Home
>
Nutrition
>
Is It Possible to Improve Your Health by Simply Drinking More Water?

Is It Possible to Improve Your Health by Simply Drinking More Water?

To many people, this may seem a simplistic answer to a complex question: How can doing something so simple produce such noticable & quick results? Surely there must be some deep scientific & comlex way to improving health. The body, after all, is a very complex organism and scientists and health professionals have, over the centuries, espoused numerous ways of improving health, from specially fomulated foods & diets to drugs designed to fight obesity and reduce fat etc. What seems to have been largely ignored, until recent times, is that by merely increasing our water intake, a noticeable improvement can be made to people's mental & physical well-being.

A simple experiment at a school in the north of England has shown improved behaviour of its pupils by encouraging them to drink water instead of carbonated drinks full of sugar. They installed water fountains dispensing free chilled drinking water in the canteens and staffroom of the 700 pupil school. Below is an extract from the findings:

"Remarkable Results from drinking Water Trial"

In less than 2 weeks from installation the atmosphere changed Pupils were calmer in the corridors, and there was less "up the wall behaviour" at the end of the day.

Concentration and the ability to learn improved.

Drinking water regularly keeps the brain active.

Drinking water re-hydrates the brain rather than dehydrating it like carbonated soft drinks & caffeine (tea/coffee)

There was resistance at first, but now they happily drink water everyday and derive huge benefits.

Dehydration.

This word often conjours up an image of someone crawling in the desert, hovering vultures, with a shimmering mirage of an oasis on the distant horizon; but in reality, most of us are "dehydrated" to some degree. What are the symptoms of dehydration? You don't have to live in desert conditions to feel the effects of dehydration. Medical opinion differs on what percentage of water loss constitutes dehydration but research has shown that the body loses water from different parts at different rates e.g. the body cells (the basic building block of the body and its powerhouse, the Mytochondrion) lose around 66% water, 26% from extracellular fluid and only 8% from blood tissue (see 1) below). As the internal cell structure loses the most water, this consequently has the most drastic effect on our health, the signs of dehydration can cause reduced imunity to disease, lethargy, constipation, muscle weakness/cramps, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, increased blood pressure as the body's drought management programs try to force more water into the cells. Other symptoms are increased likelyhood of kidney & urinary tract infections. The brain too, being 85% water, cannot tolerate even a 5% level of dehydration without impaired function. It is better to let the body get rid of a slight excess of water than to suffer the effects of a shortfall and have it ration and allocate water to vital organs of the body to the detriment of non-vital functions.

Childrens' Health.

Children are more suceptible to dehydration, having a lower body mass than adults and as they generally tend to exercise more in the school playgrounds etc. than adults, consequently, they lose more water. Enlightened teachers are increasingly concerned about the proliferation of soft drink vending machines in schools and are starting to have them replaced by water dispensers. Dr. Trevor Brocklebank of Leeds University medical school states that children who drank little or no water at school are likely to have kidney or urinary tract infections. He said, "I found that 50% of school children drank no water at school. It's desperately important that they start drinking more water."

Schools that are aware of this problem now tend to encourage pupils to take a bottle of water into classes and to drink as often as they like. The BBC has information concerning the positive effects of encouraging children to drink more water, around 1.75 lt per day for a 10 year old. One study reported by the Mail (May 10th 2005) sites a week-long study involving 45 children, aged 11-14, who were split into two groups. Half drank only filtered water, while the other half drank their usual soft or caffeinated drinks. After a week, the water drinkers reported better than normal concentration levels, from 9% before the experiment to 82% at the end, a ninefold increase. They also reported feeling more energetic, alert and exhibited calmer behaviour. Of the other half, who drank their usual fizzy drinks or nothing, half said they felt less alert than at the start of the study and only 5% said they felt alert at the end of the day. How much teaching time is wasted in our schools due to unresponsive or unattentive pupils?

General Health.

Not so long ago it was thought, and taught at medical schools, that water was merely a carrier of nutrients, and had no metabolic role in bodily functions. This has now been proved not to be the case. For those interested in further research I can recommend the excellent work done by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj (Batmanghelidj F. M.D. Your Body's Many Cries for Water; Global Health Solutions, Inc) See 1) at the bottom of the page. Bad breath is a classic sign that you need to boost your water intake. Saliva helps cleanse the teeth of bacteria and keeps the tongue hydrated. Lack of water dries the mouth, leads to furry tongue and prevents bacteria from being washed away, all of which can cause halitosis. When you have had a little too much alcohol the night before, you will have noticed a furry tongue the next day - a classic sign of dehydration. Alas, Hair-of-the-Dog will only delay the final reckoning! Alcohol depletes or prevents efficient absorbtion of just about every vitamin & mineral so, if you must drink, it is highly recommended that you take a good quality organic vitamin & mineral supplement afterwards along with plenty of filtered water.

Be a Filter - or Buy a Filter!

Our tap water is safe to drink....well, up to a point. The Daily Telegraph reported in Aug. 2004 that the Environment Agency had found Prozac in drinking water. At least it would have a soothing effect on us while we read our water bills!

Who likes the taste of chlorine with their tea or coffee? Have you also ever noticed a TCP taste with your cup of tea/coffee? This is probably due to the close proximity of a washing machine connected close to the kitchen sink and Chloro-phenols from the rubber hose being "sucked" back while the cold water tap is filling your kettle! In East Anglia, where I live, my cat would not drink tap water until I fitted an activated compressed carbon block filter unit, with UV light, to the cold tap. Animals seem to be more discerning than us humans! Chlorine depletes a very important anti-oxidant vitamin E from the body, increasing the risk of cell damage by free radicals. Chlorine also reacts with organic matter in water to produce Trihalomethanes, such a chloroform, which is a cancer causing chemical (see 5) below). The Environment Agency provide a water quality testing service that can check for organic/non-organic contaminents, minerals & metals and anything else that might find its way into our water; maybe the fact that they have these testing procedures shows just what can be found in our tap water!

The Canadian Government has some interesting findings about the toxic effects of chlorine - see ref 6)

Fluoride

Then there is the long running controversy concerning the benefits, or otherwise, of adding fluoride to our water. Some researchers say it does more harm than good. Further information concerning reports by Bassin, and Cohn and their findings of increased bone cancer in young boys (see references 2 & 3 below) can be found at the link below.

CONCLUSIONS

Most of the evidence on the body's requirements for water and how damaging just slight dehydration can be are pretty conclusive. If you are still not convinced that you need to drink about 2 lts of filtered water daily, then please examine all the evidence available on the Web; I have yet to see anyone extoling the virtues of drinking LESS water! You can replace a depleted filter but you can't replace yourself!

1) Batmanghelidj F. M.D. Pain: A Need For Paradigm Change; Anticancer Research, Vol. 7, No. 5 B, PP. 971-990, Sept.- Oct. 1987; full article posted on www.watercure.com

2). Bassin EB. (2001). Association Between Fluoride in Drinking Water During Growth and Development and the Incidence of Ostosarcoma for Children and Adolescents. Doctoral Thesis, Harvard School of Dental Medicine

3). Cohn PD. (1992). A Brief Report On The Association Of Drinking Water Fluoridation And The Incidence of Osteosarcoma Among Young Males. New Jersey Department of Health Environ. Health Service: 1- 17.

5) Drinking Water and Health, Vol. 2. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC. 1980.

Mike Jozefiak has only one body and aims to keep it purring along as long as possible!

4) http://www.health-report.co.uk/fluoriide_bone_cancer.htm

< p>6) http://www.health-report.co.uk/fluoriide_bone_can cer.htm
http://www.health-report.co.uk /fluoriide_bone_cancer.htm

best cleaning company Lincolnshire ..

In The News:

Malicious Chrome and Edge extensions collected browsing history, keystrokes and personal data from millions of users before Google and Microsoft removed them.

Google's new Call Reason feature lets Android users mark calls as urgent before dialing, displaying an urgent label to recipients using Phone by Google app.

Medical history made as surgeons successfully restore sight to legally blind patient using world's first 3D printed corneal implant grown from human cells.

Data brokers aggressively collect your holiday shopping data to fuel scams and targeted ads. Learn how to delete your digital profile before 2025 starts.

Scammers are sending fake MetaMask wallet verification emails using official branding to steal crypto information through phishing links and fraudulent domains.

Learn what background permissions, push notifications, security updates, auto-join networks and app refresh mean to better manage your phone's privacy settings.

Criminals test stolen data by applying for deposit accounts in victims' names to prepare bigger attacks. Learn why banks won't share fraud details.

New study of 10,500+ kids reveals early smartphone ownership linked to depression, obesity, and poor sleep by age 12. Earlier phones mean higher risks.

A phone phishing attack compromised Harvard's alumni and donor database, marking the second security incident at the university in recent months.

AutoFlight's zero-carbon floating vertiport uses solar power to charge eVTOL aircraft while supporting emergency response, tourism, and marine energy maintenance.

A new phone return scam targets recent buyers with fake carrier calls. Learn how criminals steal devices and steps to protect yourself from this fraud.

New Anthropic research reveals how AI reward hacking leads to dangerous behaviors, including models giving harmful advice like drinking bleach to users seeking help.

The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.

Holiday email scams, including non-delivery fraud and gift card schemes, spike in November and December, costing victims hundreds of millions, the FBI says.

Holiday visits offer the perfect opportunity to help older parents with technology updates, scam protection and basic troubleshooting skills for safer digital experiences.

Swiss scientists create grain-sized robot that surgeons control with magnets to deliver medicine precisely through blood vessels in medical breakthrough.

Researchers exploited WhatsApp's API vulnerability to scrape 3.5 billion phone numbers. Learn how this massive data breach happened and protect yourself.

Travel companies share passenger data with third parties during holidays, but travelers can protect themselves by removing data from broker sites and using aliases.

Xpeng's humanoid robot moves so realistically that crowds believed it was fake, marking a major advancement in robotics technology ahead of 2026 commercial launch.

Researchers discover phishing scam using invisible characters to evade email security, with protection tips including password managers and two-factor authentication.

iPhone and Android users can reduce battery drain and data usage by restricting Background App Refresh to Wi-Fi connections instead of mobile networks.

Scammers nearly stole an Apple account by exploiting the support system with authentic-looking tickets and phone calls, users can protect themselves with safety steps.

FoloToy restored sales of its AI teddy bear Kumma after a weeklong suspension following safety group findings of risky and inappropriate responses to children.

Threat intelligence firm Synthient uncovers one of the largest password exposures ever, prompting immediate security recommendations.

Viral video shared by Elon Musk shows Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots performing tasks from cooking to construction, garnering over 58.5 million views on social media.

Is It Possible to Improve Your Health by Simply Drinking More Water?

Nutrition