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Health & Wellness

2011-04-01 13:55:00

The importance of clean water

Question: Why is it important for me to drink ionized water?

Answer: Pure clean water is more important to your body than you may realize. Most people think of their bodies as flesh, bone and a few pints of blood, but we are much more complex than that. First and foremost, we are mostly water (about 70%) which forms the foundation for every cell, every system and every function in our bodies. Within that water environment are incredibly intricate systems of chemical reactions and electrical signals that control every aspect of our physical existence. There are three things that are critical to human life; oxygen, food and water. Eliminate any one of them, and death is inevitable. However, it can be argued that water is most important because it carries the oxygen and nutrition to the cells. Water also removes waste materials from the cells. Everything in our bodies happens at the cellular level. Water is critical to the health of our cells, and the health of our cells determines the health of our bodies. In spite of water’s importance to our health, most people do not drink enough of it. Many people do not drink any water at all. Instead they choose to drink liquids that they think taste better such as coffee, tea, soft drinks, juices, etc. I used to think that it did not make any difference what I drank, because the drinks are mostly water anyway, and in my mind, it was all the same. Now I realize how wrong I was. The key to my new understanding was when I learned the importance of keeping my body’s pH in proper balance. I was aware of the importance of proper pH in maintaining a healthy swimming pool, but I did not know that it is also critical to maintaining a healthy body. Unfortunately, I have learned that very few others know it either, and our health problems are a testament to our lack of knowledge. In chemistry, pH is the measure of how acid or alkaline something may be. A pH of 7 is neutral. Any pH below 7 is acidic and any pH above 7 is alkaline. I was surprised to learn that the pH of human blood is 7.365, which is slightly alkaline, and if it varies much from 7.365, we will die. Therefore your body is designed to do everything possible to keep your blood’s pH within that very narrow range. The problem is that most of what we eat and drink is acidic. Our bodies are designed to react to acidic food and drink in three ways; get rid of what it can in the bathroom, leach alkaline minerals (calcium and magnesium) from our bones to neutralize some of the acid and store the remaining acidic waste in our cells. As our cells become increasingly acidic, health problems increase, and for many people, weight gain becomes a problem. So how does this relate to the people who do not drink much water? The beverages they are drinking are highly acidic, so their body minimizes the amount it absorbs, and most of the beverage passes through as urine. In fact, some beverages act as a diuretic and cause more water to leave the body than is absorbed. Most bottled water is also a problem, because it is produced through a reverse osmosis process which leaves it acidic. Of all the bottled water I have tested, I have only found one which is not acidic, and it states pH 7.8 on its label. The result of people drinking all these beverages is that up to 90% of Americans are dehydrated. Dehydration impairs your ability to think, focus and perform crucial tasks. It is also the #1 cause of daytime fatigue, nausea, headaches, lethargy and constipation. Just a 5% drop in body water will cause up to a 30% loss of energy in the average person. Many people confuse their body’s desire for water with hunger which causes overeating and further dehydration. With their focus on bottled water, soft drinks and juices, it’s no wonder that so many younger people are experiencing slowed metabolism, fatigue, short-term memory loss and increasing health challenges. Even kids are experiencing obesity and Type II Diabetes. Both of these conditions can be a result of too little water and an acidic body state. Even people who drink lots of water are experiencing the symptoms mentioned above. Why is that? Because drinking the right water is more important than just drinking more water. Let’s look at what is the right water. If you were to go high in the mountains and find a stream that bubbles down the rocks, is exposed to sunlight and is free of pollutants, you would have the right water. If you were to have a jar of that water tested, you would find that it has an alkaline pH because of the minerals it picked up from the rocks. You would also find that it is full of dissolved oxygen from bubbling down the slopes. The surface tension would be changed and the size of the molecule clusters would be smaller from banging against the rocks. This would make it more readily absorbed. It would also be full of negative ions from the sunlight, which the body thrives on. If you don’t have the time or the energy to go mountain climbing for your water, there is now a way to bring that pristine mountain water into your kitchen. I am not suggesting that you drink your tap water the way it is, even though Wichita has an excellent water utility. It still is not the equivalent of that mountain stream. Instead I am going to suggest that you enhance your tap water with a water ionizer that hooks to your tap and produces that same pure, oxygen-enhanced and ion-charged high pH alkaline water that your body needs. The technology used in home water ionizers was invented by the Russians over 50-years ago. Later it was perfected by the Japanese where it has been used for many years. Today water ionizers are so highly respected in Japan that they are a registered medical device. Doctors there actually prescribe ionized water to successfully treat many medical conditions. Now various manufacturers are offering them in this country.