DEHYDRATION: THE CAUSE
OF MANY CHRONIC DISEASES
Water is a life-giving energy source and regulates
the body’s metabolic processes. It is essential in
the treatment and prevention of stress. Without
a proper intake of water, we face the risk of
developing chronic degenerative illnesses. Part 1 of 2.
by Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, MD
An edited transcript of his lecture at
the Government Health Forum,
Washington, DC, USA
28–30 March 2003
Dehydration is the underlying cause of many
chronic "diseases". Proper intake of water,
salt and minerals can prevent these illnesses
and even reverse the damage already done.
So-called "modern" medicine still blames
viruses or genetics for most of these
degenerative conditions, and the pharmaceutical
industry would lose billions in profits if people
relied on the natural healing properties of water
rather than on expensive and toxic drugs. Why
the body needs water, the reasons why lack of
water causes the body to become stressed and
diseased, and very simple methods to ensure
your own vibrant health are all explained here
in detail.
What we doctors learned at medical school was
based on a wrong primary assumption of science.
Medical science is based on a number of flawed
assumptions. Science of the 20th century is
flawed; it represents a "dark age" of knowledge
of the human body. Twentieth-century medicine,
in order to seem "scientific", explained a whole
lot of things, labelled things, wrote books and
more books about the human body, about diseases
, but everything that they wrote was about
"diseases of unknown aetiology". It explained
them, but didn't know how they arose. Then later on it started blaming viruses, and some time later it started putting the blame on patients, saying that their diseases are "genetic". So the medical community, in order to camouflage its lack of knowledge of the human body, produced labels and put the blame on the person. That was 20th-century medicine.
My discovery, which explains that everything in the human body or in any living matter is regulated by the presence of water, is a paradigm shift from the solid side of understanding of the human body to the solvent side of understanding of the human body.
Histamine’s Role in Water Regulation
Part of my education was about histamine
(everyone has heard of antihistamine), which is a neurotransmitter in charge of water regulation of the body. So, in 21st-century medicine, the new truth is that dehydration is the primary cause of painful, degenerative diseases including cancer and AIDS. We had gone wrong in medicine and did not understand the role of histamine in the
human body. We have to revise that understanding because now we know the solution to a lot of these disease conditions which are treated with antihistamines, and that solution is water.
Histamine is with us from day one of life. When
the ovum becomes fertilised with the sperm, from that moment before it divides into two daughter cells to give life a chance to survive in its present form, it has the ability to release histamine. So, histamine is a neurotransmitter which is with us from "minute one" of life.
The human body contains a lot of water, but the water that is contained in the body is mainly already osmotically engaged. In other words, it is busy with an activity, a chemical reaction, a
chemical undertaking. That water is called bound water. Then the body needs, in order to perform new functions, osmotically free water, called free water.
That is why you need to replace the water loss of your body with fresh intake of water in order to supply the body with free water to
perform new functions.
Water Is Necessary to Prevent Stress
In dehydration, even though the body has a lot of water in it, it is the lack of free water that constitutes dehydration. That is why you need to replace the water loss of your body with fresh intake of water in order to supply the body with
free water to perform new functions. So, any time you want to perform a function which requires water to perform that function, you had better give that water to the body in advance of the event. In other words, if you want to eat, give it the water that is needed in order to digest food. If you want to exercise and sweat, give the body the water that it has to shed in sweat, and so on. It is free-water shortage in the body that constitutes dehydration. It's like a major business that has a lot of assets but no cash flow to pay the salaries of its staff. That's how a business gets into trouble, and that's why the human body gets into trouble when it doesn't have free water, which is the "cash flow" of the body.
Stress translates in the body into dehydration. In other words, every time you feel stressed, this translates into dehydration. The reason is that every time you're stressed, you secrete a lot of hormones that break up new material and mop up
the free water from the circulation, and all of a sudden you are short of free water, so you are short of "cash flow". That is why the body begins to regulate the water content of the body: there is a "drought-management program" and stress
management. In stress management, you get these hormones: vasopressin, endorphins, prolactin, cortisone-release factor [sic] and angiotensin, which is activated both at the brain level and at the kidney level. Vasopressin is a very important substance. Vasopressin is subordinate to histamine as a water regulator, and vasopressin itself is a very strong cortisone-release factor. When there is dehydration and you have histamine release, you also have vasopressin release and you also have tissue breakdown as a result of cortisone release factor.
The True Origin of “HIV”
Now, this is a very important thing that I
discovered: vasopressin as a cortisone-release
factor stimulates a substance called interleukin-1,
which is another activator of physiological events
, and cortisone-release factor and interleukin-1
have a magnifying effect on one another; they
create a vicious circle, an expansion system. At a
certain level of dehydration and dependence on
vasopressin, you get interleukin-1 activating
interleukin-6 and tumour necrosis factor. These
are the elements that begin to tap into the body's
own tissues and break them down, cannibalised
by these own tissues for resource management.
It's because when you're dehydrated, your body
also lacks the elements that the water will have
brought to those areas in order that those areas
still have some material to work with, and the
body begins to break down its own tissue.
Interleukin-6 and tumour necrosis factor activate
enzymes called proteases at the cell membrane
and wherever they are, and these proteases begin
to break down and fragment proteins and the
DNA; they cause fragmentation of DNA.
The new understanding, or my understanding, is
that these fragments of DNA, as soon as they are
released, bring a little bit of membrane with them
—fragments that would be labelled as "viruses".
These are the "slow viruses" which have the
medical community not understanding the DNA
component of dehydration breakdown.
Dehydration produces disease, but the medical
community has blamed it on the "virus".
One of the "viruses" that has received this
treatment is "HIV" [human immunodeficiency
virus] itself. HIV, the "slow virus", is a fragment
of DNA and it was harvested in cell culture
mediums by introducing interleukin-6 and
tumour necrosis factor, and the product that was
cultivated was labelled "HIV-1". This "HIV-1" is
not a virus; it's a fragment of the DNA. It has the
same characteristics as half of vasopressin itself.
That is why they can never produce a vaccine
against HIV, because as soon as they [try to]
produce a vaccine against HIV they neutralise
vasopressin, which is a water regulator.
Vasopressin operates the reverse osmosis
program of the body, and that would be
tantamount to causing suicide of the cell or the
body and killing the person. That is why they will
never be able to use HIV and produce a vaccine
for it, because it is part of the vasopressin
molecule. This is the mechanism where all the
auto-immune diseases occur. Interleukin-6, when
it goes into the beta-cells of the pancreas, cuts
the beta-cells, breaks down the beta-cell nuclear
structure, fragments it and throws it out. It has
been shown scientifically that this is the case.
This is a process of auto-immune activity that
produces insulin-dependent diabetes. I will explain
insulin-independent diabetes later on, but I
wanted to explain this here for you to understand
how some of these so-called "conditions" of
"slow viruses" and auto-immune diseases are
connected to dehydration as the origin of the
disease and a lack of resources that the body
would need in order to compensate for the
deficiencies that dehydration brings about.
Many “Diseases” Are Caused by Dehydration
In dehydration, we lose a lot of the essential
amino acids and these are used as antioxidants
because, when there isn't enough water to wash
the toxic waste away, the toxic waste has to be
neutralised, otherwise it will destroy the system.
Tryptophan, tyrosine, methionine, cysteine and
histidine become depleted as a result of being
neutralised in order to compensate for the toxic
waste build-up in the body that hasn't been
washed away. You know that when you go to a
field john [portable toilet], there is no water; you
have a chemical there that sanitises, deodorises,
whatever is introduced into the bowl. The body
uses these elements as the sanitising elements.
Water distribution has another component which
is very important. It's an emergency water
distribution to the areas where water is so vital in
order to perform a function. Histamine cells,
mast cells, basophils and neurotransmitters contain
histamine, platelet-activating factor and heparin.
As you know, heparin prevents bleeding. Platelet-
activating factor activates the platelets in order
to break up and release whatever they contain.
Unfortunately, platelets also contain a lot of
serotonin, so the purpose of producing platelet
activating factor, which would produce
coagulation of blood, and heparin, which prevents
coagulation, is very simple because blood is 94
per cent water. When that water is to be tapped
into, a tiny amount of bleeding is caused, and
serotonin causes microscopic slits in the wall of
the capillaries and then blood oozes out. Once
the blood oozes out, its water is reabsorbed into
the system, and the remainder, which is six
per cent of the total volume, becomes plaques
which we see in neurological disorders.
You have the blood–brain barrier, in which the
capillaries are tight junctions. Nothing goes
through them but through the wall; there are no
holes in them like in the rest of the body. This is
an emergency route of water supply, and we call
this vasculitis. You can get it in the brain, you can
get it in the kidneys, and you can get it in the
gastrointestinal tract. That's how you get
gastritis, bleeding of gastric ulcers and such. So, this
emergency route of water supply can produce
migraine headaches, Alzheimer's disease, multiple
sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, gastritis, purpura
(bleeding into the tissue), nephritis, nephrotic
syndrome and so on. This is the result because
the body is short of water. It needs the water in order
to perform a series of functions within that
physiological activity.
In dehydration, you also get associated mineral
deficiencies because you also become
achlorhydric. The stomach does not produce
enough acid, and you need acid in order to absorb
zinc, magnesium, manganese, selenium and other
essential minerals. So, in this pattern of mineral
deficiency, you can see neurological disorders
such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease,
Alzheimer's disease and so on. The 21st century
view of the human body is that
all actual diseases should be viewed
as deficiency disorders, secondary to
persistent dehydration. Once you're
dehydrated, you become amino acid
deficient and you also become mineral
deficient, which is the foundation for
all diseases in the human body.
By ignoring the dominant and vital importance of water to optimum health and well-being of the human body, the medical and
scientific communities have allowed the drug industry to perpetrate fraud against society.
The Drug Industry Suppresses
Knowledge of Water’s Benefits
By ignoring the dominant and vital importance of
water to optimum health and well-being of the
human body, the medical and scientific
communities have allowed the drug industry to
perpetrate fraud against society. What this
industry has done for financial gain constitutes a
form of terrorism: it terrorises people by
producing fear tactics on the television and in the
media and so on; it forces people to go to their
doctors and demand a certain type of medication.
One of them is for asthma, for example. Asthma
is a state of dehydration, and one of the ads that
I have seen recently, everywhere, says "Life
should take your breath away, not asthma".
Double-blind, randomised trials are only suited for
evaluation of drugs and chemical compounds to
ensure their safety. This costly procedure is not
suited for study of the dehydration-produced
metabolic problems and their associated
deficiency disorders. In other words, throw that
system of drug industry evaluation out of the
window, go back to Nature and try to find out
what your body wants—then give it to it. Don't
listen to what the doctor says. Doctors don't know
what the problem is with your body, and
unfortunately doctors who are in the mainstream
certainly don't know. I didn't know. I had to spend
22 years of research in order to come to this level
of understanding. Those in the health care system
who choose to ignore this information and
continue to use drugs for conditions that are
caused by dehydration and mineral deficiency
would expose themselves eventually to being
legally challenged as criminally negligent. So,
sooner or later you will find one of these
"ambulance chasers" taking a doctor to court,
saying: "Why did you treat this person's
hypertension with diuretics? You caused
this man ill health, you caused him a lot of
problems, and you shortened his life by at least
20 years as a result of your medication—diuretics,
calcium-blockers, beta-blockers and so on.
Whereas his body was short of water and that is
why he had the hypertension." Now, that day will
come soon. Where did 20th-century medicine go
wrong? What are the early symptoms and signs of
dehydration? Twentieth-century medicine started
thinking that a dry mouth was the only sign of
dehydration, which is wrong. In order to be able
to chew and swallow food, even if you haven't
drunk anything, your body produces ample saliva
to perform that function, so dry mouth is not a
sign of dehydration. Anyone who is waiting to get
a dry mouth in order to drink water, or waiting to
get thirsty in order to drink water, is inviting
trouble. In fact, I wrote an article which was
published in Townsend Letter for Doctors,
responding to Heinz Valtin, MD, of Dartmouth
College, who said that people shouldn't drink
water just like that; they should wait until they get
thirsty. I wrote in the article that waiting to get
thirsty is to die prematurely and very painfully,
and in the article I called him ignorant; you
shouldn't rely on his statement.
Anyone who is waiting to get a dry mouth in order to drink water, or waiting to get thirsty in order to drink water, is inviting trouble.
Water Regulates Most of the Body’s Functions
A mistaken assumption is that water has no direct
metabolic role in the body, that only solutes
regulate all the functions of the body, which is
inaccurate. You have substance A and substance B
and if you put them in a test tube, no reaction
takes place. You learned that in your first year of
chemistry. Then the teacher adds some water
from a beaker and all of a sudden the whole
reaction takes place. Now, was it substance A
and substance B that reacted or was it the water
that regulated all the reactions? My introduction
into science and medicine is that water regulates
all functions including the function of everything
that it dissolves.
"Water-intake-regulating mechanisms of the body
are efficient throughout the life span of the
person" is another inaccurate statement because
as we grow older, in the same way that the eyes
become less sharp, our ears become deaf a little
more, and all the other senses begin to diminish,
so does the perception of thirst. Unfortunately,
the elderly do not recognise their thirst.
Scientifically it has been shown that with elderly
people who were deprived of water intake for 24
hours, some of them, when water was put next to
them, didn't recognise that they were thirsty—
whereas the young people in the same group of
study immediately started drinking lots of water.
Caffeine and Aspartame are Poisons
Another mistaken assumption, which is a problem
especially in America and probably in Western
Europe, is that all fluids can replace the water
needs of the body. That is junk science. It's not
accurate. Caffeine in beverages is a dehydrating
substance; it affects the brain and kidneys, and
flushes more water out of the body than there is
water in the cup. It inhibits enzymes in the brain
that are involved in memory-making.
Phosphodiesterase is an enzyme that regulates
the brain function for memorising things, so
when you take caffeine you inhibit this.
Now, let's get into the philosophy of why plants
manufacture caffeine or even cocaine. Why do
you think? Chemical warfare. Plants insert
caffeine and cocaine or have caffeine and cocaine
in their leaves and in their seeds so that they will
make the ones that eat these things stupid.
Phosphodiesterase is inhibited and that species
begins gradually to lose the art of camouflage,
alertness and quick reaction, and to become
stupid, so it becomes eaten very quickly by
predators, and that's how the plant
defends its next generation of the species. Now,
we take this coffee, brew it, concentrate it, and
drink it. We give caffeine to our children, and
then we cry foul, asking why our children have
learning problems, why they have "attention
deficit disorder". Blame it on the industry, the
beverage industry that manufactures sodas.
Unfortunately, now, a lot of sodas are even more
concentrated. They used to be in eight-ounce
[~0.24 litre] cans, and now they are in 12-ounce
[~0.35 litre] cans.
They have more caffeine. It used to be 50 milli-
grams of caffeine in a can; now it is 75 or 90
milligrams of caffeine. Starbucks coffee contains
180 milligrams of caffeine in a cup of coffee. So,
this is the lifestyle problem of society that
produces disease and stupidity and a whole lot of
other things.
If that's not enough, they add artificial sweetener
to it, which is a further crime against humanity.
The artificial sweetener aspartame creates false
hunger. It has been shown in animal models and
in humans that as soon as animals and humans are
given aspartame, within 90 minutes they're forced
to go and eat even more. The reason is that a
reaction called cephalic phase response occurs.
As soon as the tongue is stimulated by
sweeteners, the brain translates it into this
quantity of energy depending on the sweetness.
As soon as the brain realises that the energy that
you promised it by the sweetness is not there, it
compels you to go and eat, and eat more than
you would have normally eaten. So that's why
people who are taking artificial sweeteners in
sodas, thinking that they're going to lose weight,
are going to get fatter.
Aspartame has been involved in grand mal and
petit mal seizures and optic nerve damage
because 10 per cent is converted into methyl
alcohol and formaldehyde. ( What causes a petit
mal seizure? Affecting about two of every 1,000
people, absence seizures (formerly called ''petit
mal'' seizures) are caused by abnormal and
intense electrical activity in the brain. Normally,
the brain's nerve cells (neurons) communicate
with one another by firing tiny electric signals.)
Depending on the quantity that you take, you're
actually taking a poisoning system from your
own gut for your nervous system and particularly
for the optic nerve, which is very sensitive to
methyl alcohol and formaldehyde. The sense of
smell becomes affected. Aspartame has also
caused brain tumours.
Water has life giving properties. It manufactures hydro-electricity.
In other words, it is a natural source of energy… That’s why
water is a better pick-me-up than anything you might imagine.
How Water Performs its Life-Giving Functions
Water has life-giving properties. It
manufactures hydro-electricity.
In other words, it is a natural
source of energy. All
neurotransmission in the body
depends on this hydro-electricity
from water. That's why water is a
better pick-me-up than anything
you might imagine.
As for the process of hydrolysis,
the medical community has
always used the term "hydrolysis
of this" and "hydrolysis of that"
and yet it never assumes that
water has metabolism of its own.
I spent six years at the University of Pennsylvania
doing research in order to find this and put this
thesis together. At a conference, one of the
professors asked me what I do and I said, "I'm
trying to look at metabolism of water." He
frowned at me and thought me an ignorant
person. He said, "We thought that water doesn't
have any metabolism." I didn't want to offend
him in front of his colleagues, so I said, "May I
come to your office and talk to you about this?"
He said, "Yes, by all means." So I got an
appointment with him. He was an eminent
professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I
went to see him and in order to make sure I
understood what he had said was correct, I
said, "Did I understand correctly that
you said that water has no metabolism, that
water is just an inert substance along for the ride?" He
said, "Yes." I said, "Then what is hydrolysis? You
use the word frequently and use it every time.
What does hydrolysis mean?" If I had hit him with
a ton of gold, it wouldn't have impacted his brain
as much as that word did. He went white, pale,
and he said, "Yes, of course, we never thought
about that." So the word hydrolysis
means metabolism of water.
Water is a nutrient. Water is
actually a primary nutrient in the
body that your body depends on,
on a regular basis, for its
performance and functions.
Water at body temperature, when it is squeezed
to 2.5 angstrom units, gels; it becomes like ice,
and it's this thickness of ice that sticks the
components of the cell membrane together.
Water is actually a cementing material in the
body, it's that mortar between the bricks, and
lack of water will cause disturbance in that
process. In order that the cell doesn't disintegrate
completely, the body has found a substitute, and
it's produced this stickiness of cholesterol in order
to bind things together. So, cholesterol in the
body performs not only an insulating
function; it's also part of the
emergency bonding material.
Now, as far as water being a source of energy is
concerned, this is the research by Philippa
Wiggins: "The source energy for cation transport
or ATP synthesis lies in increasing chemical
potentials with the increasing hydration of small
cations and polyphosphate anions, in the highly
structured interfacial aqueous phase of the two
phosphorylated intermediates." This must be
double Dutch to you, too! But trust me, it means
that water is the source of energy for synthesis of
ATP.
Now, hydrolysis of water produces energy. This is
a formula calculated by George et al. Magnesium
ATP itself has only 600 kilojoule-moles of energy
inherent in itself; but when it is hydrolysed, the
components become 5,850 kilojoule-moles of
energy. In other words, water has transferred its
own energy to the components, and that's how it
has driven the chemical reaction by the energy
produced by hydrolysis. So, the pound of meat
that you eat has no energy value whatsoever
unless water is there to hydrolyse it and break it
down. It is in fact the water that energises
the food that you eat, the potato, the sugar. None
of these has the ability to pass energy into the
human body unless water is there to break them
down and magnify the energy content by one
order of magnitude.
There are two oceans of water in the body: one
ocean of water is in the cells, and then there is
the ocean of water outside the cells. Water that
we drink goes through the cell membrane and
replenishes the ocean inside. The salt that we
take regulates the volume of the ocean outside.
These two oceans have to be in balance. You
cannot fill up the Atlantic more than it is full
already and let the Pacific dry up, or fill the
Pacific and let the Atlantic dry up: you have to
fill them both. That's why God created
connections between all the oceans, in order
to balance the oceans. We also have to
balance the oceans of water in the body.
In fact, the design of the body is that it
automatically balances these oceans by certain
mechanisms. So, water and salt are vital elements
in the human body. Water diffuses through the
cell membrane at a rate of 103 centimetres per
second, which is a very fast rate of transfer of
water into the cell.
In a well-hydrated cell membrane, there is a
channel between the two layers of the
membrane. All the enzymes travel in that
channel and meet their counterpart. They call
this a lateral diffusion of the enzyme systems,
and the body needs to have that channel
sufficiently hydrated. The water comes through
these elements, fills up this channel and allows physiological functions to take
place. In a dehydrated state, the channel is gone.
These processes come into another and they
produce locks, so nothing travels. That's how the
cell goes into hibernation. In bacteria and things
like that which might have this same process, or
in animals which go into a dry phase, this is how
it happens.
Reverse osmosis is when we don't have diffusion,
and the body has to filter water and inject
it into the vital cells. Then we have the osmotic
movement of water when glucose stimulates
insulin production and the gates are open, and
water travels with glucose and amino acids into
the cells. This is a mechanism where we lose our
perception of thirst, and gradually, as a result of
lifestyle, we become susceptible to disease,
depending on how much water we are taking or
how many dehydrating beverages we are taking.
When the body has to depend on insulin release
to shift water osmotically into the cells, obesity
becomes an unavoidable complication. That's
what I'm writing on now; Obesity, the
Deadly Disease of Dehydration is the [working]
title of my next book.
In this process of reverse osmosis, vasopressin sits
on its receptor and converts it into a "shower
head" with a cluster of perforations of two
angstrom units. This "shower head" process fills
with the osmotically balanced serum, and the
vasopressin puts a squeeze on the system and only
water, one molecule of water, is filtered through
the system. Alcohol stops this function. That's
why you get a headache with alcohol, because
your brain depends on this mechanism in order
to be hydrated on a regular basis. This is how the
body transfers water into the brain tissue: reverse osmosis.
The water comes through
these elements, fills up
this channel and allows
physiological functions to
take place. In a dehydrated
state, the channel is gone.
Salt Is Vital for Life and Health
Salt is vital because it extracts and gets rid of
acids. Sodium goes into the cell, a hydrogen ion
goes out, and then potassium goes into the cell
and sodium goes out. So, salt is vital for
balancing the acidity of the cell. That's how the
body becomes alkaline, because salt extracts the
hydrogen ion and then the ion is taken to the
kidneys and is flushed out if there is enough water.
Salt is essential in order to regulate the blood
sugar, and it's essential in order to manufacture
hydro-electricity. Salt is vital to prevent catarrh.
Salt is a strong natural antihistamine. It prevents
cramps. The structure of bones depends on salt for
fullness, because 27 per cent of the salt reserve in
the body is in crystallised form in the actual bone
structure, in the shaft of the bone. Low-salt diets
actually cause osteoporosis, not calcium deficiency.
When you don't have water and salt, not only do
you not absorb calcium but you also get rid of
calcium. Nerve cell communication depends on
salt. Absorption of food depends on the sodium–
potassium activity. Asthma and cystic fibrosis are
conditions that can benefit from salt intake as
well as water.
Now, you've all seen these elderly people who
develop leaky bladders; they have no control.
This is a salt-deficiency problem. You need salt
in order to strengthen smooth muscle; and when
you don't have enough salt, smooth muscle loses
its integrity.
This is a testimonial from Dr E. Reed [sic]: "I
have a weak bladder and have even taken spare
clothing as I was sure it would be needed. I
arrived with not a drop of anything on my clothing.
I had talked myself off salt—a bad mistake."
For years she had had this problem until she came
across my information on salt and started adding
salt to her diet. Within three or four days she
became continent; she lost her incontinence.
Water Regulation of the Body
Water is essential through all phases of the body's
growth, from the intra-uterine phase of life until
you reach your full height and full weight. Growth
hormone and histamine regulate water intake. As
you grow older, you lose the concentration or
secretion ability of growth hormone, and
gradually you only depend on histamine in order
to regulate water intake of the body.
Histamine is forcing us to drink water, but, if
instead of water we take tea, coffee, sodas and
alcohol, we gradually dehydrate the body. Now,
if we take water, the pattern of life can go up to
150 years, depending on if we understand the
water level of the body and the composition of
the materials that we put into the body.
So, good diet and hydration are
essential for long life. Growth
hormone disappearance is secondary
to tryptophan and serotonin
deficiency. Growth hormone is under
the control of the tryptophan and
serotonin levels of the brain, so the
tendency to lose that is secondary to
the serotonin level of the brain. Once
you hydrate the body, gradually the
growth hormone level comes back
up, so I'm told.
The ratio of water inside the cell to
the ratio of water outside the cell
between the ages of 20 to 70 has
changed from 1.1 to 0.8; in other
words, there's far less water inside
the cells. The "plum-like" cells,
because of your not drinking water
and not allowing water to seep
through the cell membranes,
gradually turn into a "prune-like"
state—that is, a state of disease, a
disease-producing state. In other
words, persistent and intentional
dehydration reveals itself in as many
ways as we in medicine have labelled
as diseases. We have labelled
diseases; we have invented diseases.
We have not had diseases; we have
had "dis-eases" of dehydration. If we
recognise these dis-eases that can be
relieved with water, diseases will go
away. So will the sick-care system, so
will a lot of doctors, so will the
pharmaceutical industry—and thank
God for that!
About the Author:
Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, MD, was born
in Tehran, Iran, in 1931 and died in Virginia,
USA, in 2004. He received his formal
medical training at St Mary’s Hospital
Medical School of London University and
practised in the UK before returning to
Iran, where he played a key role in the
development of hospitals and medical
centres. During the Iranian Revolution,
he was a political prisoner and he treated
fellow inmates with the only medicine
available: water. After his release from
prison in 1982, he escaped from Iran and
migrated to the USA.
Dr Batmanghelidj devoted most of his
medical life to researching the cause and
cure of different ailments in the human
body. He had a number of books, videos,
audiotapes and medical research series
published. He was best known for his
book Your Body’s Many Cries for Water
(1992, 1997; reviewed in NEXUS 3/01; see
WaterCure.com).
Editor’s Note:
The transcript of Dr Batmanghelidj’s
lecture was provided by The World
Foundation for Natural Science, based
in Washington, DC, USA (see
http://www.naturalscience.org).
OF MANY CHRONIC DISEASES
Water is a life-giving energy source and regulates
the body’s metabolic processes. It is essential in
the treatment and prevention of stress. Without
a proper intake of water, we face the risk of
developing chronic degenerative illnesses. Part 1 of 2.
by Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, MD
An edited transcript of his lecture at
the Government Health Forum,
Washington, DC, USA
28–30 March 2003
Dehydration is the underlying cause of many
chronic "diseases". Proper intake of water,
salt and minerals can prevent these illnesses
and even reverse the damage already done.
So-called "modern" medicine still blames
viruses or genetics for most of these
degenerative conditions, and the pharmaceutical
industry would lose billions in profits if people
relied on the natural healing properties of water
rather than on expensive and toxic drugs. Why
the body needs water, the reasons why lack of
water causes the body to become stressed and
diseased, and very simple methods to ensure
your own vibrant health are all explained here
in detail.
What we doctors learned at medical school was
based on a wrong primary assumption of science.
Medical science is based on a number of flawed
assumptions. Science of the 20th century is
flawed; it represents a "dark age" of knowledge
of the human body. Twentieth-century medicine,
in order to seem "scientific", explained a whole
lot of things, labelled things, wrote books and
more books about the human body, about diseases
, but everything that they wrote was about
"diseases of unknown aetiology". It explained
them, but didn't know how they arose. Then later on it started blaming viruses, and some time later it started putting the blame on patients, saying that their diseases are "genetic". So the medical community, in order to camouflage its lack of knowledge of the human body, produced labels and put the blame on the person. That was 20th-century medicine.
My discovery, which explains that everything in the human body or in any living matter is regulated by the presence of water, is a paradigm shift from the solid side of understanding of the human body to the solvent side of understanding of the human body.
Histamine’s Role in Water Regulation
Part of my education was about histamine
(everyone has heard of antihistamine), which is a neurotransmitter in charge of water regulation of the body. So, in 21st-century medicine, the new truth is that dehydration is the primary cause of painful, degenerative diseases including cancer and AIDS. We had gone wrong in medicine and did not understand the role of histamine in the
human body. We have to revise that understanding because now we know the solution to a lot of these disease conditions which are treated with antihistamines, and that solution is water.
Histamine is with us from day one of life. When
the ovum becomes fertilised with the sperm, from that moment before it divides into two daughter cells to give life a chance to survive in its present form, it has the ability to release histamine. So, histamine is a neurotransmitter which is with us from "minute one" of life.
The human body contains a lot of water, but the water that is contained in the body is mainly already osmotically engaged. In other words, it is busy with an activity, a chemical reaction, a
chemical undertaking. That water is called bound water. Then the body needs, in order to perform new functions, osmotically free water, called free water.
That is why you need to replace the water loss of your body with fresh intake of water in order to supply the body with free water to
perform new functions.
Water Is Necessary to Prevent Stress
In dehydration, even though the body has a lot of water in it, it is the lack of free water that constitutes dehydration. That is why you need to replace the water loss of your body with fresh intake of water in order to supply the body with
free water to perform new functions. So, any time you want to perform a function which requires water to perform that function, you had better give that water to the body in advance of the event. In other words, if you want to eat, give it the water that is needed in order to digest food. If you want to exercise and sweat, give the body the water that it has to shed in sweat, and so on. It is free-water shortage in the body that constitutes dehydration. It's like a major business that has a lot of assets but no cash flow to pay the salaries of its staff. That's how a business gets into trouble, and that's why the human body gets into trouble when it doesn't have free water, which is the "cash flow" of the body.
Stress translates in the body into dehydration. In other words, every time you feel stressed, this translates into dehydration. The reason is that every time you're stressed, you secrete a lot of hormones that break up new material and mop up
the free water from the circulation, and all of a sudden you are short of free water, so you are short of "cash flow". That is why the body begins to regulate the water content of the body: there is a "drought-management program" and stress
management. In stress management, you get these hormones: vasopressin, endorphins, prolactin, cortisone-release factor [sic] and angiotensin, which is activated both at the brain level and at the kidney level. Vasopressin is a very important substance. Vasopressin is subordinate to histamine as a water regulator, and vasopressin itself is a very strong cortisone-release factor. When there is dehydration and you have histamine release, you also have vasopressin release and you also have tissue breakdown as a result of cortisone release factor.
The True Origin of “HIV”
Now, this is a very important thing that I
discovered: vasopressin as a cortisone-release
factor stimulates a substance called interleukin-1,
which is another activator of physiological events
, and cortisone-release factor and interleukin-1
have a magnifying effect on one another; they
create a vicious circle, an expansion system. At a
certain level of dehydration and dependence on
vasopressin, you get interleukin-1 activating
interleukin-6 and tumour necrosis factor. These
are the elements that begin to tap into the body's
own tissues and break them down, cannibalised
by these own tissues for resource management.
It's because when you're dehydrated, your body
also lacks the elements that the water will have
brought to those areas in order that those areas
still have some material to work with, and the
body begins to break down its own tissue.
Interleukin-6 and tumour necrosis factor activate
enzymes called proteases at the cell membrane
and wherever they are, and these proteases begin
to break down and fragment proteins and the
DNA; they cause fragmentation of DNA.
The new understanding, or my understanding, is
that these fragments of DNA, as soon as they are
released, bring a little bit of membrane with them
—fragments that would be labelled as "viruses".
These are the "slow viruses" which have the
medical community not understanding the DNA
component of dehydration breakdown.
Dehydration produces disease, but the medical
community has blamed it on the "virus".
One of the "viruses" that has received this
treatment is "HIV" [human immunodeficiency
virus] itself. HIV, the "slow virus", is a fragment
of DNA and it was harvested in cell culture
mediums by introducing interleukin-6 and
tumour necrosis factor, and the product that was
cultivated was labelled "HIV-1". This "HIV-1" is
not a virus; it's a fragment of the DNA. It has the
same characteristics as half of vasopressin itself.
That is why they can never produce a vaccine
against HIV, because as soon as they [try to]
produce a vaccine against HIV they neutralise
vasopressin, which is a water regulator.
Vasopressin operates the reverse osmosis
program of the body, and that would be
tantamount to causing suicide of the cell or the
body and killing the person. That is why they will
never be able to use HIV and produce a vaccine
for it, because it is part of the vasopressin
molecule. This is the mechanism where all the
auto-immune diseases occur. Interleukin-6, when
it goes into the beta-cells of the pancreas, cuts
the beta-cells, breaks down the beta-cell nuclear
structure, fragments it and throws it out. It has
been shown scientifically that this is the case.
This is a process of auto-immune activity that
produces insulin-dependent diabetes. I will explain
insulin-independent diabetes later on, but I
wanted to explain this here for you to understand
how some of these so-called "conditions" of
"slow viruses" and auto-immune diseases are
connected to dehydration as the origin of the
disease and a lack of resources that the body
would need in order to compensate for the
deficiencies that dehydration brings about.
Many “Diseases” Are Caused by Dehydration
In dehydration, we lose a lot of the essential
amino acids and these are used as antioxidants
because, when there isn't enough water to wash
the toxic waste away, the toxic waste has to be
neutralised, otherwise it will destroy the system.
Tryptophan, tyrosine, methionine, cysteine and
histidine become depleted as a result of being
neutralised in order to compensate for the toxic
waste build-up in the body that hasn't been
washed away. You know that when you go to a
field john [portable toilet], there is no water; you
have a chemical there that sanitises, deodorises,
whatever is introduced into the bowl. The body
uses these elements as the sanitising elements.
Water distribution has another component which
is very important. It's an emergency water
distribution to the areas where water is so vital in
order to perform a function. Histamine cells,
mast cells, basophils and neurotransmitters contain
histamine, platelet-activating factor and heparin.
As you know, heparin prevents bleeding. Platelet-
activating factor activates the platelets in order
to break up and release whatever they contain.
Unfortunately, platelets also contain a lot of
serotonin, so the purpose of producing platelet
activating factor, which would produce
coagulation of blood, and heparin, which prevents
coagulation, is very simple because blood is 94
per cent water. When that water is to be tapped
into, a tiny amount of bleeding is caused, and
serotonin causes microscopic slits in the wall of
the capillaries and then blood oozes out. Once
the blood oozes out, its water is reabsorbed into
the system, and the remainder, which is six
per cent of the total volume, becomes plaques
which we see in neurological disorders.
You have the blood–brain barrier, in which the
capillaries are tight junctions. Nothing goes
through them but through the wall; there are no
holes in them like in the rest of the body. This is
an emergency route of water supply, and we call
this vasculitis. You can get it in the brain, you can
get it in the kidneys, and you can get it in the
gastrointestinal tract. That's how you get
gastritis, bleeding of gastric ulcers and such. So, this
emergency route of water supply can produce
migraine headaches, Alzheimer's disease, multiple
sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, gastritis, purpura
(bleeding into the tissue), nephritis, nephrotic
syndrome and so on. This is the result because
the body is short of water. It needs the water in order
to perform a series of functions within that
physiological activity.
In dehydration, you also get associated mineral
deficiencies because you also become
achlorhydric. The stomach does not produce
enough acid, and you need acid in order to absorb
zinc, magnesium, manganese, selenium and other
essential minerals. So, in this pattern of mineral
deficiency, you can see neurological disorders
such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease,
Alzheimer's disease and so on. The 21st century
view of the human body is that
all actual diseases should be viewed
as deficiency disorders, secondary to
persistent dehydration. Once you're
dehydrated, you become amino acid
deficient and you also become mineral
deficient, which is the foundation for
all diseases in the human body.
By ignoring the dominant and vital importance of water to optimum health and well-being of the human body, the medical and
scientific communities have allowed the drug industry to perpetrate fraud against society.
The Drug Industry Suppresses
Knowledge of Water’s Benefits
By ignoring the dominant and vital importance of
water to optimum health and well-being of the
human body, the medical and scientific
communities have allowed the drug industry to
perpetrate fraud against society. What this
industry has done for financial gain constitutes a
form of terrorism: it terrorises people by
producing fear tactics on the television and in the
media and so on; it forces people to go to their
doctors and demand a certain type of medication.
One of them is for asthma, for example. Asthma
is a state of dehydration, and one of the ads that
I have seen recently, everywhere, says "Life
should take your breath away, not asthma".
Double-blind, randomised trials are only suited for
evaluation of drugs and chemical compounds to
ensure their safety. This costly procedure is not
suited for study of the dehydration-produced
metabolic problems and their associated
deficiency disorders. In other words, throw that
system of drug industry evaluation out of the
window, go back to Nature and try to find out
what your body wants—then give it to it. Don't
listen to what the doctor says. Doctors don't know
what the problem is with your body, and
unfortunately doctors who are in the mainstream
certainly don't know. I didn't know. I had to spend
22 years of research in order to come to this level
of understanding. Those in the health care system
who choose to ignore this information and
continue to use drugs for conditions that are
caused by dehydration and mineral deficiency
would expose themselves eventually to being
legally challenged as criminally negligent. So,
sooner or later you will find one of these
"ambulance chasers" taking a doctor to court,
saying: "Why did you treat this person's
hypertension with diuretics? You caused
this man ill health, you caused him a lot of
problems, and you shortened his life by at least
20 years as a result of your medication—diuretics,
calcium-blockers, beta-blockers and so on.
Whereas his body was short of water and that is
why he had the hypertension." Now, that day will
come soon. Where did 20th-century medicine go
wrong? What are the early symptoms and signs of
dehydration? Twentieth-century medicine started
thinking that a dry mouth was the only sign of
dehydration, which is wrong. In order to be able
to chew and swallow food, even if you haven't
drunk anything, your body produces ample saliva
to perform that function, so dry mouth is not a
sign of dehydration. Anyone who is waiting to get
a dry mouth in order to drink water, or waiting to
get thirsty in order to drink water, is inviting
trouble. In fact, I wrote an article which was
published in Townsend Letter for Doctors,
responding to Heinz Valtin, MD, of Dartmouth
College, who said that people shouldn't drink
water just like that; they should wait until they get
thirsty. I wrote in the article that waiting to get
thirsty is to die prematurely and very painfully,
and in the article I called him ignorant; you
shouldn't rely on his statement.
Anyone who is waiting to get a dry mouth in order to drink water, or waiting to get thirsty in order to drink water, is inviting trouble.
Water Regulates Most of the Body’s Functions
A mistaken assumption is that water has no direct
metabolic role in the body, that only solutes
regulate all the functions of the body, which is
inaccurate. You have substance A and substance B
and if you put them in a test tube, no reaction
takes place. You learned that in your first year of
chemistry. Then the teacher adds some water
from a beaker and all of a sudden the whole
reaction takes place. Now, was it substance A
and substance B that reacted or was it the water
that regulated all the reactions? My introduction
into science and medicine is that water regulates
all functions including the function of everything
that it dissolves.
"Water-intake-regulating mechanisms of the body
are efficient throughout the life span of the
person" is another inaccurate statement because
as we grow older, in the same way that the eyes
become less sharp, our ears become deaf a little
more, and all the other senses begin to diminish,
so does the perception of thirst. Unfortunately,
the elderly do not recognise their thirst.
Scientifically it has been shown that with elderly
people who were deprived of water intake for 24
hours, some of them, when water was put next to
them, didn't recognise that they were thirsty—
whereas the young people in the same group of
study immediately started drinking lots of water.
Caffeine and Aspartame are Poisons
Another mistaken assumption, which is a problem
especially in America and probably in Western
Europe, is that all fluids can replace the water
needs of the body. That is junk science. It's not
accurate. Caffeine in beverages is a dehydrating
substance; it affects the brain and kidneys, and
flushes more water out of the body than there is
water in the cup. It inhibits enzymes in the brain
that are involved in memory-making.
Phosphodiesterase is an enzyme that regulates
the brain function for memorising things, so
when you take caffeine you inhibit this.
Now, let's get into the philosophy of why plants
manufacture caffeine or even cocaine. Why do
you think? Chemical warfare. Plants insert
caffeine and cocaine or have caffeine and cocaine
in their leaves and in their seeds so that they will
make the ones that eat these things stupid.
Phosphodiesterase is inhibited and that species
begins gradually to lose the art of camouflage,
alertness and quick reaction, and to become
stupid, so it becomes eaten very quickly by
predators, and that's how the plant
defends its next generation of the species. Now,
we take this coffee, brew it, concentrate it, and
drink it. We give caffeine to our children, and
then we cry foul, asking why our children have
learning problems, why they have "attention
deficit disorder". Blame it on the industry, the
beverage industry that manufactures sodas.
Unfortunately, now, a lot of sodas are even more
concentrated. They used to be in eight-ounce
[~0.24 litre] cans, and now they are in 12-ounce
[~0.35 litre] cans.
They have more caffeine. It used to be 50 milli-
grams of caffeine in a can; now it is 75 or 90
milligrams of caffeine. Starbucks coffee contains
180 milligrams of caffeine in a cup of coffee. So,
this is the lifestyle problem of society that
produces disease and stupidity and a whole lot of
other things.
If that's not enough, they add artificial sweetener
to it, which is a further crime against humanity.
The artificial sweetener aspartame creates false
hunger. It has been shown in animal models and
in humans that as soon as animals and humans are
given aspartame, within 90 minutes they're forced
to go and eat even more. The reason is that a
reaction called cephalic phase response occurs.
As soon as the tongue is stimulated by
sweeteners, the brain translates it into this
quantity of energy depending on the sweetness.
As soon as the brain realises that the energy that
you promised it by the sweetness is not there, it
compels you to go and eat, and eat more than
you would have normally eaten. So that's why
people who are taking artificial sweeteners in
sodas, thinking that they're going to lose weight,
are going to get fatter.
Aspartame has been involved in grand mal and
petit mal seizures and optic nerve damage
because 10 per cent is converted into methyl
alcohol and formaldehyde. ( What causes a petit
mal seizure? Affecting about two of every 1,000
people, absence seizures (formerly called ''petit
mal'' seizures) are caused by abnormal and
intense electrical activity in the brain. Normally,
the brain's nerve cells (neurons) communicate
with one another by firing tiny electric signals.)
Depending on the quantity that you take, you're
actually taking a poisoning system from your
own gut for your nervous system and particularly
for the optic nerve, which is very sensitive to
methyl alcohol and formaldehyde. The sense of
smell becomes affected. Aspartame has also
caused brain tumours.
Water has life giving properties. It manufactures hydro-electricity.
In other words, it is a natural source of energy… That’s why
water is a better pick-me-up than anything you might imagine.
How Water Performs its Life-Giving Functions
Water has life-giving properties. It
manufactures hydro-electricity.
In other words, it is a natural
source of energy. All
neurotransmission in the body
depends on this hydro-electricity
from water. That's why water is a
better pick-me-up than anything
you might imagine.
As for the process of hydrolysis,
the medical community has
always used the term "hydrolysis
of this" and "hydrolysis of that"
and yet it never assumes that
water has metabolism of its own.
I spent six years at the University of Pennsylvania
doing research in order to find this and put this
thesis together. At a conference, one of the
professors asked me what I do and I said, "I'm
trying to look at metabolism of water." He
frowned at me and thought me an ignorant
person. He said, "We thought that water doesn't
have any metabolism." I didn't want to offend
him in front of his colleagues, so I said, "May I
come to your office and talk to you about this?"
He said, "Yes, by all means." So I got an
appointment with him. He was an eminent
professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I
went to see him and in order to make sure I
understood what he had said was correct, I
said, "Did I understand correctly that
you said that water has no metabolism, that
water is just an inert substance along for the ride?" He
said, "Yes." I said, "Then what is hydrolysis? You
use the word frequently and use it every time.
What does hydrolysis mean?" If I had hit him with
a ton of gold, it wouldn't have impacted his brain
as much as that word did. He went white, pale,
and he said, "Yes, of course, we never thought
about that." So the word hydrolysis
means metabolism of water.
Water is a nutrient. Water is
actually a primary nutrient in the
body that your body depends on,
on a regular basis, for its
performance and functions.
Water at body temperature, when it is squeezed
to 2.5 angstrom units, gels; it becomes like ice,
and it's this thickness of ice that sticks the
components of the cell membrane together.
Water is actually a cementing material in the
body, it's that mortar between the bricks, and
lack of water will cause disturbance in that
process. In order that the cell doesn't disintegrate
completely, the body has found a substitute, and
it's produced this stickiness of cholesterol in order
to bind things together. So, cholesterol in the
body performs not only an insulating
function; it's also part of the
emergency bonding material.
Now, as far as water being a source of energy is
concerned, this is the research by Philippa
Wiggins: "The source energy for cation transport
or ATP synthesis lies in increasing chemical
potentials with the increasing hydration of small
cations and polyphosphate anions, in the highly
structured interfacial aqueous phase of the two
phosphorylated intermediates." This must be
double Dutch to you, too! But trust me, it means
that water is the source of energy for synthesis of
ATP.
Now, hydrolysis of water produces energy. This is
a formula calculated by George et al. Magnesium
ATP itself has only 600 kilojoule-moles of energy
inherent in itself; but when it is hydrolysed, the
components become 5,850 kilojoule-moles of
energy. In other words, water has transferred its
own energy to the components, and that's how it
has driven the chemical reaction by the energy
produced by hydrolysis. So, the pound of meat
that you eat has no energy value whatsoever
unless water is there to hydrolyse it and break it
down. It is in fact the water that energises
the food that you eat, the potato, the sugar. None
of these has the ability to pass energy into the
human body unless water is there to break them
down and magnify the energy content by one
order of magnitude.
There are two oceans of water in the body: one
ocean of water is in the cells, and then there is
the ocean of water outside the cells. Water that
we drink goes through the cell membrane and
replenishes the ocean inside. The salt that we
take regulates the volume of the ocean outside.
These two oceans have to be in balance. You
cannot fill up the Atlantic more than it is full
already and let the Pacific dry up, or fill the
Pacific and let the Atlantic dry up: you have to
fill them both. That's why God created
connections between all the oceans, in order
to balance the oceans. We also have to
balance the oceans of water in the body.
In fact, the design of the body is that it
automatically balances these oceans by certain
mechanisms. So, water and salt are vital elements
in the human body. Water diffuses through the
cell membrane at a rate of 103 centimetres per
second, which is a very fast rate of transfer of
water into the cell.
In a well-hydrated cell membrane, there is a
channel between the two layers of the
membrane. All the enzymes travel in that
channel and meet their counterpart. They call
this a lateral diffusion of the enzyme systems,
and the body needs to have that channel
sufficiently hydrated. The water comes through
these elements, fills up this channel and allows physiological functions to take
place. In a dehydrated state, the channel is gone.
These processes come into another and they
produce locks, so nothing travels. That's how the
cell goes into hibernation. In bacteria and things
like that which might have this same process, or
in animals which go into a dry phase, this is how
it happens.
Reverse osmosis is when we don't have diffusion,
and the body has to filter water and inject
it into the vital cells. Then we have the osmotic
movement of water when glucose stimulates
insulin production and the gates are open, and
water travels with glucose and amino acids into
the cells. This is a mechanism where we lose our
perception of thirst, and gradually, as a result of
lifestyle, we become susceptible to disease,
depending on how much water we are taking or
how many dehydrating beverages we are taking.
When the body has to depend on insulin release
to shift water osmotically into the cells, obesity
becomes an unavoidable complication. That's
what I'm writing on now; Obesity, the
Deadly Disease of Dehydration is the [working]
title of my next book.
In this process of reverse osmosis, vasopressin sits
on its receptor and converts it into a "shower
head" with a cluster of perforations of two
angstrom units. This "shower head" process fills
with the osmotically balanced serum, and the
vasopressin puts a squeeze on the system and only
water, one molecule of water, is filtered through
the system. Alcohol stops this function. That's
why you get a headache with alcohol, because
your brain depends on this mechanism in order
to be hydrated on a regular basis. This is how the
body transfers water into the brain tissue: reverse osmosis.
The water comes through
these elements, fills up
this channel and allows
physiological functions to
take place. In a dehydrated
state, the channel is gone.
Salt Is Vital for Life and Health
Salt is vital because it extracts and gets rid of
acids. Sodium goes into the cell, a hydrogen ion
goes out, and then potassium goes into the cell
and sodium goes out. So, salt is vital for
balancing the acidity of the cell. That's how the
body becomes alkaline, because salt extracts the
hydrogen ion and then the ion is taken to the
kidneys and is flushed out if there is enough water.
Salt is essential in order to regulate the blood
sugar, and it's essential in order to manufacture
hydro-electricity. Salt is vital to prevent catarrh.
Salt is a strong natural antihistamine. It prevents
cramps. The structure of bones depends on salt for
fullness, because 27 per cent of the salt reserve in
the body is in crystallised form in the actual bone
structure, in the shaft of the bone. Low-salt diets
actually cause osteoporosis, not calcium deficiency.
When you don't have water and salt, not only do
you not absorb calcium but you also get rid of
calcium. Nerve cell communication depends on
salt. Absorption of food depends on the sodium–
potassium activity. Asthma and cystic fibrosis are
conditions that can benefit from salt intake as
well as water.
Now, you've all seen these elderly people who
develop leaky bladders; they have no control.
This is a salt-deficiency problem. You need salt
in order to strengthen smooth muscle; and when
you don't have enough salt, smooth muscle loses
its integrity.
This is a testimonial from Dr E. Reed [sic]: "I
have a weak bladder and have even taken spare
clothing as I was sure it would be needed. I
arrived with not a drop of anything on my clothing.
I had talked myself off salt—a bad mistake."
For years she had had this problem until she came
across my information on salt and started adding
salt to her diet. Within three or four days she
became continent; she lost her incontinence.
Water Regulation of the Body
Water is essential through all phases of the body's
growth, from the intra-uterine phase of life until
you reach your full height and full weight. Growth
hormone and histamine regulate water intake. As
you grow older, you lose the concentration or
secretion ability of growth hormone, and
gradually you only depend on histamine in order
to regulate water intake of the body.
Histamine is forcing us to drink water, but, if
instead of water we take tea, coffee, sodas and
alcohol, we gradually dehydrate the body. Now,
if we take water, the pattern of life can go up to
150 years, depending on if we understand the
water level of the body and the composition of
the materials that we put into the body.
So, good diet and hydration are
essential for long life. Growth
hormone disappearance is secondary
to tryptophan and serotonin
deficiency. Growth hormone is under
the control of the tryptophan and
serotonin levels of the brain, so the
tendency to lose that is secondary to
the serotonin level of the brain. Once
you hydrate the body, gradually the
growth hormone level comes back
up, so I'm told.
The ratio of water inside the cell to
the ratio of water outside the cell
between the ages of 20 to 70 has
changed from 1.1 to 0.8; in other
words, there's far less water inside
the cells. The "plum-like" cells,
because of your not drinking water
and not allowing water to seep
through the cell membranes,
gradually turn into a "prune-like"
state—that is, a state of disease, a
disease-producing state. In other
words, persistent and intentional
dehydration reveals itself in as many
ways as we in medicine have labelled
as diseases. We have labelled
diseases; we have invented diseases.
We have not had diseases; we have
had "dis-eases" of dehydration. If we
recognise these dis-eases that can be
relieved with water, diseases will go
away. So will the sick-care system, so
will a lot of doctors, so will the
pharmaceutical industry—and thank
God for that!
About the Author:
Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, MD, was born
in Tehran, Iran, in 1931 and died in Virginia,
USA, in 2004. He received his formal
medical training at St Mary’s Hospital
Medical School of London University and
practised in the UK before returning to
Iran, where he played a key role in the
development of hospitals and medical
centres. During the Iranian Revolution,
he was a political prisoner and he treated
fellow inmates with the only medicine
available: water. After his release from
prison in 1982, he escaped from Iran and
migrated to the USA.
Dr Batmanghelidj devoted most of his
medical life to researching the cause and
cure of different ailments in the human
body. He had a number of books, videos,
audiotapes and medical research series
published. He was best known for his
book Your Body’s Many Cries for Water
(1992, 1997; reviewed in NEXUS 3/01; see
WaterCure.com).
Editor’s Note:
The transcript of Dr Batmanghelidj’s
lecture was provided by The World
Foundation for Natural Science, based
in Washington, DC, USA (see
http://www.naturalscience.org).
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