Water elixir of the gods

What if there was one thing you could do that would stave off most diseases, would reverse ailments you currently have, and would generally make you feel stronger, healthier and more energetic? And what if it wouldn’t cost you a cent?

Those were the questions posed to me when someone recommended a book several months ago. Of course, I was interested. What could this far-fetched miracle thing be?

The answer is water, and the book is “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water,” written by an English educated Iranian physician with the unpronounceable name of Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, or “Dr. Batman” for short.

He has spent most of his medical career studying the physiology of the body and its dependence on water for good health. In the course of his studies, he has concluded that most human diseases are the result of dehydration. The list includes but is not limited to peptic ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis, angina, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, asthma, allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes in the elderly and even cancer.

I know what you are thinking, and I agree. It sounds like a pitch for the old fashioned medicine show’s fabled “Dr. Goode’s Famous Tonic” — a cure for everything from warts to tuberculosis.

Dr. Batman’s arguments, however, are persuasive, his research meticulous and thorough and his successes numerous. And while his ideas don’t always coincide with mainstream medical practice and his studies have not been readily accepted by the American Medical Association and the National Institute of Health because they were “too broad brush,” individual members of both organizations have strongly agreed with his reasoning and his conclusions.

According to Dr. Batman, human life runs on water. The body is 75 percent water, the brain 85 percent water. The brain is the body’s master computer which runs everything. Through the process of osmosis, cells in the body generate and store hydroelectricity, which creates neurotransmitters called histamines, and these work like a battery to make up an electronic water management system for the body. This system distributes nutrients throughout the body, discharges wastes and sees to it that water gets where it is needed.

If the body is dehydrated and doesn’t have enough water present, the brain becomes a drought manager, restricting the flow of water to parts of the body that are less active and sending it instead to places it is needed most. This includes the stomach for digestive juices, the eyes, mouth and nasal passages to keep mucus membranes moist and active.

For this reason, one of the telltale signs of dehydration is swelling of the feet and ankles, places the flow of water is often restricted when the body is dehydrated. When the brain restricts water, that part of the body collects salt to preserve as much water as it can. The salt causes the swelling. Drink water, the doctor says, and the swelling will go away.

Dr. Batman is quick to point out that the body needs salt. Without it, the body’s battery won’t function. Claims that salt is bad is folly, he says.

He also points out that when cells are deprived of enough water, histamine activity increases and this causes allergies. Treating allergies with antihistamines only makes the problem worse, he says by depriving the body of its natural sensitivity to dehydration.

He claims that most allergies will disappear if treated with water alone. The same is true with numerous other degenerative diseases, he says. He claims to have cured more than 3,000 patients suffering with peptic ulcers by simply having them drink more water.

After reading his book, one of several he has written on the subject, I concluded that I have suffered dehydration much of my life. I drank alcohol, tea and coffee in abundance, but seldom water. Unfortunately, coffee, tea and alcohol actually accelerate dehydration.

He also advises against drinking diet sodas. The artificial sweetener in diet drinks is aspartame, a substance 180 times sweeter than sugar. Once ingested, aspartame turns into formaldehyde and then to formic acid which causes the liver to work overtime. This increased liver action creates hunger and that, ironically, leads to overeating.

Dr. Batman’s personal recommendation is to drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day. For me that is 96 ounces. When I started, drinking that much water was impossible. But, as he points out in his book, after your body gets used to getting more water, it relearns how to use more water.

He suggests starting each day with two glasses of water when you first get up. I’ve done that for several weeks and the effect has been nothing short of amazing. Rather than being sluggish in the morning, a condition I attributed to my advancing years, I am now alert and energized within minutes.

For several years, I suffered acute chest pain which, after ruling out heart problems, was diagnosed as esophageal cramps. At times the pain was so severe I couldn’t walk to the mailbox without stopping to let the pain subside. A friend suggested that I stop drinking coffee, and when I did, the pain lessened. Little did I know that I had simply reduced my dehydration. And when I started drinking copious amounts of water the pain all but disappeared. Today I can not only walk and run, but am able to do heavy manual labor with no pain whatsoever.

And whether Dr. Batman is right about anything else, I will definitely drink to that.

Ward Degler is a Zionsville writer and artist. E-mail him at wdegler@att.net.

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