The Amazingness of Water

What TRUE HYDRATION is all about

TLDR: True Hydration is about DRINKING water & MAKING water.

We need to DRINK at least 10 cups of water per day. We also need to incorporate daily lifestyle habits that support our body’s mechanisms for MAKING metabolic water, i.e. we need to become ELECTRON GATHERERS.

Bottoms up!

Drinking Water

"We are beginning to understand dehydration manifests itself in as many ways as we in medicine have invented disease conditions. We in medicine, not knowing that dehydration becomes symptom-producing, and lack of water in the body is pathology-producing - we have labeled states of dehydration, and complications of dehydration, as disease conditions... When the body has been calling for water, it has become [standard practice in medicine] to give it toxic chemicals."

Dr. F Batmanghelidj (author - Your Body's Many Cries for Water)

This quote by Dr. B revolutionized the way I look at every single presentation (i.e. symptom). Allergies? Dehydration. Asthma? The body’s incredible drought-management system kicking into high gear to combat dehydration. Joint pain? Deep dehydration. Neurodegenerative conditions? Dehydration! Constipation? Yep, you guessed it - Dehydration.

You catch my drift…

Dr. B spent decades working with patients and hydration and he wrote a number of books on the impact of water and its ability to mitigate and even reverse a number of diseases, ranging from chronic pain, to respiratory conditions, obesity and autoimmune diseases. A great place to begin the deep dive is here. He was meticulous in his explanations for why he believed most diseases doctors were attempting to treat were really simply the result of chronic unintentional dehydration. In fact, he suggested that perhaps the way modern medicine was looking at diseases is analogous to the way the blind men “looked at” an elephant, in the parable Blind Men and an Elephant.

(image from this article)

I adapted this image and Dr. Batmanghelidj’s interpretation in this infographic:

Indeed, Dr. B saw time and time again that by simply increasing the amount of clean, filtered water a person drank, the more efficiently their complaints diminished or disappeared. This and making sure there was adequate salt intake. The minerals and trace minerals in sea salt or mountain salt are essential for proper absorption and usage of water.

He also painstakingly catalogued the different ways in which the human body actually lets us know that more water is needed. These “water shortage signals” don’t even include thirst. In fact, by the time we actually feel thirsty, we’re deep into dehydration territory! Instead, these water shortage signals actually respond to anti-histamines. Suggesting a key, central role of histamine in the context of dehydration. I confirmed this first hand when, years ago, my child was in the throws of bronchial constriction and all I had to give at 2am was a sublingual, homeopathic “allergy” tab. I was trying desperately to avoid another albuterol nebulization, since the last one had only been a couple hours prior. The tabs worked! At the time I briefly wondered “why? if this is more reactive airway/asthma, not pollen allergy?” But my kid was now sleeping and I needed to sleep so I ran with it. Now, as I emerge from my water deep-dive this week, I get it! Our bodies are so amazing!

And so here’s the skinny (if you need more details, I’ve put together a masterclass on Asthma and Allergies through a Quantum Lens that will be available in our Wellness Education Corner soon:

When we’re dehydrated, the body's prime directive is to protect the blood volume, and maintain that blood pH of 7.4, at all costs. In order to do this, an initial step is to halt all flow of excess water from the capillaries into the interstitial spaces and into the cells.

This in turn triggers release of histamine. WHY? Because histamine is THE controller of water levels throughout the body! If it senses less than ideal hydration levels, it cranks up its production and begins to enact "water preservation" measures so that blood pH, brain function and saliva production are maintained.

Excess histamine levels present in many different ways, including pain, hypertension, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, autoimmune diseases like Lupus and RA, asthma and allergies.