Are you chronically dehydrated?

Your body is composed of almost 75% water.

The brain is said to be 85% water.

Your blood is made up of 90% water.

We cannot live without air . . .

And we cannot live without water.

Chronic dehydration is epidemic today. . . and most people don’t know they’re dehydrated.

Sad Fact:

  • Teas, coffee, alcohol, sodas, including plain carbonated water (seltzer water), are NOT substitutes for pure water.

  • Not only are these beverages not hydrating, but they contain components that dehydrate the body by using up the water they’re dissolved in and then robbing the body of its water reserves.

Even Sadder Fact:

  • By the time a person experiences thirst, they are already dehydrated and have experienced about a 2% loss in water volume levels. This is enough to trigger pain, fatigue, foggy thinking, and a host of other health issue we will explore below.

    Dr. Laura Koniver, A Dozen Unique Ways to Use Water to Improve Your Health.

Ways We Lose Water Daily

  • Sweating

  • Breathing (Respiration loss)

  • Urinating

  • Trans-epidermal water loss (evaporation of water from the skin when not sweating)

Every minute of each day we are losing water through urinating, breathing and through our skin. According to Dr. Barbara O’Neill, this amounts to a minimum loss of over 2 quarts of water daily! If you live in a dry climate, the water loss is even greater.

To replace normal daily water loss, your body needs an absolute minimum of 6 to 8 glasses of pure water a day.

Remember: Alcohol, coffee, tea, sodas, and carbonated water DO NOT count as water. They are dehydrating, putting your body in a further water deficit.

Hunger can be a signal that the body is dehydrated and calling for water.

Before eating anything, drink a full glass of water. If you’re dehydrated, the water will satisfy the hunger and the craving will go away.

Use the feeling of hunger as a remind to drink water. It’s an easy reminder to stay hydrated.

Chronic dehydration is the root cause of many chronic diseases in the body.

Chronic dehydration is a persistent and long-standing shortage of water in the body. Just like any deficiency disease — such as scurvy from a lack of vitamin C or anemia from a lack of iron — water deficiency diseases can only be truly cured by supplying the missing ingredient . . . water.

Too simple? Ah yes, but it truly is just that simple.

Let’s take a quick look at a couple chronic health issue that are common today to understand why.

A warning before you go any farther . . .

If you are suffering from any of the above listed diseases or just realize you don’t drink enough water, it’s important not to rush in and start “drowning” yourself with water. Follow these simple steps:

  • Slowly increase your water intake by adding one to two glasses a day.

  • If you have issues with producing enough urine, be especially cautious and add no more than one glass a day until you see proper urine output.

  • As urine output increases, the amount of water you drink can be increased until you reach the optimal amount of 8 to 10 glasses a day, or more, if you live in a dry climate or are extremely active and sweat a lot.

  • According to Dr. Barbara O’Neill for every 100 pounds of body weight, a person should drink 2 quarts (or 2 liters) of water daily.

Be mindful of proper salt intake. . .

Salt is an essential element needed by the body.

Be aware as you increase the amount of water you’re drinking, you’ll need to increase the amount of salt (aka electrolytes) in your diet.

It can be extremely dangerous to deplete the body’s salt reserves.

If you start experiencing muscle cramps at night after increasing your water intake, there’s a high chance you’re becoming salt-deficient.

A simple rule to follow: for every 10 glasses of water you drink daily, you should add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to your diet

Dr. Batmanghelidj, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water

Your Body’s Many Cries for Water

By F. Batmanghelidj, M.D.

Much of the information in the “Water is Life” section was gained from Dr. Batmanghelidj’s book, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s when he died, Dr. Batmanghelidj tirelessly advocated to the medical establishment for review of his clinical work in which he successfully used water to cure many chronic diseases. Unintentional dehydration can bring on asthma, allergies, hypertension, high cholesterol, excess body weight, and even depression. This book explains how dangerous . . . deadly in fact . . . it is to silence the body’s cry for water with chemical drugs and procedures. Meticulously researched and passionately written, this book is a MUST for everyone to read.

More Resources on Dehydration

Can I trust drinking my tap water?

The unfortunate answer is. . .no

Clean pure water is essential to our health. Today, our tap water has become hopelessly contaminated with a scary amount of toxic chemicals that can be damaging to our health, including lead, arsenics, forever chemicals, microplastics, pesticides, flouride, and a countless array of pharmaceuticals. . . just to name a few. Bacteria and viruses are also found in municipal tap water.

As a result, it’s become necessary to filter the water we drink. The best bet is to filter your own water, rather than relying on bottled water from the store with dubious origins and purity.

In Nature, water has a perfect pH of 7

We want our water the be pH 7, just as it is in Nature.

I know there’s been a big push for high-alkaline water (above 8 pH), but it’s out of it’s natural balance, and therefore, isn’t good for the body.

Also, water with a lower pH than 7 isn’t good either. It’s acidic — distilled water is an example. The body has a hard time recognizing it as water.

What are my options?

There are many water filtering systems on the market today — an almost confusing amount. Some are high quality, others more dubious in their claims. It’s best to do your research before purchasing any system.

A big challenge is how to purify the water of all contaminants without altering its natural pH of 7.

Reverse Osmosis systems do an excellent job of removing contaminants, but these systems also remove most of the minerals out of the water, and therefore, lower the pH. Some systems replace the lost minerals, returning the water to a natural range of pH.

Gravity filters, such as Berkey and ProOne, remove most contaminants and retain the mineral content and natural pH. Berkey is not NSF certified, but I mention it here because it’s so well known.

Multi-Pure is an excellent system that removes most contaminants and retains the natural pH, but it doesn’t remove fluoride from tap water.

When buying any water filtration system, I recommend choosing one with a NSF certification. For more information go to NSF.org and research water safety and what a NSF certification entails.