Water: For Health, For Healing, For Life (14 page)
In dehydration, and the use of some essential elements as antioxidants to neutralize toxic waste that cannot be excreted because of low urine production, there comes a time when certain vital elements become scarce within the body reserves. However, some of the less vital components of the body have these elements in their assimilated forms. These tissues need to give up some of their precious elements for use in other parts of the body. The whole process is based on priorities and the importance of the elements that are scarce. Under these circumstances and in this category of conditions, the body is forced into a cannibalistic state of physiology. Such cannibalism can cause autoimmune diseases, such as lupus.
The chemical controllers in the body begin to break down certain tissues to compensate for the missing elements the body needs—especially in the brain. The body always puts the brain first. For example, when the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas are fragmented and destroyed, not only will the ensuing diabetes increase the level of sugar in circulation for the brain to use, but the process will also dehydrate the other tissues of the body and make their water content available for the needs of the brain and the nervous system.
There are some neurological conditions that follow the same logic, such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's disease, and Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). They will be explained in chapter 10, which deals with the brain. AIDS is another condition that I believe finds a better logic as an autoimmune disease, rather than a viral disease, within the discipline of physiology.
Figure 7.4:
A schematic presentation of the sequence of events in water regulation of the body at times of severe dehydration.
THE CRISIS CALLS OF THE BODY FOR WATER
The third category of conditions that denote local dehydration are the major pains of the body. Before dehydration hurts you irreversibly, when your plumlike cells become prunelike, your body will show its urgent need for water through different types of pain. These pains are the newly understood, drastic ways of showing dehydration.
After much clinical and scientific research, my understanding is that the early indicators of acid burns in the interior of the cells and potential genetic damage that can take place are different forms and intensities of pain. Depending on the degree of dehydration, as well as the extent and the location of acid buildup inside the cells—when greater flow of water should have cleared the acid from that area—the classic pains of the body are produced. They are:
1. Heartburn
2. Dyspeptic pain
3. Anginal pain
4. Lower back pain
5. Rheumatoid joint pain, including ankylosing spondylitis
6. Migraine headaches
7. Colitis pain
8. Fibromyalgic pains
9. Morning sickness during pregnancy
10. Bulimia
Today, there are 110 million Americans who, at certain times, need pain medications to make life bearable. How pain that is not caused by injury or infection can be produced by dehydration is simple to understand. This very simple mechanism of pain production has eluded us in medicine ever since humankind looked for a way to deal with some of the devastating pains of the human body. The drug industry spends billions of dollars researching painkillers, and even more money advertising their particular brand of pain medication. I don't believe the answer is in these medications, however. Dehydration can be cured by water, for free.
PAIN
To understand the mechanism of pain production in the body, we first need to learn about the way the acid-alkaline balance in the body works. An acidic environment causes irritation of certain nerve endings in the body. When this irritation occurs, the brain is alerted about the chemical environmental change, which is translated and manifested as pain to the conscious mind. In other words, it is the acidity in the interior of the body that causes pain.
Figure 8.1:
Nerve endings register the chemical environmental change with the brain. The brain translates the information for the conscious mind in the form of pain.
Normally, when blood that contains an ample amount of water circulates around the cells of the body, some of the water goes into the cells and brings out hydrogen molecules. Water washes the acidity out of the cell and makes the cell interior alkaline—an absolutely essential and normal state. For optimum health, the body should maintain an alkaline state— pH 7.4 is the desired level.
Why 7.4, and what is pH? The relationship between acid and alkaline is scientifically measured on a scale of 1 to 14. This scale is known as pH. From 1 to 7 on this scale is the acid range, 1 being more acid than 7. From 7 to 14 on the scale is the alkaline range; 7 is less alkaline than 14. On the pH scale, 7 is neutral, meaning optimum. Thus, pH 7.4 of the interior of the cell denotes its natural, slightly alkaline state. This state promotes health because it is the state that best suits the enzymes that function inside the cell: They achieve optimum efficiency at this pH. Adequate flow of water in and out of the cell keeps the cell interior in its health-maintaining, alkaline state.
You have probably seen historic monuments and buildings with artistic statues and carved masonry that have been damaged by pigeons perching on them and smearing them with their droppings. Bird excrement is highly acidic and eats into the stone. In time, the statues and carvings lose their features and definition. The DNA in the nucleus inside the cells of the body is alkaline and, like stone buildings, is also sensitive to the corrosive effects of acidity.
In our bodies, the kidneys mop up excess hydrogen ions—which cause acidity—from the blood and excrete them through the urine that is formed. The more urine that is produced, the more easily the body keeps its interior alkaline. This is why clear urine is an indicator of an efficient acid-clearing mechanism, and dark yellow or orange urine is an ominous sign of impending acid burns in the interior of the body. People who consider having to pass urine more than two or three times a day inconvenient, and do not drink water so that they do not have to urinate more than they can help, are ignorant of how they are hurting their bodies.
The brain is better protected against acid buildup by the fact that it gets priority for delivery of water for all its needs. The rest of the body may not be so fortunate when dehydration establishes in the body and settles in one or another part for a long period of time. With persistent dehydration, however, the brain, too, becomes damaged from acidity in the cells—hence conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease.
Some Specific Pains of Dehydration
As has been explained in the preceding chapters, a large number of medical conditions are caused by the fact that we become unknowingly dehydrated until the body begins to manifest its water shortage in some bizarre but unmistakable ways. Naturally, it is not possible to address all of the ramifications of the many “diseases” of the human body that are produced by dehydration in one book. However, I will try to explain some of the more prevalent ones—beginning with the gastrointestinal pains—in sufficient detail as to leave no doubt in your mind that dehydration is their cause.
HEARTBURN OR DYSPEPTIC PAINS
Heartburn or dyspeptic pains are among the most important thirst pains of the human body. Heartburn is the early stage of a gradually intensifying pain that is called dyspeptic pain and eventually peptic ulcer pain. It is felt in the upper part of the abdomen. It can reach an intensity that can incapacitate the person and mimic an acute crisis that requires surgery. Dyspeptic pains, labeled “gastritis,” “duodenitis,” “esophagitis,” “heartburn,” and “indigestion after eating,” should be treated by only an increase in water intake. When there is associated tissue damage or ulceration, changes to the daily diet that enhance the rate of repair of the ulcer site become necessary. In the above advanced stages of local damage, dyspeptic pain is still a direct signal of dehydration. The ulceration is the product of a protein metabolism disturbance caused by the same stressful and long-lasting dehydration.
In the same way we recognize our hunger pain, the human body also has a thirst pain. We almost always confuse our thirst pain for a signal of food shortage— hence overeating. When this same signal follows a meal, we call it dyspepsia or heartburn, and sufferers are often urged by their doctors and the media to take some form of medication to relieve the pain. After a number of years from the onset of this upper abdominal pain, depending on many other factors, an ulcer may develop. In the interim, the health state is classified as gastritis or duodenitis, until the ulcer develops.
In recent years, because a bacterium called helicobacter is sometimes found in the site of ulcerations, the ulcerations are assumed to be infectious in origin and are treated with antibiotics. However, helicobacter has been recognized to be part of the natural flora—a healthy bacterium—and it lives in the intestines of almost all animals. It seems not to cause an infection in host animals. Labeling peptic ulcer disease as an “infectious condition,” in my opinion, provides another opportunity for commercialism in medicine to thrive.
Because we do not recognize heartburn as a signal of body thirst, its significance is not understood until an ulcer develops. However, the consequences of this chronic dehydration do not confine themselves to the stomach and intestine. There are many associated health problems that will gradually reveal themselves. Everyone should be alert to heartburn as a major thirst pain of the body, which can occur at all ages.
In some, the sensation of thirst may not at first be signaled by severe pain; it may initially be felt as a discomfort in the upper part of the abdomen. In others, the pain may be so severe that an inexperienced clinician might think of it as indicative of a surgical condition and may even perform exploratory surgery and not find any physical sign of a disease. Sometimes the pain is felt around the appendix area and mimics appendicitis. Physicians should consider this type of thirst pain signal when making a diagnosis associated with lower abdominal pains. In some people, the severe pain might be felt on the left side, over the large intestine, and is often identified as colitis. This pain, too, should initially be considered as a thirst signal. If it is not relieved after one or two glasses of water, and not completely gone in a few days of increased water intake, then other local pathology may have to be investigated. It must be remembered that it takes a few days of increased daily water intake before chronic cellular dehydration can be partially reduced.
The conscious mind has a problem with recognizing the body's water needs. Full and adequate hydration of the body depends on the sharpness of its thirst perception. Unfortunately, as it ages, the body gradually loses its ability to recognize its dehydration. Elderly people can become chronically dehydrated, even if there is plenty of drinking water available, because they fail to recognize their extreme thirst. The more the body becomes dehydrated, the more the brain's water-regulating chemicals—histamine and its subordinate local officers—become engaged in their water-shunting and -rationing responsibilities.