How people can and do drink water themselves to death

Liquid H2O is the sine qua non of life. Making up about 66 percent of the human body, water runs through the blood, inhabits the cells, and lurks in the spaces between. At every moment water escapes the body through sweat, urination, defecation or exhaled breath, among other routes. Replacing these lost stores is essential but rehydration can be overdone. There is such a thing as a fatal water overdose.

Earlier this year 2007, a 28-year-old California woman died after competing in a radio station's on-air water-drinking contest. After downing some six liters of water in three hours in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" (Nintendo game console) contest, Jennifer Strange vomited, went home with a splitting headache, and died from so-called water intoxication.

There are many other tragic examples of death by water. In 2005 a fraternity hazing at California State University, Chico, left a 21-year-old man dead after he was forced to drink excessive amounts of water between rounds of push-ups in a cold basement. Club-goers taking MDMA ("ecstasy") have died after consuming copious amounts of water trying to rehydrate following long nights of dancing and sweating. Going overboard in attempts to rehydrate is also common among endurance athletes. A 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that close to one sixth of marathon runners develop some degree of hyponatremia, or dilution of the blood caused by drinking too much water.

Hyponatremia, a word cobbled together from Latin and Greek roots, translates as "insufficient salt in the blood." Quantitatively speaking, it means having a blood sodium concentration below 135 millimoles per liter, or approximately 0.4 ounces per gallon, the normal concentration lying somewhere between 135 and 145 millimoles per liter. Severe cases of hyponatremia can lead to water intoxication, an illness whose symptoms include headache, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, frequent urination and mental disorientation.

In humans the kidneys control the amount of water, salts and other solutes leaving the body by sieving blood through their millions of twisted tubules. When a person drinks too much water in a short period of time, the kidneys cannot flush it out fast enough and the blood becomes waterlogged. Drawn to regions where the concentration of salt and other dissolved substances is higher, excess water leaves the blood and ultimately enters the cells, which swell like balloons to accommodate it.

Most cells have room to stretch because they are embedded in flexible tissues such as fat and muscle, but this is not the case for neurons. Brain cells are tightly packaged inside a rigid boney cage, the skull, and they have to share this space with blood and cerebrospinal fluid, explains Wolfgang Liedtke, a clinical neuroscientist at Duke University Medical Center. "Inside the skull there is almost zero room to expand and swell," he says.

Thus, brain edema, or swelling, can be disastrous. "Rapid and severe hyponatremia causes entry of water into brain cells leading to brain swelling, which manifests as seizures, coma, respiratory arrest, brain stem herniation and death," explains M. Amin Arnaout, chief of nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Where did people get the idea that guzzling enormous quantities of water is healthful? A few years ago Heinz Valtin, a kidney specialist from Dartmouth Medical School, decided to determine if the common advice to drink eight, eight-ounce glasses of water per day could hold up to scientific scrutiny. After scouring the peer-reviewed literature, Valtin concluded that no scientific studies support the "eight x eight" dictum (for healthy adults living in temperate climates and doing mild exercise). In fact, drinking this much or more "could be harmful, both in precipitating potentially dangerous hyponatremia and exposure to pollutants, and also in making many people feel guilty for not drinking enough," he wrote in his 2002 review for the American Journal of Physiology—Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. And since he published his findings, Valtin says, "not a single scientific report published in a peer-reviewed publication has proven the contrary."

Most cases of water poisoning do not result from simply drinking too much water, says Joseph Verbalis, chairman of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. It is usually a combination of excessive fluid intake and increased secretion of vasopression (also called antidiuretic hormone), he explains. Produced by the hypothalamus and secreted into the bloodstream by the posterior pituitary gland, vasopressin instructs the kidneys to conserve water. Its secretion increases in periods of physical stress—during a marathon, for example—and may cause the body to conserve water even if a person is drinking excessive quantities.

Every hour, a healthy kidney at rest can excrete 800 to 1,000 milliliters, or 0.21 to 0.26 gallon, of water and therefore a person can drink water at a rate of 800 to 1,000 milliliters per hour without experiencing a net gain in water, Verbalis explains. If that same person is running a marathon, however, the stress of the situation will increase vasopressin levels, reducing the kidney's excretion capacity to as low as 100 milliliters per hour. Drinking 800 to 1,000 milliliters of water per hour under these conditions can potentially lead a net gain in water, even with considerable sweating, he says.

While exercising, "you should balance what you're drinking with what you're sweating," and that includes sports drinks, which can also cause hyponatremia when consumed in excess, Verbalis advises. "If you're sweating 500 milliliters per hour, that is what you should be drinking."


But measuring sweat output is not easy. How can a marathon runner, or any person, determine how much water to consume? As long as you are healthy and equipped with a thirst barometer unimpaired by old age or mind-altering drugs, follow Verbalis's advice, "drink to prevent your thirst. It's the best indicator."

elderly still do not recognize they are thirsty

The tragedy of waiting to get thirsty hits home when it is realized that the sharpness of thirst perception is gradually lost, as we get older. Phillips and associates have shown that after 24 hours of water deprivation, the elderly still do not recognize they are thirsty: “The important finding is that despite their obvious physiologic need, the elderly subjects were not markedly thirsty.” Bruce and associates have shown that, between the ages of 20 to 70, the ratio of water inside the cells to the amount of water outside the cells drastically changes from 1.1 to 0.84. Undoubtedly this marked change in the intracellular water balance would not take place if the osmotic push and pull of life could favor water diffusion through the cell membranes everywhere in the body—at the rate of 0.001 centimeters per second. Only by relying on the reverse osmotic process of expanding the extracellular water content of the body, so as to filter and inject “load-free” water into vital cells by the actions of vasopressin and the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone systems—when the body physiology is constantly forced to rely on its drought- management programs—could such a drastic change in the water balance of the body result.

Waiting To Get Thirsty Is To Die Prematurely And Very Painfully.

Heinz Valtin, M.D. an emeritus professor at Dartmouth Medical School, has ventured the opinion that there is no scientific merit in drinking 8 x 8-ounce glasses of water a day and not waiting to get thirsty before correcting dehydration. This view, published in the American Journal of Physiology, August 2002, is the very foundation of all that is wrong with modern medicine, which is costing this nation $1.7 trillion a year, rising at the rate of 12 percent every year. Dr. Valtin’s view is as absurd as waiting for the final stages of a killer infection before giving the patient the appropriate antibiotics. His views are based on the erroneous assumption that dry mouth is an accurate sign of dehydration.

Like the colleagues he says he has consulted, Dr. Valtin does not seem to be aware of an important paradigm shift in medicine. All past views in medicine were based on the wrong assumption that it is the solutes in the body that regulate all functions and that the solvent has no direct role in any of the body’s physiological functions. In medical schools it is taught that water is only a solvent, a packing material and a means of transport, that water has no metabolic function of its own. I have come across this level of ignorance about the primary physiological role of water at another Ivy League medical school from another eminent professor of physiology who, like Dr. Valtin, researched and taught the water-regulatory mechanisms of the kidney to medical students and doctors. Only when I asked him what “hydrolysis” is, did the penny drop and he admitted the scientific fact that water is a nutrient and does indeed possess a dominant metabolic role in all physiological functions of the body.

Dr. Valtin’s emphasis on the water-regulatory role of the kidneys limits his knowledge to the body’s mechanisms of “deficit management” of the water needs of the body. He seems to base his views of thirst management of the body on the vital roles of vasopressin, the antidiuretic hormone, and the renin-angiotensin system, the elements that get engaged in the drought-management programs of the body, when the body has already become dehydrated. Indeed, he thinks dehydration is a state of the body when it loses 5 percent of its water content; and that one should wait until at some level of such water loss the urge to drink some kind of “fluid” will correct the water deficit in the body. This view might have seemed plausible 25 years ago. Today, it exposes the tragic limitations of knowledge of the human physiology that is available to a prestigious medical school in America.

In his recently published and widely reported assertions, Dr. Valtin does not take into consideration the fact that water is a nutrient. Its vital “hydrolytic” role would be lost to all the physiological functions that would be affected by its shortage in its osmotically “free state.” Another oversight is the fact that it is the interior of the cells of the body that would become drastically dehydrated. In dehydration, 66 percent of the water loss is from the interior of the cells, 26 percent of the loss is from extracellular fluid volume and only 8 percent of the loss is borne by the blood tissue in the vascular system, which constricts within its network of capillaries and maintains the integrity of the circulation system.

Philippa M, Wiggin has shown that the mechanism that controls or brings about the effective function of the cation pumps utilizes the energy transforming property of water, the solvent; “The source of energy for cation transport or ATP synthesis lies in increases in chemical potentials with increasing hydration of small cations and polyphosphate anions in the highly structured interfacial aqueous phase of the two phosphorylated intermediates.” Waiting to get thirsty, when the body fluids become concentrated before thirst is induced, one loses the energy-generating properties of water in the dehydrated cells of the body. This is a major reason why we should prevent dehydration, rather than wait to correct it. This new understanding of the role of water in cation exchange is enough justification to let the body engage in prudent surplus water management rather than forcing it into drought and deficit water management, which is what Dr. Valtin is recommending people to do.

In his research on the “conformational change in biological macromolecules,” Ephraim Katchalski-Katzir of the Weizmann Institute of Science has shown that the “proteins and enzymes of the body function more efficiently in solutions of lower viscosity.” Thus, water loss from the interior of the cells would adversely affect their efficiency of function. This finding alone negates Dr. Valtin’s view that we should let dehydration get established before drinking water. Since it is desirable that all cells of the body should function efficiently within their physiological roles, it would be more prudent to optimally hydrate the body rather than wait for the drought management programs of the body to induce thirst. Furthermore, it is much easier for the body to deal with a slight surplus of water than to suffer from its shortfall and have to ration and allocate water to vital organs at the expense of less vital functions of the body. The outcome of constantly circulating concentrated blood in the vascular system is truly an invitation to catastrophe.

The tragedy of waiting to get thirsty hits home when it is realized that the sharpness of thirst perception is gradually lost, as we get older. Phillips and associates have shown that after 24 hours of water deprivation, the elderly still do not recognize they are thirsty: “The important finding is that despite their obvious physiologic need, the elderly subjects were not markedly thirsty.” Bruce and associates have shown that, between the ages of 20 to 70, the ratio of water inside the cells to the amount of water outside the cells drastically changes from 1.1 to 0.84. Undoubtedly this marked change in the intracellular water balance would not take place if the osmotic push and pull of life could favor water diffusion through the cell membranes everywhere in the body—at the rate of 0.001 centimeters per second. Only by relying on the reverse osmotic process of expanding the extracellular water content of the body, so as to filter and inject “load-free” water into vital cells by the actions of vasopressin and the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone systems—when the body physiology is constantly forced to rely on its drought- management programs—could such a drastic change in the water balance of the body result.

Two other scientific discoveries are disregarded when Dr. Valtin recommends people should wait until they get thirsty before they drink water. One, the initiation of the thirst mechanisms is not triggered by vasopressin and the renin-angiotensin systems—these systems are only involved in water conservation and forced hydration of the cells. Thirst is initiated when the Na+-K+-ATPase pump is inadequately hydrated. It is water that generates voltage gradient by adequately hydrating the pump proteins in the neurotransmission systems of the body. This is the reason the brain tissue is 85 percent water and cannot endure the level of “thirst-inducing” dehydration that is considered safe in the article published by Dr. Valtin.

Two, the missing piece of the scientific puzzle in the water- regulatory mechanisms of the body, which has been exposed since 1987, and Dr. Valtin and his colleagues need to know about it, is the coupled activity of the neurotransmitter histamine to the efficiency of the cation exchange; its role in the initiation of the drought- management programs; and its role in the catabolic processes when the body is becoming more and more dehydrated. Based on the primary water-regulatory functions of histamine, and the active role of water in all physiologic and metabolic functions of the body—as the hydrolytic initiator of all solute functions—the symptoms of thirst are those produced by excess histamine activity and its subordinate mechanisms which get engaged in the drought- management programs of the body. They include asthma, allergies and the major pains of the body, such as heartburn, colitis pain, rheumatoid joint pain, back pain, migraine headaches, fibromyalgic pains, and even anginal pain. And, since vasopressin and the rennin-angiotensin-aldosterone activity in the body are subordinates to the activation of histamine, their role in raising the blood pressure is a part of the drought-management programs of the body. Their purpose of forced delivery of water into vital cells demands a greater injection pressure to counteract the direction of osmotic pull of water from inside the cells of the body, when it is dehydrated.

From the new perspective of my 22 years of clinical and scientific research into molecular physiology of dehydration, and the peer-reviewed introduction of a paradigm shift in medical science, recognizing histamine as a neurotransmitter in charge of the water regulation of the body, I can safely say the 60 million Americans with hypertension, the 110 million with chronic pains, the 15 million with diabetes, the 17 million with asthma, the 50 millions with allergies, and more, all did exactly as Dr. Valtin recommends. They all waited to get thirsty. Had they realized water is a natural antihistamine and a more effective diuretic, these people would have been saved the agony of their health problems.

References:

1. Wiggins PM; A Mechanism of ATP-Driven Cation Pumps; PP-266-269, Biophysics of Water, Eds. Felix Franks and Sheila F. Mathis, John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.1982
2. Ephraim Katchalski-Katzir: Conformational Changes In Biological Macromolecules; Biorheology, 21, PP. 57-74, 1984.
3. Phillips PA; Rolls BJ; Ledingham JGG; Forsling ML; Morton JJ; Crowe MJ and Wollner L; Reduced Thirst After Water Deprivation In Healthy Elderly Men; The New England Journal of Medicine, PP.753-759, Vol. 311, No. 12, Sept. 20 1985.
4. Bruce A; Anderson M; Arvidsson B and Isacksson B; Body Composition, Predictions of Normal body Potassium, Body Water and Body Fat in Adults on the Basis of Body Height, Body Weight and Age; Scand. J. Clin. Lab. Invest, 40, 461-473, 1980.
5. Batmanghelidj F. M.D. Pain: A Need For Paradigm Change; Anticancer Research, Vol. 7, No. 5 B, PP. 971-990, Sept.- Oct. 1987; full article posted on www.watercure.com
6. Batmanghelidj F. M.D. Your Body’s Many Cries for Water; Global Health Solutions, Inc.
7. Batmanghelidj F. M.D. Neurotransmitter Histamine: An Alternative View; Page 37 of the Book of Abstracts; The 3rd Interscience World Conference on Inflammation, Analgesics and Immunomodulators, 1989 Monte-Carlo. The Abstract and the full article are posted on the Website www.watercure.com
8. Batmanghelidj F. M.D; ABC of Asthma, Allergies and Lupus; Global Health Solutions, Inc.

For more information on the role of histamine, see the articles on this topic in the science section, www.watercure.com/Topics10.htm or read my book ABC of Asthma, Allergies and Lupus.

F. Batmanghelidj, M.D.

Why women have a greater

ability to endure pain than men, and also why women live longer?

Because women folks often have a much greater dependence on the endorphin codes for their pain relief, especially for the physically traumatic processes of pregnancy and childbirth.

Generation after generation of women have passed this strong ability for the expression of endorphin code to their offspring. It has become a stronger part of the chromosome code for the female of all species, particularly humans. This is why women have a greater ability to endure pain than men, and also why women live longer.

Women and Alcohol.
Alcohol is a dehydrating agent. Furthermore, alcohol inhibits the full and widespread actions of vasopressin, causing further dehydration.

In women, alcohol initiates release of endorphins. The more alcohol that is consumed, the more endorphin high will be experienced as a consequence of cellular dehydration. Drunkards are thirsty for more water, not craving for more alcohol, in actuality. Sober yourself with water and save yourself from drunk driving accident(s).

The addictive property of alcohol is most probably the consequence of endorphin release from the process of establishing dehydration. Although the process is the same in men and women, in women folks it becomes more strongly and rapidly addictive than men.

The reason lies in the women's ability to activate more quickly the endorphin-manufacturing system and its release in alcohol-induced stress. This is probably why women become addicted to alcohol in about two(20 to three(3) years, whereas men become addicted in about seven(7) years.

All sort of addictions can be cured by using water-cure protocol.

(Suggestion:***It is never too late or too early to revise and be wise again for the rest of our journey.......

Use Water-cure. Rather be thankful for the timely warning, and do something about it.

Drink at least 10% of your own daily water-quota (31.42 ml multiply by your present body weight(kg), every 90 minutes. Use 1/4 teaspoon of sea-salt in your daily diet, for every 1250 ml water drank.

Pain is a sign/signal produced by dehydration in the human body. Pain may be common but it is not normal.

To simplify complications is the FIRST essential of success. ***)

HORMONES AND DEHYDRATION

Stress is a neutral word.

Stress that build up the body is termed en-stress, whereas, stress which damage the body is called distress. Walking casually every 2 hour per day is en stressing the body mass muscles and respiration and hence build up the body towards a positive direction in healthy lifestyle. Running 10 kilometres every alternate day is 'distressing ' the body mass muscle and deprive it to repair and rejuvenate properly and hence breaking down the body towards a negative direction in unsound lifestyle.

Stress to the human body immediately translates into dehydration. In other words, stress equals dehydration, and dehydration equals stress. They both initiate the same series of physiological steps for crisis management.

Immediate and automatic steps are taken to prepare the body for "battle stations." The available body resources of water and food products will be distributed according to battle-station (organs, tissues, cells) requirements. How is this done?

Five major regulators become operatives of the system. These regulators have their individual codes, which are indicators of one or another mode of activity through their cascade of chemical reactions, much like the directives of a central command that are delivered to the commanders in the field.

Vasopressin indicates a water shortage and a rationing of water delivery into the interior of certain cells according to priority plan. It opens small holes in the cell membrane and forces water (H2O molecules) through the membrane, one by one in queue, so that cells sensitive to vasopressin will benefit more from the available water supply. This allows the brain, kidneys, liver, and other organs to maintain efficiency, particularly when the blood becomes more concentrated from breakdown of muscle and fat. This is how stroke strike its victim, by prolonged dehydration.
Vasopressin regulates water delivery into the cells until there is an unmistakable signal of abundant water supply for all body functions.
Vasopressin also tightens the arterial system to put a squeeze on the blood volume to force serum out of the vessels. This enables some of the water content of the serum to enter the dehydrated cells through the holes in their membrane.

Once vasopressin becomes secreted, it acts as a strong on-off-on (modulating) stimulant for the release of cortisone. it is a very strong cortisone release factor. It is this action of vasopressin that converts persistent dehydration into a metabolic problem that can cause serious disruption in the reserves of the human body's essential elements.

The sequence of events in water regulation of the human body at times of severe dehydration. Dehydration Is The Cause of Pain, Disease, Decay, and Premature Death

Continued Secretion of Stress Hormones.
Vasopressin is a very strong cortisone release factor.
Vasopressin and interleukin-1 begin and continue the process as long as the human body remains dehydrated. The hospital practice of Saline IV drip is to prevent further dehydration at cellular level. But the sad part of the present mainstream medicine practice is the medical communities never tell the laymen about dehydration related diseases onset. So the circles of admission and discharge in and out the hospitals continue on with "business as usual". Be wise this time and apply the water-cure protocol yourself and you can wave good-bye to the hospital bills and those unethical practices .

Interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor activate different proteases (enzymes) in some cells and begin to fragment their DNA and cannibalize (nature's way to recycle itself to keep the body survival) the body's own tissues, and produce the bioactive fragments of DNA-RNA, called viruses. This process causes many diseases, such as the autoimmune conditions like diabetes, lupus, and some neurological disorders like Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and even AIDS.
In AIDS, the initial step of the disease process begins with the immune suppression of dehydration.

Cortisone Release Factor
Cortisone release factor promotes the secretion of hormones from the adrenal glands, which rest/located on top of your kidneys.
Cortisone promotes the breakdown of proteins, fats and stored starch into their primary components, some of which will be converted to sugar, glucose, for brain use. These elements,proteins, fats,and carbohydrates must be from fruits and herbs, or veggies alone. This process will eventually deplete some of the essential amino acids, such as tryptophan and tyrosine, from the stored reserves of the body. as a result, many health problems that are the consequence/result of prolonged dehydration may develop.
Cortisone directly suppress the body's immune system. It is this mechanism that results in immune system suppression when the human body becomes dehydrated and remains dehydrated. Never use medication to further suppress the dehydrated body, use water instead to rehydrate is the only sound remedy. It is the water which most patients drink together with the pills that does the real work of re hydrating the body, not the drugs. Merely suppressing the signs/symptoms of the real cause of the disease manifestation with drugs, is just merely postponing the next outburst.

Production of interferon and interleukin-2 -- the vital activator of the immune system -- is inhibited by cortisone.

The lost essential elements are not easily replaceable. The body can become short of some of its most essential amino acid (from fresh fruits and herbs) needs for protein manufacture. Some of this loss can become irreversible. Even if raw materials are made available at a later time, the same state of physiology as before may not be attainable. Thus, muscle activity to avert the damaging effect of stress/distress is indispensable -- hence the need to walk, and walk, and walk. Not the minor muscles alone need to be exercised, but also the mass muscles too. Increased water intake to avert the physiological damage of stress/distress is even more important.

Endorphins are the natural opiates of the human body. They bring about immediate pain relief at the time of battle; they enhance the efficiency of your body in the process of fight or flight.
When the human body is exposed to injury or great stress, even during physical exercises, endorphins are released.

Bleeding and sever pain also promote endorphin release. Please do your own body a favour, quit using the artificial pain-killer drugs; they only make your body to be 'killed' prematurely.
Endorphins raise the pain threshold so the body is able to endure and effectively continue to function to the last moment, despite physical trauma. Long-distance runners, if you are one of them, become dependent on the release of endorphins to continue until completion of marathon race. When there is no injury or trauma, endorphin release translates to well-being and gratification. They call it runner's running on their own "high." No steroid or drug is needed here. Why some runners cheat during the games is because they want more and faster rate of endorphins to be produced within a shorter time. But they have to pay a high price for this action; risk the suspension from future race and damage to the body later.

Renin-Angiotensin (RA)
The RA system codes for water intake and its retention and distribution in the human body by forcing a salt appetite and the collection of salt in the watery areas outside those trillions of cells.
RA is responsible for the closing some of the blood vessels in the periphery so that the shunting of circulation to other more vital parts, according to a priority plan, can be established.
RA is also responsible for decreased urine production.
RA is produced in the kidneys, which play a part in water preservation of the human body.
The RA system is a focus of attention by the pharmaceutical industry in anti-hypertension therapy. Instead of giving the system more water to pass through the kidneys, chemical products, inorganic substances to worsen the situation, are given to attempt to block the drive of the human body for salt retention by the RA system.

Prolactin
Prolactin codes for the breast-gland-cell stimulation and milk protection. It coordinates with other hormone agents to maintain the reproductive organs of the body in a well-functioning state.

Woman breast is nature's water fountain to a newborn child.

Prolactin secretion in the body is increased due to dehydration, stress, and excess aspartame(diet soda) intake.

Excess prolactin has been shown to cause mammary tumors in mice.