Are You Getting Enough H2O?

How often do you drink water? If it's not enough your body and health could be suffering. The human body is made up of 55% to 78% water depending on body size. In fact, water is the solvent in our bodies, and as such, it regulates all the functions of our bodies, including the action of all the solids dissolved in the water. In fact, every function of the body is monitored and pegged to the efficient flow of water.

Think for a moment of just a few of the functions that water regulates:

• The movement of blood
• The transport of nutrients into our cells
• The movement of waste out of our cells
• The flow of lymph fluid
• The movement of nerve impulses through our nerves
• The movement of hormones throughout our bodies
• The functioning of our brains

Understand we can function quite well and for quite a long time without sufficient water. The body quickly adapts and starts extracting more water from your stools for example. The kidneys flush less water to retain the limited supply you have. In fact, there are some health experts who claim that your body does quite well on 2 glasses of any kind of fluid a day -- plus the water found in the food you eat. But these experts confuse adaptation with health. Adaptation leads to compromise, which leads to diminished health over time.

Is all water created equal?
Unfortunately, not all water is the same. To put it simply, you want the purest water you can get that also contains essential trace minerals and that is pH optimized and in a form that your body can most readily utilize.

Some tips to keep in mind:

• Avoid chlorine and chloramines in your water. They are known carcinogens and kill all beneficial bacteria.
• Avoid fluoride in your water. It makes your bones weaker, encourages the deposit of aluminum in the brain, and lowers immune levels throughout the body.
• Drink water with optimized molecular groupings to improve cellular transport. There are many ways this can be accomplished, but applying a magnetic field to the water certainly works, and it's inexpensive. The interesting thing is that plants, which are not subject to the placebo effect, grow much better on water subjected to a magnetic field.
• Drink water that has an alkaline pH. As detailed in Chapter 13 of Lessons from the Miracle Doctors, maintaining a blood pH of around 7.45, without compromising the pH of the surrounding tissue, is vital. This requires the presence of minerals since pure distilled water has a neutral pH but turns slightly acid over time as it absorbs carbon dioxide from the air, thus forming carbonic acid.

So how much is enough?
It's recommended to consume between 64 and 96 ounces of pure water a day. Pure, fresh (not bottled or canned) fruit and vegetable juices may be substituted for some of this quantity -- as may limited quantities of non-diuretic herbal teas (without sugar). In general, however, pure water is the key. If exercising or in high heat, you might want to consider replenishing yourself more often.

The other factor to consider is how often you drink water. The best method is to drink smaller glasses of water every hour to an hour and half as opposed to drinking larger amounts of water less frequently throughout the day. This keeps your body hydrated properly all day and helps keep dehydration at bay.
 
This tip was provided by The Baseline of Health Foundation
 
Here is a link to another water-related article Don't Stop Drinking Water