being. They do not know what happens to the body if it does not receive its daily need of water."


“We misinterpret thirst signals as pain, and treat them with drugs which silence instead of cure the problem. Because dehydration eventually causes loss of some functions, the various signals given by water distribution system regulators during severe and lasting dehydration have been translated as indicators of unknown disease conditions of the body. I discovered that histamine is a vital chemical messenger in the brain. Histamine has a most important function not written about in medical textbooks. It is in charge of water intake and drought management in the body. It is less active when the body is fully hydrated, and becomes increasingly active when the body becomes dehydrated."
"To hush the body's call for water by masking the symptoms with drugs is like turning out the dashboard light that signal us that our car is about to overheat."


"Every function inside the body is regulated by and depends on water. Water must be available to carry vital elements, oxygen, hormones, and chemical massages to all parts of the body. Without sufficient water to wet all parts equally, some more remote parts of the body will not receive the vital elements that water supplies. Without sufficient water to constantly wet all parts, your body's drought-management system kicks into action. The histamine-directed chemical messenger systems are activated to arrange a new, low quota of water for the drought-stricken area. When histamine and its subordinate "drought managers" come across pain-sensing nerves, they cause pain. This is why dehydration produces pain as its first alarm signal. If the dehydration persists and is not corrected naturally with water, it becomes symptom-producing and, in time, develops into a disease condition." (All above quotes from www.watercure.com)

This information is a real eye-opener and, as I stated above, should be the foundation of any new diet/lifestyle change when trying to improve one’s health. Isn’t it inspiring to have something so potentially simple, inexpensive and profoundly healing at your fingertips?

One of my goals is to empower people to make positive healthful changes. To help people understand just what potential they have to be their own healers (and disease-creators) and how easy it can be with some basic understanding and a good ‘filter’ to be able to sift through the overwhelming amounts of bias and poor advice out there – much of which has only your $$ in mind.

My first recommendation in lieu of the above info is for you to start every day with one large glass of fresh, filtered water. If you already have a glass upon waking then strive for 2.
Then, drink water throughout the day, but only on an empty stomach – any significant amount of water should be consumed either 20 minutes before a meal or at least 2 hours afterwards to ensure you adequately hydrate yourself and not interfere with your digestive processes.

Speaking of filters…

Get yourself an inexpensive filtration system that does not filter your water too much such as solid-carbon filters or ozonation. Processes such as Reverse-Osmosis and distillation also effectively remove potentially harmful impurities but unfortunately they also remove the life-giving properties of water such as the minerals naturally occurring within. From my research I’ve found ozonation to be one of the best options for home purification without removal of the essential natural nutrients in water. However, I personally use a more affordable but still very efficient, sink-side, tap attachment home filtration system (see photo above) composed of solid carbon (In my opinion, better than the store-bought loose carbon filters, ie: Brita) and you could get an under-the-counter one instead, if you prefer. Here are some stats I discovered on a trusted website (www.ewg.org) where you can do your own research and find what suits you best:

In 2006, researchers from Universite Laval in Quebec, Canada found that the use of activated-carbon filters is one of the most effective ways for households to reduce THM and HAA concentrations in drinking water (Lévesque, 2006)


EWG research shows that pitcher and faucet-mounted systems are typically the most economical, with yearly costs typically in the range of about $100. Counter-top and under-counter systems tend to be more expensive at the outset, though the yearly maintenance costs are often not that much higher than the pitcher and faucet-mounted systems.

I encourage you to simplify in 2010; reduce your stress by breathing deeply, listening to your intuition, drink clean water and eat cleaner food throughout the day. I will do my best to offer you some guidelines through my blog which can help you on your way.

Yours in health, Lisa Marie