Water is essential to all life. But
do you know why? I am including an article I found a long time ago on the importance of water. I was unable to locate the author, Bob Hoffman, who
deserves every bit of credit for this well explained and easy to understand information.
All Life Depends Upon Water
by Bob Hoffman
by Bob Hoffman
All life depends on water. Breathing, digestion, elimination, glandular activities, heat dissipation, and secretion can be performed only in the presence of water solutions.
The
role of water in metabolism, in assimilation, in regulating body
temperatures, and in nourishing the tissues explains why we cannot
survive very long without adequate amounts of water.
While
the average person (128 pounds for women, 154 pounds for men) in the
temperate zone may “get along” on six pints of water daily if he or she
is only moderately active, two to four times as much are needed during
periods of vigorous exercise or work, particularly in hot or humid
weather. When I had my biggest day as an athlete, competing in 13 races
in one day, finishing not worse than third in any one of them, I weighed
167 to start, 154 at the end of the day. By coincidence, I averaged a
loss of a pound a race.
Most
people do not drink enough water. When taken by the glassful, a fair
measure is consumed, but when drinking fountains are present, a drink is
usually a small mouthful.
With
every meal, about a pint of saliva, which is over 99 percent pure
water, is secreted by the salivary glands of the mouth and swallowed to
make possible the digesting of food.
Approximately
96 percent of one’s perspiration is water, so when I lose an average of
four pounds in an hour of weight training and running, I have lost
mostly water, but the other four percent represents a loss of calories
and fat also.
Increased
elimination by the kidneys will lower blood pressure. R. Lincoln
Graham, M.D. who spent his life practicing hydrotherapy instead of drug
therapy, stated that “...thus it is a very splendid rule in all
conditions of excessive blood pressure, to drink on an empty stomach,
large quantities of water, which will result in excessive stimulation of
the kidneys, long after the water is eliminated. In this respect water
is a remedy without a rival.” When a doctor finds that the diastolic
blood pressure is very high, he looks for kidney trouble.
More
water in the system is a great help to elimination. When there is too
little water in the system, it is taken first for necessary processes
and there is not enough to materially aid elimination. The stool is hard
and dry, and defective drainage, which many authorities call “the
disease of disease” is the unfavorable result.
It
is so much better to have too much water in the body than not enough.
The kidneys will eliminate any surplus with surprising speed, but
nothing but harm to the efficiency of the body will accrue when there is
not enough water.
The
Department of Agriculture book on water states, “How far most of us
have strayed from the old family spring. Generations of men and women
have grown up without experiencing the joy of satisfying their thirst
from cool, sparkling spring water.”
You will be wise to drink more water, much more water. Too much water is not harmful, as the kidneys remove the surplus, but too little water can indeed be harmful to the body, which of course is YOU.
For more information, see:
You will be wise to drink more water, much more water. Too much water is not harmful, as the kidneys remove the surplus, but too little water can indeed be harmful to the body, which of course is YOU.
For more information, see:
