Water: For Health, For Healing, For Life (20 page)
It has been shown that in more watery solutions, the histamine-producing cells lose their histamine granules and stop its manufacture for some time. Thus, water seems to be a most effective natural antihistamine. In conditions such as asthma and allergies, excess histamine action is the main problem. These conditions are related and should be regulated with an alert and determined increase in water intake.
The natural anti-asthma and anti-allergic reactions to excess histamine are adrenaline or its chemical substitutes. The natural and preventive procedure to avoid attacks of asthma or allergic reactions is without doubt an adequate hydration of the body over a long period of time. Adequate water intake will reduce the over-production of histamine in the body. A water intake of one or two glasses will cause stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system that secretes adrenaline for at least ninety minutes. This is the main way that water will immediately counteract histamine overactivity. Another solution is to exercise, to again enhance the natural activity of adrenaline in the body. Adrenaline is the natural antidote to excess histamine production.
WATER: THE ENERGIZER OF THE BRAIN
It needs be understood that even if the outer skin of the body is comparatively dry and firm, the inner parts of the body should be waterlogged. All the cells of the body live as though they are in an ocean of salt water. Any function of the body has to obey the natural maritime laws. All transport and communications systems inside and outside the cells of the body are designed based on a water atmosphere, much like the habitat of fish in the ocean.
All functions of the body depend on the basic relationship of its pump systems to water. Imagine people living in rural areas next to a river. Imagine the technology is so advanced that each house has its own small hydroelectric-power-generation system that is installed on the river. The flow of water in the river has the power and ability to turn the waterwheel of the turbines that manufacture electricity for the houses. At present, the turbines made for this type of use are installed separately from their waterwheels. The turbines have to be kept in a dry area, and the electricity they generate is “wired” to the house and distributed. In its use of hydroelectric energy for its cell functions, the human body has advanced beyond human imagination—a most enviable achievement. It has designed special turbines (as it were) that are installed in the waterwheels themselves, and they are submerged deep in the waterways.
Miniaturizing the turbines in this way makes another breakthrough in power generation in the body. As a result of this breakthrough, it has become possible to install each turbine where hydroelectric energy is needed. This makes it possible to economize on the need to use wires or electrical insulation to energize the whole body from its hydroelectric source of energy. The energy-generating battery of turbines is installed where energy is needed to perform a function. These hydroelectric-energy-generating units, which also perform a number of other functions, are called cation (pronounced cat-i-on) pumps.
The human body has made another enviable advancement. Normally, in industrial settings, power is generated in one spot and used in another spot to turn motors that perform particular functions. In the body, the water-dependent, energy-generating components and work-performing functions are installed in the same unit.
To economize further, when the workload is not too excessive and the rate of energy generation is more than is needed, the extra energy is stored. If the rate of water flow is more than adequate, the extra energy that is manufactured is stored in the batteries, like the coal and coke dump reserves next to the power stations that manufacture and distribute electricity. The widely scattered batteries that store the extra energy are called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and guano-sine triphosphate (GTP). A third area where energy is stored is in the calcium dumps in the cells. These areas are known as endoplasmic reticulum.
Imagine a sump or bilge pump in the basement of your house or in a ship that becomes directly energized by the rise in the level of water and is able to generate its own energy from the flow of that water through its system. Now imagine the water is not clear but has other substances floating in it. Please take one further step in the realm of imagination.
Imagine you are a fish living in an intricately designed house in the middle of the ocean, and all of your belongings are afloat. Imagine that you are particularly organized and wish to keep your house spic-and-span and prevent it from getting cluttered up by too many unwanted elements. You would install an automated house-cleaning system—obviously powered by hydroelectricity. The human body has gone through all of these steps in the design of each of its many trillions of cells. It employs a type of “bilge pump,” the cation pump.
Cation pumps maintain balance in the interior of the cells of the body. They use hydroelectric energy generated from the rush of water through them to take some elements outside the cell and assist in the transfer of the needed elements into the cell. They energize the cells by also making more power than they need for their own task. This extra energy is stored for later use. Extra energy is manufactured only when water supply and its pressure is adequate. All functions of the brain depend in a major way on this source of energy.
It is my understanding that the microtubules in the waterways of all cells, including the long nerves, are made of cation pumps that are stuck together. You now understand why the rush of water from the outside to the inside of the microtubules also turns all the energy-dependent cation pumps that make up the microtubule.
Next to oxygen, water is the most essential material for the efficient working of the brain. Water is a primary nutrient for all brain functions and transmission of information. This is why the brain is 85 percent water and is housed in a very special “water bag” that goes all the way down the spinal cord into the lower back. The use of cation pumps is not limited to the nervous system. They are employed in all the cells of the body, in their outer membranes and in the membranes inside the cells.
Figure 10.1:
A single axon that is cut across shows the microtubules and the areas of more fluidity that seem to allow the existence of a “float”-transport system along the line of the tube.
A few years ago, I received a letter from a woman who is worth mentioning here. She wrote about an ear problem that is now cleared up. The story exemplifies my explanations of chronic dehydration and nerve damage. She was a young-at-heart, seventy-one-year-old professional concert musician who taught at her local university. She was very health-conscious, ate the right kind of foods, but drank green tea and only two cups of water a day, and did not take salt. She did exercise. One day she realized her left ear could not hear properly and had lost the ability to distinguish fine sounds. She went for ear tests at two different centers. Both reached the conclusion that she was suffering from some nerve deafness, which was not advanced enough to warrant her wearing a hearing aid. She wondered about acupuncture treatment and had six sessions of it, “but it didn't help.” Then she heard me on a radio interview explaining chronic dehydration as a major cause of so many health problems. She bought my book
Your Body's Many Cries for Water
and, after reading it, began drinking more water. The result: “After about a month I found I could and still can hear the watch tick with my left ear.” This simple observation on “nerve recovery” by a person who was alert to the loss of an important function is an indication of how chronic dehydration can lead to devastating results, and how correction of dehydration in time can reverse a potentially permanent pathology.
DEHYDRATION: THE CAUSE OF STROKES
Talking about permanent pathology, let me tell you the story of my sister Shahla. We are a close family, and there is a particular bond between my sister and me. There is about thirteen years' difference between us. When we were studying in England, away from home and parents, I was in charge. Even in later stages of her life, whenever she needed to make a serious decision, she would consult with me. As a family, we emigrated to America when living in our homeland, Iran, became hazardous after the mullahs took over in 1979 and Iran became a theocratic dictatorship. Most of us gravitated to northern Virginia.
Shahla is a hard worker and a most reliable executive, and although she had a lot of upheaval in her life in exile she has not lost her cheerfulness and enthusiasm. She had recently started smoking despite my contrary advice. She had also taken a liking to a glass of red wine now and then. She had come to Virginia to work with my younger brother, who had established himself as a developer in the area.
In the summer of 1989, Shahla wanted to relax after a lot of turmoil in her emotional life. She decided to spend some time beside the pool of her apartment complex. She was also trying to lose weight. She would spend most of her free time and the weekends at the poolside in the sun. She would also take the occasional drink of wine as she was relaxing on her poolside mat—an ideal of many people who wish to have a quiet, relaxing holiday.
On a Monday morning after a weekend by the pool, when she was working at her office, she noticed tingling sensations in her left arm. Gradually the left side of her body became heavy and not sufficiently responsive. She got scared and called me. She left the office and was driven home. By the time I arrived, her left leg and left arm were in a state of partial paralysis. She could hardly move them. She was now dead scared. After a quick examination and a call to a doctor friend, I started to force water into her. I managed to give her two jugs of water and one jug of orange juice with some salt, about six quarts of fluids. Her anxiety began to diminish. By the time the doctor had arrived, her arm weakness had perceptibly improved and she also had some movement in her leg muscles.
You might think that I should have called an ambulance and packed her off to the emergency room of a hospital. I did not do so because, other than receiving an intravenous drip to get some fluid into her, I believe she would have suffered other damage in the time she awaited medical attention. Anyway, she improved and improved and improved. By the late afternoon, she was well on her way to recovery. How-ever, we needed to find out if there was any underlying local pathology in the brain that might have signaled its presence by manifesting muscle weakness on one side of her body.
A consultation with one of the local neurologists was arranged, and we went to him for an in-depth evaluation. After his examination, he confirmed a slight remaining weakness on the left side. Shahla was admitted to the hospital. After all the blood tests and noninvasive procedures such as CT scans and MRIs showed nothing, it was decided to do a cerebral angiogram to rule out a leaking aneurysm in the brain arteries.
The procedure was conducted the next day. Her brain arteries were as clean as a whistle. No aneurysm, no plaque, no obstruction, nothing that would account for the temporary weakness on the left side of her body. They charged her thirteen thousand dollars for three nights' stay in the hospital. She did not yet have insurance to cover such expenses. Needless to say, what rest she had at the poolside she paid for with her health and money. Why? Because of a basically wrong understanding of the way the human body works.
She had severely dehydrated her brain by the intake of alcohol, heat of the sun, dieting without water intake, and the vicious cycle of the physiological events that are set in motion when there is severe dehydration. What her brain had done was to decommission a major part of its activity that would take her to the location where she could continue the damage-producing actions.
Even in genuine situations when there is a blockage of the arteries in a region of the brain, resulting in “rotting” brain tissue, adequate intravenous hydration has produced dramatic recoveries. In experiments in animals, if intravenous fluids are given within one hour of blocking the main artery to a part of the brain that would permanently destroy about 20 percent of the blood-deprived region, the rotting area will be reduced significantly. Such is the power of water in reviving even purposely oxygen- and circulation-deprived areas of the brain.
This was the reason why I forced water on Shahla as soon as I reached her. I thought that even if she had actually clotted one of the main arteries of her brain, the water would help open the surrounding capillaries and prevent expansion of the clot beyond its already formed areas. Equally, if the neurological manifestations were due to vascular spasm, then the water would relieve the constriction in the arteries—and it did. There was no time to wait and see; a decision and an action were vital at the very moment that Shahla showed the onset of muscle weakness that was increasing. Today, she is well. She no longer smokes, and drinks wine only on festive occasions, but drinks plenty of water—enough to give her lots of bubbly energy.