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We may not even feel thirsty, but the truth is that many of us don’t drink enough water. Surely our bodies would tell us if we needed more, you say?

Not always. If we drink too little water, our thirst mechanism resets at a lower level so we don’t actually crave what is best for us until we have re-trained our drinking habits.

So why do we need those eight glasses of water a day we keep hearing about? The answer is simple. Water is the main medium of transportation within our bodies. It is needed to both carry nutrients to feed all our cells and take toxins to sites of elimination.

The majority of nutrients in the body are water-soluble: they need to be in a water-based solution to move from the intestines to the bloodstream, to the connective tissues, to the cells and within the cells. Nutrients that are fat-soluble are packaged in the liver so that they can also travel in the water-based body fluids.

We tend to forget that the body creates its own toxins–but doesn’t any good construction work require cleaning up afterwards? Such is the case with the ongoing maintenance, repair and disease-fighting functions of the human body. Water-based solutions also carry the toxic byproducts of a healthy working body to the bloodstream, via the connective tissues and lymph system, for processing and elimination. And in the modern world we have all the additional toxins from our environment to deal with, too.

Solutions get thicker as they carry more substances, whether those substances are beneficial or harmful. The solutions then flow less freely and quickly. Systems become sluggish and less effective. Increased blood thickness can also contribute to higher blood pressure.

Cellular Bath

Toxins remaining longer in a sluggish system have more time to damage healthy cells. These toxins are often free radicals, the control of which is part of any anti-aging protocol. Taking more antioxidants will help combat their effects and are important for good health. But drinking more water is a cheaper, easier and generally more beneficial way of helping yourself than taking extra pills!

Osmosis is a mechanism that draws water towards areas with more concentrated solution (in other words, with higher content levels) and away from areas where the solution is weaker. This can be helpful in creating balance, but if there isn’t a healthy amount of water in the body, it can cause problems such as constipation and water retention. It’s no wonder internal cleanses (detoxes) that involve drinking more water enable significant weight loss in some people.

In the kidneys, both useful and unwanted blood contents pass through a meshwork from the bloodstream to a system of tubules. Then the useful stuff (mainly minerals) is pumped back into the blood while the toxins and used molecules go for disposal. High concentrations of some substances increase the probability of forming stones in the kidney (which can be excruciatingly painful to pass) or elsewhere in the urinary tract. High concentrations of discarded substances in the bladder are irritating to the bladder lining and can contribute to bladder problems from cystitis to cancer. Also, insufficient water makes the kidneys’ filtering system less effective, so the blood is not cleansed as effectively and cannot cleanse the rest of the body as efficiently. Imagine trying to wash your car with a small pail of dirty water!

It is important to drink clean water and to avoid increasing your intake of toxins. People used to suffer or die from infections caused by lack of cleanliness of water and food. Now that we add chemicals to combat the growth of infectious organisms, acute food poisoning in this country is far less frequent or fatal. However, long-term intake of these chemicals can cause or predispose us to other health problems later on in life.

Chlorine Kills

Chlorine is added to water supplies to kill bacteria. But it also has a detrimental effect on our internal ecology by killing the good intestinal bacteria. The resultant imbalance causes the creation of more internal toxins in the long run. Studies in the United States and Norway have correlated drinking chlorinated water with increased probability of bladder and bowel cancer.

Fluoride, another common additive to water, damages the surface of the lining of the stomach and can cause bone and kidney damage in sensitive individuals. In addition, tap-water systems in some areas use aluminum to de-flocculate the water, which may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. And so the list goes on. It is hard to get guaranteed, good spring or glacier water unless you know the cleanliness of the source. Fortunately, by filtering or distilling our water, we can avoid both the infectious organisms and the potentially toxic chemicals. I supplement with minerals that I know are pure to make up for the minerals that have been lost in the process of cleaning unwanted substances from my drinking water.

It isn’t always easy to remember to drink enough water, so find ways to make it easy and habitual. I keep a carafe of water on the desk at my office to share with patients and another on the desk in my study to remind me to drink even as I write this article.

In a busy life it can also be difficult to remember to count how many glasses a day you drink. Try taking all of your drinking water from one clean source. Then see how much you get through in one week. Eight glasses a day is about 14 litres a week. You can carry it with you to work and when you go out. It’s preferable to carry water in a glass bottle rather than a plastic one in order to avoid absorbing chemicals and flavour from the plastic. Really pure water is so good and fresh that the taste alone encourages you to drink enough.

Penny Seth-Smith is a naturopathic physician with a private practice in Victoria, BC.

Source: alive #231, January 2002