Water: For Health, For Healing, For Life (12 page)
Figure 7.3:
A model of physiological events that will either stimulate or inhibit renin-angiotensin production.
Naturally, an increase in daily water intake and sea salt that contains other minerals will correct this problem. The present way of dealing with hypertension is criminal. To give diuretics to a hypertensive who has adequate kidney function is absurd. The body is trying to retain its water by storing salt, and we say to the design of nature in us: “No, you do not understand, you must take diuretics and get rid of water.” By giving diuretics and reducing the water content of the body, we reduce the efficiency of the reverse osmosis system that is delivering water to the brain and other important cells in the body. Water by itself is the best natural diuretic. It should be remembered that complications associated with hypertension, including coronary thrombosis and repeated strokes, are, in effect, caused by persistent dehydration. Remember: Chronic dehydration kills prematurely and painfully. The use of diuretics assists in the process.
Truck driver Jim Bolen, whose letter follows, is an extremely interesting person. He was trained as a pilot and worked with one of the airlines. Because of very high blood pressure he was grounded, unable to fly any longer. This is when he discovered The Water Cure and was able to lower his blood pressure with ease and without any of the usual chemicals that are prescribed for this condition. By nature, he is very inquisitive and curious to learn. He has a sharp memory for detail. He has taken to heart the information on the role of water and its curative properties and is determined to enlighten and help others.
Bolen is now a traveling missionary for The Water Cure. He drives a truck the length and the breadth of the country. He talks to other drivers at truck stops or through their system of radio communication. He gets them to drink water when they are tired and feel sleepy at the wheel. He gets them to give up their caffeine-containing coffee and sodas and drink water instead. He tells them about the importance of adequate salt intake in proportion to the amount of water they need. Every month, he buys several hundred dollars' worth of books and tapes and gives them to the people who need the information to improve their health. He stops at churches and parishes on his way. He talks to priests on his delivery routes and gives them books and videotapes to share with their parishioners. He has helped thousands of people learn about the importance of water in their lives.
TO: Dr. Batman
FROM: Jim Bolen
I discovered the importance of water and salt to the human body in June of 1997 when I failed a medical for renewing my commercial flying license My pressure at rest was 230/110. I was grounded and told to see my personal physician. He told me I needed blood pressure medication, but I decided I was not going on any medication yet.
I left upset, in denial. My blood pressure had always been 120/80. I got a second opinion weeks later after trying garlic, herbs, vitamins, exercise, meditation, and found it still a solid 180/100. He told me if I didn't go on medication, my heart would enlarge and I would have a heart attack or stroke down the road.
I went home, depressed. I didn't want to accept old age at 54. I was telling a friend about my situation when a retired chiropractor told me about your book (Your Body's Many Cries for Water). He loaned me his book and told me to stop all caffeine for a week, drink ten glasses of water, and add 1?2 tsp of salt to my diet.
I looked at him like he was crazy. I had been on a salt-free diet for years. Thank God for your book, Dr. Batmanghelidj, and Dr. Lee Hobson for his time and generosity.
My blood pressure is now 117/75. I'm taking no medication at all and I have unlimited energy at 58 years old. No more headache or lower back pain; sinuses are clear and no constipation.
Thankfully,
Jim Bolen Indio, CA
I could write much more about blood pressure. Suffice it to say, “essential hypertension” is an indicator of an establishing chronic dehydration. Correct the established dehydration in your body with an adjustment to daily water intake and adequate intake of minerals to replace those lost through increased urination, and the adaptive need to raise the blood pressure from its normal levels will not arise. It is as simple as that. Dehydration is by far the most frequent constant stressor in the human body that raises blood pressure—in at least sixty million Americans. However, there may arise occasions when other silent stressors may bring about the same chemical driving forces that ultimately raise blood pressure. These occasions are few and far between and need exhaustive investigation to pinpoint the problem. We need to exclude dehydration as the primary cause of the rise in blood pressure first, before embarking on other approaches.
Salt and Hypertension
Recent articles in scientific journals are also questioning the view that salt is bad for those with hypertension. Dr. H. Alderman of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and associates, in their 1995 article in the
Journal of Hypertension,
have shown that people on restrictively low-salt diets are more likely to die from heart attacks or strokes than those who use salt liberally. In a 1997 article in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
Dr. David McCurron of the Department of Nephrology at Oregon Health Science University, Portland, found that with adequate daily intake of potassium, calcium, and magnesium, not only will salt not raise blood pressure, it might actually lower it. This article confirms my view that the water volume inside and outside the cells of the body needs to be in balance. Remember that salt regulates the water levels outside the cells. Potassium, magnesium, and calcium are the vital minerals that balance the water volume inside the cells.
Additional information you need to remember is that five elements—water, salt, potassium, magnesium, and caicium—are involved in energy regulation inside the cells.
Water drives the sodium potassium pump protein and manufactures hydroelectricity.
This hydro-electricity is used for immediate needs, and the excess of it is converted to usable stored energy for emergency use. Calcium is bonded to other calcium in bones and in the endoplasmic reticulum inside the cells. Each bonded calcium atom traps one unit of energy that can be reused if necessary. Magnesium traps many units of energy in the form of magnesium ATP.
As you can see, the mystery of essential hypertension is solved. To avoid the problem, you need to take an adequate amount of water daily so that the urine is light in color. Your diet should include no less than 3 to 4 grams of salt, about 1 gram of calcium, 400 to 800 milligrams of magnesium (although this amount of magnesium is more than the official dietary reference values, most people are severely magnesium-deficient and need to correct the deficiency), and about 2,000 to 4,000 milligrams of potassium. It is easy to get the potassium in high-potassium foods such as raisins, potatoes, avocados, lima and all the other beans, peas, tomatoes, cauliflower, bananas, bread, oranges, grape-fruits, dried apricots, milk, eggs, and cheese. Practically everything you eat has some potassium content. You need to eat foods and fruits with higher potassium content.
If you do not eat kelp, wheat bran, wheat germ, almonds, and other nuts that have very high magnesium content, or green leafy vegetables in which magnesium is a component of chlorophyll, you should take magnesium supplements every day. As for calcium, in order of their calcium content, kelp, cheese, sesame seeds, bean curd, molasses, pulses—lentils, different beans—figs, almonds, spring greens, watercress, parsley, plain yogurt, shrimp, broccoli, milk, cottage cheese, and olives will provide the calcium needs of the body. People on weight-loss programs, or those who do not have access to a balanced diet, should take these minerals in the form of supplements.
Iodine is a very important element for the regulation of the fluid content of the body. Iodine is essential for the thyroid gland to manufacture thyroxin, its primary hormone. It seems that thyroxin is the element that stimulates the cells to manufacture all the pump proteins that regulate the sodium, potassium, and other mineral balances outside and inside the cells, and that generate energy in the process. With the movement of sodium and potassium across the cell membrane, not only will water also move to balance the osmotic pressure in and out of the cell, but the other mineral-transferring pumps will take their cue and regulate the magnesium, potassium, and calcium levels of the cell interior as well.
Before salt was iodized, many people suffered from iodine deficiency and lumpy thyroid gland enlargement in their necks, known as thyroid goiter. One of the major complications of iodine deficiency is the collection of hard-to-move and inelastic swelling and edema, known as myxedema. Other complications are dry skin, loss of hair and memory, tiredness, sleepiness, and loss of muscle tissue. As you can see, iodine is vital for good health and good fluid balance.
Much to my regret, I discovered that unrefined sea salt does not have enough iodine. Thinking that sea salt has many important trace elements, I switched to using only sea salt and was not diligent in taking foods and multivitamins that would provide my body with the iodine it needs. My second mistake was that being so busy with sharing my medical breakthrough on water metabolism of the body with people that I was not alert to my own health problems. I developed all the early stages of iodine deficiency, but no goiter in my neck. However, I developed an uncomfortable feeling in my chest and also shortness of breath.
A high-resolution CT scan of my chest revealed a massive thyroid goiter in my chest that was pressing on my trachea, to the point of deforming it. This was three months ago. I adjusted my iodine intake in the form of dried kelp or as part of the composition of the one-a-day multivitamin that I now take religiously. As a result, my breathing problem has cleared, my edema has cleared, I am no longer lethargic, and my energy level has increased; my sleep has normalized; my blood pressure is back to the normal range. I now feel much healthier and more confident and have lost fifteen pounds of the swelling that I had amassed. All these improvements have been made possible because of the vital role of simple iodine in the physiology of the body and adjustment to my intake of vital minerals mentioned above. You see, even doctors get sick, and that is how we learn. A word of caution: Do not overdo iodine intake. It could cause other problems.
DIABETES
Diabetes seems to be the end result of water deficiency in the brain, to the point that the brain's neurotransmitter systems, particularly the system that is regulated by the neurotransmitter serotonin, are affected. It is within the automatic design of the brain to peg up the glucose threshold so that it can maintain its own volume and energy requirements when there is a water shortage in the body. When there is a gradually establishing chronic dehydration in the body, the brain has to depend more on glucose as a source of energy. The brain needs more glucose for its energy value and its metabolic conversion to water. Under the urgent circumstances produced by stress, up to 85 percent of the supplemental energy requirement by the brain is provided by sugar alone. This is why stressed people resort to eating sweet food. While all the other cells need to be influenced by insulin to take up glucose through their cell walls, the brain does not depend on insulin to carry sugar across its cell membranes.
It seems to be in the natural design of the brain to steer the physiological mechanisms in the direction of higher glucose level in the body when there is persistent dehydration that would damage the brain more than it could recover from. The brain resuscitates itself in the same way that a doctor resuscitates a patient— with intravenous fluid containing sugar and salt. The main problem stems from one very important factor— the salt metabolism (both sodium and potassium) of the body also becomes negatively affected when there is water deficiency in the body. This condition should be treated with an increase in water intake and diet manipulation to provide the necessary minerals and amino acid balance for tissue repair—including brain tissue requirements.
It has been shown that the brain amino acid balance for tryptophan is affected in diabetic rats. There seems to be a much lower level of this amino acid in the brain when diabetes exists. Tryptophan in turn regulates the salt intake of the body. Salt is responsible for regulating water-volume content outside the cells of the body. When there is tryptophan deficiency in the body, there is also a total body-salt shortage. With lower salt retention as a result of tryptophan deficiency, the responsibility for holding water in the body and outside the cells falls onto the sugar content in the blood. To do its new job, and compensate for the lower salt, the sugar content rises. The way this happens is so simple it is almost unbelievable.
One of histamine's deputies, which becomes increasingly active in water-distribution systems, is prostaglandin E. This chemical inhibits the insulin-making cells in the pancreas, preventing them from making and secreting insulin. When insulin is not adequately secreted, the main body cells do not receive sufficient sugar and some amino acids. Potassium stays outside the cells, and the water that accompanies potassium does not enter the cells, either. In this way, the cells of the body are forced to forgo their right to water and some amino acids, and they gradually become damaged. This is how diabetes becomes the cause of many associated disease conditions.