Health and Prevention with Water

An increased intake of healthy water will enhance digestion, nutrient absorption, skin hydration, detoxification and virtually every aspect of better health!

So many common ailments and illnesses can be prevented and greatly reduced by an increased intake of healthy water. Headaches, hypertension, back pain, arthritis, ulcers, asthma, morning sickness, fatigue and metabolism can all benefit (and in many cases be prevented) by regulating the body's natural fluid levels.
Recently there has been a dramatic change in medical theory and a long overdue realization about wellness.

The best way to prevent, help, overcome and, in many cases, eliminate illness is to give the body the right tools and let it go to work. With the proper intake of healthy water, and the right minerals and nutrients, the body can overcome many challenges.
The human body is an amazing healing machine, with bad cells being replaced by good ones millions of times per second!
Constant regeneration of skin, bones, hair, nails, damaged nerves, organ linings... virtually every healing process that happens in the body happens primarily with water!

Hundreds of recent studies have confirmed that many of the medications our society has become dependent on, primarily antibiotics and analgesics , often do much more harm than good. Antibiotics can be extremely damaging to the liver and have an adverse effect on the immune system. The more frequently we turn to synthetic medicines to overcome infections, the weaker our natural defenses become and the more likely we are to have repeated incidences of infection.

An increased intake of water and the proper immune-enhancing nutrients, combined with a little patience and common sense, are by far the best defense against most minor infections. Allowing the body to overcome minor infections with fever, fluids, nutrition and rest increases natural resistance and makes us less susceptible to biological intruders in the future. Truly the best offense to maintain a good defense.

Pain medications also work contrary to the way the body naturally heals itself. In a very informative book called "Your Body's Many Cries for Water" (very highly recommended), studies by medical experts explain how many of the pain sensations we experience are initially the result of moderate or acute dehydration.

Headaches...The brain is more than 75% water and when it detects a shortage of available fluids it implements a water-rationing process by producing histamines, causing pain and fatigue. This natural process is meant to slow us down and conserve water for defense uses (just as an animal lies in the shade when ill). Histamines are released as a warning signal that something is wrong. When we take antihistamines or analgesic medicines like acetaminophen or ibuprofen we mainly turn off the signal and do little or nothing for the problem. A big glass of pure water and a 20 minute decompression break will overcome most common stress-related headaches. (It takes medications longer to work than that!)

Back pain is often the result of a deficiency in body fluid levels. The discs in the back are really little hydraulic shock absorbers. These discs are made up of an outer shell of flexible joint tissue filled with fluid pockets, primarily water. A properly hydrated disk creates a cushion that absorbs the normal shock of physical activity and supports the weight of the upper body. These discs are self-hydrating as long as there are adequate fluid levels and regular movement. Movement that compresses and releases pressure on the disc creates a suction that allows body fluids (99% water) to be pulled inside the disc, keeping it properly hydrated. When a disc is fully hydrated, the shell of the disc supports 25% of the weight load and the fluid supports 75%. When these discs become dehydrated, the shell has to support a larger portion of the load, causing pain, swelling and soreness which can lead to more serious problems, also more permanent ones.

Passive activities like standing in one place or sitting at a desk without regular movement for prolonged periods, allow constant pressure on the discs which slowly forces the fluid out. Without sufficient body fluid levels and spine movement, the pressure on the discs increases,resulting in pain and stiffness. Simply by maintaining a constant and adequate intake of water, as well as regular movement such as bending forward, backwards and side to side, with your head and upper body allowing the discs to hydrate, you can prevent most minor back and neck pain. Try it; you'll be amazed how easy and effective these natural solutions can be.

Hypertension is very often a result of the body's adjusting to blood-volume loss. The most common cause of lower blood volume is dehydration. Since blood is more than 83% water, its total volume is heavily affected by water intake. When the body detects a loss of blood volume, it closes off less active capillary beds in order to maintain proper blood flow to the more active areas. These vessel closings cause a rise in tension throughout the circulatory system, which is known as "hypertension." More water allows proper blood volume and a lower level of circulatory tension.

Arthritis pain and stiffness are now understood to be initially a result of increased friction and swelling in the bone joints. Water is what the body uses to lubricate the pliable joint cartilage. When the water level is reduced, there is increased friction between the cartilage surfaces, resulting in swelling, stiffness and pain. Movement of the joints causes a suction that pulls water from the bone marrow into the joint cavity if there is proper hydration. Increased intake of water and gentle rhythmic movements of the joints can ease and, in many cases, overcome minor arthritic pain and swelling. A more detailed explanation of this natural process can be found in "The Body's Many Cries for Water" and a recent publication by three very highly respected medical doctors called "The Water We Drink."

Asthma, which affects over 12 million children in North America alone and causes the deaths of several thousand each year, is a direct result of increased histamine production. Dehydration initiates exaggerated histamine production as a water-regulating control. It is well known that asthmatics have excessive levels of histamines in their lung tissue, causing constriction of the bronchial passages and increased mucus build-up. Water is used in the lungs to keep the tissues moist, but each time we exhale, we expel moisture from our lungs. Under normal hydrated conditions, the moisture is rapidly replaced. If we are in a dehydrated state, the tissues inside the lungs begin to get coated with mucus to prevent drying. It has been demonstrated in many animal studies that increased water intake will reduce histamine levels and, over a two to three week period, restore normal hydration to lung tissue and reduce mucus build up. Once this occurs, the bronchial passages begin to open and normal breathing is restored. The same histamine related effects apply to allergies, and again, significant benefits can be seen with an increased intake of healthy water and increased movement.

Morning sickness, something thought of as normal, is a direct result of dehydration. The fetus lives in a world of water, which the body naturally prioritizes above all other needs. Throughout the night, which is the longest period without water intake, the uterus draws water from the mother's system to maintain its fluid levels and that of the fetus. In the morning the mother awakens in a state of dehydration, histamine nausea and fatigue. Hence the term "morning sickness", more appropriately "morning dehydration."

A common hang-over produces the same symptoms and has essentially the same cause, (dehydration), as morning sickness... only with a less noble purpose. Alcohol is a very strong diuretic that causes the body to excrete water, often leading to advanced dehydration. Both morning sickness and the common hang-over can be prevented by drinking plenty of water before going to bed and throughout the night.

While water is certainly not an absolute cure-all, we must recognize it as the primary ingredient to every preventive and healing process inside the body. The body is truly a magnificent creation capable of preventing and curing even the worst disease and illness.

Understanding how the body works is the first step toward achieving optimum health. It's easy to grasp if you just remember that we are more than 70% water!

Once we gain this simple understanding, our actions will usually begin to work in better harmony with our body's natural instincts, ideally creating the perfect internal environment.

Source : http://www.aquasana.com/prevention.php

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Drugs In Drinking Water, A Shocking Realization...!!!

As if we didn't have enough worries about the quality of our drinking water, we now find that antibiotics, growth hormones and many prescription drugs are being detected in our public and private water systems.

It's not a very pleasant thought, but on the average, about 10% of the water we drink has been used before.

The same amount of water that exists on this planet today... existed millions of years ago... to the drop! There is no such thing as new water. Our planet continuously recycles and re-uses this finite supply of water. Only recently have we learned how fragile and finite our water resources really are. We are finding traces of compounds in our water that no one ever thought to look for before. We have finally realized that any chemical used in our society will eventually wind up in our drinking water
While the current focus by the media on tap water problems has raised long overdue concerns, it is not a new issue. In 1999, a 17-year-old West Virginia high school student, Ashley Mulroy, read a report in a science magazine describing how European scientists had recently discovered that "drugs of all kinds, including antibiotics, were flowing in rivers, streams, ground water and even in tap water" and decided to embark on a science project of her own. Over a ten-week period Ashley and her mother drove for miles along the Ohio River taking samples of the water from different sites. She then returned to her hometown and had the samples tested for three common antibiotics: penicillin, tetracycline and vancomycin... to her surprise she found traces of all three in each of the samples she had taken. Ashley then sampled tap water in three near by towns. All three, including water from the drinking fountain at her school, were contaminated with the antibiotics in question. Ashley was awarded several science project awards and more importantly opened the eyes of many U.S. scientists.

Researchers from the U.S. EPA and the National Geological Survey have now found traces of antibiotics, birth control drugs, anti-depressants and even caffeine in many water samples taken across the country. Large animal farming operations and wastewater treatment plants release billions of gallons of contaminated wastewater into our environment every day. A large percentage of the drugs that are given to humans and animals pass through the body and wind up in this recycled wastewater and then in our drinking water.

As early as 2000, USA Today, in a news release, stated that "experts fear that even low levels of antibiotics fouling the nations water supply may help create super-bugs: micro organisms that have evolved to survive an antibiotic's lethal assault." And that these super-bugs may be causing 'tens of thousands' of deaths each year in the U.S.A., according to Abigail Salyers, an expert on antibiotic resistance at the University of Illinois.

Christian Daughton, a Chief of Environmental Chemist for the E.P.A., warns that "Water pollution by drugs is a newly emerging issue." The reality is that there is little information on the long term effects of consuming low levels of antibiotics and growth hormones, but everyone agrees that they will not be good.

Our public water treatment plants are not designed to remove drugs and other synthetic chemicals from our water. Without waiting for the final verdict on the actual effects of drinking a mixture of drugs and other chemicals, we can assume that they will be negative. The only question is... how negative and why wait?

Most all prescription drugs and pharmaceuticals are synthetic organic chemicals (SOCs) and volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) and can be filtered out with quality home water filtration. Look for systems that are certified for the reduction of VOCs and THMs to address this issue.

The only way to get truly healthful drinking water is to make it yourself with point of use water filtration.

Aquasana makes healthy water affordable and convenient.

Source : http://www.aquasana.com/contamination_drugs.php

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The Health Effects of Drinking Water Contamination

U.S. drinking water contains more than 2,100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer. --Ralph Nader Research Institute

The following report summarizes factual information on tap water quality and the effects of tap water on human health. For information on bottled water quality and the misconceptions surrounding it, visit our bottled water page.

Our hope is that you will take a moment to review this valuable information and consider the facts. We are not trying to scare you, we are only trying to inform you of the threats to our environment and health that became the driving force behind the formation of our company. Increased awareness of this serious issue can only benefit us all.


We also hope that you will review the product information about Aquasana Pure Water Systems, the highest-rated home water filtration products in America. After reading this page you can tour the rest of our site for additional topics of interest or visit the product catalog for great savings on Aquasana purchases. Once you have all the facts, the decision is easy. Even if you don't buy one of our water filters, please buy a water filter. There is no such thing as a bad water filter. Thank you for coming this far!

The causes of tap water contamination are many, ranging from agricultural runoff to improper use of household chemicals and everything in between. Few of us realize the extent or impact of these low level synthetic chemicals in the water we use. While the standard use in our society of over 80,000 different synthetic chemicals has led to added convenience and productivity in our lives, these come at a tremendous price... drastic increases in degenerative disease.

In the early 1900s, before the prevalence of chlorine, pesticides, herbicides and the tens of thousands of other chemicals that we are exposed to every day, the average American had a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer, today one out of three people can expect to get cancer in their lifetime, one out of two males.

Our use of man-made chemicals has become so extreme that we can now find traces of these low level SOCs (synthetic organic chemicals) in virtually every public water supply around the world. A recent report by the Ralph Nader Study Group, after a review of over 10,000 documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, confirmed that "U.S. drinking water contains more than 2,100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer."

We've learned that any chemical we use in our society will eventually wind up in our water supply. There is no "new" water! Our planet reuses the same water over and over. And as our use of SOCs increases, so does the toxicity of our water. Earth's natural filtration process is not effective at removing these toxic SOCs, nor is municipal water treatment. Industry, agriculture and individuals all contribute to the problem. Many of the contaminants found in water can be traced back to improper or excessive use of ordinary compounds like lawn chemicals, gasoline, dry-cleaning solvents and cleaning products.

Once we realize that everything that goes down the drain, on our lawns, on our agricultural fields or into the environment by any means eventually winds up in the water we drink, we begin to see just how vulnerable our water supply really is.

Our municipal water treatment facilities do not remove SOCs and typically consist only of sand bed filtration and disinfection, like a standard swimming pool filter. For the most part, today's water treatment facilities are much the same as they were at the turn of the last century: they filter out the visible particles and add bleach!

"Drinking water plants are old and out of date, and water supplies are increasingly threatened by and contaminated by chemicals and microorganisms.," Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The way we guarantee safe drinking water is broken and needs to be fixed," Carol Browner, U.S. EPA chief.

One of America's leading authorities on water contamination, Dr. David Ozonoff of the Boston University School of Public Health states, "The risk of disease associated with public drinking water has passed from the theoretical to the real."

Many illnesses that in the past could not be linked to a probable cause have now been linked to toxins in our drinking water.
"While levels of these carcinogens (SOCs) in drinking water are low, it is precisely these low levels that carcinogenists believe to be responsible for the majority of human cancers in the U.S.,"
U.S. Council on Environmental Quality.

The use of pesticides and herbicides has become so excessive that they are now commonly found in household tap water and bottled water with alarming frequency.

A 1998 study of 29 major U.S. cities by the Environmental Working Group found that all 29 cities had traces of at least one weed killer in the drinking water. The report titled "Weed Killers by the Glass" went on to say that "millions of Americans are routinely exposed to one or more pesticides in a single glass of tap water."

These first ever tap water testings found two or more pesticides in the drinking water of 27 of the 29 cities, three or more in 24 cities, four or more in 21 cities, five or more in 18 cities, six or more in 13 cities, and seven or more in the tap water of five major U.S. cities. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, nine different pesticides were found in a single glass of tap water!

As a startling side note, it was reported that in these 29 cities, 45,000 infants drank formula mixed with tap water containing weed killers and that "over half of these infants were swallowing four to nine chemicals in every bottle!"

The tragic health effects of consuming these highly toxic chemicals are magnified many times over for small children because their systems are more sensitive and still developing. Small children also consume a much larger volume of fluids per pound of body weight and therefore get a bigger dose, yet none of these factors are considered when the EPA's maximum contaminant levels are set. The National Academy of Sciences issued a report in 1993 on this subject, stating "children are not little adults" and their bodies are less developed and simply incapable of detoxifying certain harmful compounds.

Another major flaw in the estimated risks of chemicals in our drinking water is the false assumption that only one chemical is being consumed. The regulations are set based on what is assumed safe for a 175-pound adult drinking water with only one chemical present and do not take into account the combined toxicity of two or more chemicals.

In a 1995 Science Advisory Report to the EPA, it was stated that "when two or more of these contaminants combine in our water, the potency may be increased as much as 1,000 times!"

It has been shown that areas with the highest levels of SOCs in their water supplies also have the highest incidence of cancer.

Jacquelyn Warren of the Natural Resources Defense Council commented on the subject, "The one thing we know for sure about toxins in our drinking water is that the more we look, the more we find."

Source : http://www.aquasana.com/contamination.php

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Trying to Lose Weight? Want Healthier-Looking Skin...???

An increased intake of pure, healthy water will enhance nutrient absorption, weight loss, skin hydration, detoxification, metabolism and virtually every aspect of better health.

Natural, healthy weight loss can occur only by increasing one's intake of pure, healthy water. Water is not only the number-one ingredient for a healthy body on the inside, it also plays the lead role in maintaining a healthy and youthful appearance on the outside.

The quantity and the quality of the water we consume determine the body's ability to metabolize and shed excess fat and properly maintain the largest organ, the skin.

Weight loss is primarily the result of the liver converting stored fat into usable energy. This process not only requires sufficient water intake, but it can be greatly accelerated by consumption of an abundance of clean, healthy water. Water also suppresses the appetite naturally and helps digest food properly.

Increasing water intake naturally speeds up metabolism and allows the body to better assimilate nutrients from the foods and nutritional supplements we consume, the result being natural and healthy weight loss.

When we do not consume enough water, the upper and lower intestine have a reduced ability to absorb nutrients. The result is that most of the value of our foods and supplements is lost and passes through our body with out being absorbed.

Sugars and carbohydrates are absorbed and processed faster than other nutrients, so without an abundant intake of clean water, we can end up getting all the calories without any of the nutrition. Food cravings are primarily the result of nutrient deficiencies; it's the body's way of telling us we need something. If our food is not properly digested, then nutrient absorption is not sufficient, and the body keeps telling us we need something in the form of food cravings.

"Sixty percent of all Americans are over weight. It's our number one health problem." -Surgeon General

A good indication of how much water is enough is to notice how much color is in your urine. Any color at all in the urine usually indicates a water deficiency, resulting in reduced nutrient absorption and a slower metabolic rate.

The quality of the water we drink also greatly impacts the body's ability to achieve or maintain a certain weight. One of the main functions of the liver is to act as a filter and eliminate toxins from the body. The liver performs this vital process using water in a joint effort with the kidneys. If the water we consume contains chemicals like chlorine, lead or agricultural and industrial pollutants, then much of the liver's energy is spent on filtering contaminants instead of processing fat into energy. Many recent studies have shown a link between consuming chlorinated water and thyroid dysfunction, which can lead to weight gain.

All weight-loss programs are based on reduced caloric intake and increased metabolic rate, both of which are naturally achieved with an increased intake of clean, healthy water.

Water is also the key ingredient to keep the skin moist, supple and resilient. The best way to moisturize is from the inside.

Drinking more water will result in softer, healthier, younger-looking skin. Try it: drink an extra glass of water in the morning, one before lunch and one an hour before bedtime. You'll be amazed at the results!

Truly, water is the key ingredient for healthier skin and natural weight loss.

Aquasana Home Water Filtration makes the healthiest water on Earth affordable and convenient.

Source : http://www.aquasana.com/dieting.php

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