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.

ON WAITING TO GET THIRSTY

MUST- READ LETTER AND ARTICLE 
ON WAITING TO GET THIRSTY.

LETTER TO DR. LAWRENCE APPEL

(Back To The Letter's Page, click here to read)

Professor Lawrence Appel, M.D., M.P.H.

Chairman: Food and Nutrition Panel,
National Academy of Sciences (NAS), 26 February, 2004.

Dear Dr. Appel:

Follow Your Thirst, Report Says : Washington Post

Wrong! A large percentage of people get sick as a result of chronic unintentional dehydration without sensing thirst!

The view presented by your NAS panel about waiting to get thirsty before drinking water is exactly what is wrong with medicine in America, and possibly the single cause of 
escalating costs of the "sick care" system in this country. This is the reason we have a sick care system in place of having a health care system that understands disease prevention instead of medicating  people until they get sicker by the millions. At least 200,000 of these die every year from medication-related problems.  This is the very reason that after heart disease and cancer, chemicals used in patient treatment are the third most prevalent licensed and protected cause of death in this country, more that the other common diseases. 

None of the honorable members of your panel, whose report made news in all the major media, seemed to be aware that PA Phillips, PA. and associates, New England J. Medicine, Sept. 1985 --Reduced Thirst Water Deprivation in Healthy Elderly Men -- have shown that sharpness of the perception of thirst is lost after a certain age until obviously dehydrated elderly do not recognize they need to drink water and do not reach for water that is put next to them. Otherwise your panel would have used different wording in their report.  the elderly are the sickest sector of society as a result of waiting to get thirsty before they drink water , exactly what your report is recommending people  should do.

Worse still, the panel seems to be unaware of the primary role of the neurotransmitter histamine as the water regulator and the drought management program coordinator in the human body : that it gets more and more manufactured as the body begins to get dehydrated, producing the major localized pains and systemic conditions like allergies, asthma, the "inflammatory diseases," and others : that water is the best natural anti-histamine that should be used instead of the antihistamine chemicals drugs on the market : that water is the best natural diuretic that should be used in place of drugs for this purpose.  With their drastic limitation of knowledge about the water regulatory processes in the human body , to dictate to people to drink water only when they get thirsty without doubt will harm most of those who trustingly heed the instruction.   The abstract of presentation on histamine is attached.

Your panel has reiterated what Heinz Valtin, M.D., professor emeritus of Dartmouth medical School, published in the American Journal of Physiology in August of 2002. My attached rebuttal articulate to Dr. Valtin's obsolete views about initiation of the thirst mechanism by the kidney --"Waiting to Get Thirsty Is to Die Prematurely and Very Painfully"-- was published in the Townsend Letters for Doctors and Patients, january 2003.  The article is also posted on www.watercure.com .

This article explains fully why the esteemed members of your panel need to review the published materials on unintentional dehydration and reverse the emphasis in their report on "waiting to get thirsty before drinking water" -- as soon as possible . They need to realize that the human body has many other emergency thirst signals that precede the dry mouth indicator of thirst. They need to advise people to minimally over-hydrate -- prevent dehydration -- rather than wait for dehydration to cause a "dry mouth" before drinking water.  A large percentage of people get sick as a result of locally settled and inflammation-producing chronic unintentional dehydration without sensing "thirst."

The members of your panel need to realize that water should be  placed on top of the list of nutrients.  After all, it is the primary instrument of energy release -- its hydrolytic chemical action -- for all functions on the human body. People who drink water to prevent thirst are doing the right thing. They are preventing dehydration-effect to even begin in their body systems. They are preventing the diseases of dehydration (DOD) that we in medicine have assumed to be this or that disease condition and treated with inventive cocktails of toxic medications.  This is the dark side of modern medicine that is getting exposed for the shameful , licensed and protected,  medical ignorance that it is. 

these letters are real-life stories. They are not "anecdotes."

EXCESS BODY WEIGHT
"The secret of caring for a patient is caring for the patient."--
Sir William Osier

Q: Why are 30 percent of Americans overweight? 
A: Because of a most basic confusion!

They don't know when they are thirsty; they also don't know the difference between "fluids" and "water."

Let us discuss the letters from Mr. Peck, Mr. Paturis, Priscilla Preston, and Donna Gutkowski that follow. All of them stated they lost between 30 and 45 pounds in weight when they switched to water as their preferred beverage.

There is another person who gradually lost 58 pounds in less than a year, weight she had gained in six years. As you read on, you will see how simply we gain weight. You would think it "simplistic" if you did not have the proof in front of you.

The central control system in the brain happens to recognize the low energy levels available for its functions. The sensations of thirst or hunger also stem from low, ready-to-access energy levels.

To mobilize energy from that which is stored in the fat, one needs hormonal release mechanisms. This process takes a while longer (and some physical activity for energy release) than the urgent needs of the brain. 

The front of the brain either gets energy from "hydroelectricity" or from sugar in blood circulation. Its functional needs for hydroelectricity are more, urgent—not only the energy formation from water, but also its transport system within the micro-stream flow system that depends on more water.

Thus, the sensation of thirst and hunger are generated simultaneously to indicate the brain's needs. We do not recognize the sensation of thirst and assume "both indicators" to be the urge to eat We eat food even when the body should receive water. In these people who lost weight, by drinking water before eating food, they managed to separate the two sensations. They did not overeat to satisfy an urge for the intake of water.

Overeating Further Explained
The human brain is roughly 1/50th of the total body weight. It is said to possess about nine trillion nerve cells (computer chips). Brain cells are said to be 85 percent water. 

Twenty percent of blood circulation is allocated and made available to the brain. This means that the brain gets to pick and choose from the circulating blood what is needed for its normal functions. The brain is the only part of the body that is constantly active. It processes all information from different parts of the body, as well as that which enters it from daily exposure to physical, social,and electromagnetic environment.

To process all these inputs and alert all parts of the body for coordinated response, the brain spends a vast quantity of energy. At the same time, it spends energy in manufacturing primary ingredients and different brain chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) that are made in the brain cells and have to be transported to the nerve endings wherever they are. The transport system uses a vast quantity of energy. This high rate of energy consumption by the brain is the main reason why it receives about 20 percent of blood circulation.

Brain cells stockpile energy in two main forms: ATP and GTP reserves—like the coal and coke dumps next to power plants. Certain actions are supplied with energy from ATP stockpiles that are located in different parts of the cell, mainly within its membranes. The cell membrane is where the information enters and where an action is initiated. There is a system of energy rationing in operation in each cell. Not all stimulation will achieve an allocation of energy from the ATP stockpile to get registered and invoke a response.

There is a threshold for energy release for some "inputs." The brain calculates and understands what is important and what is not for its energy expenditure. When ATP reserves are low, many stimuli do not invoke a response. This low ATP reserve in some overactive brain cells will become reflected as a fatigue state in functions controlled by those brain cells. Exactly the same process is in operation for the GTP stockpiles. In certain emergency actions,
some energy from GTP stockpile can be diverted to boost the ATP stockpile to sustain some of the most essential functions that would otherwise suffer from lack of local energy.
Storage of energy in the brain's energy pools seems to rely heavily on the availability of sugar. The brain is constantly drawing from the blood sugar to replenish its ATP and GTP stockpiles. Recently it has been discovered that the human body has the ability to generate hydroelectric energy when water, by itself, goes through the cell membrane and turns some very special energy generating pumps; very much like the hydroelectric power generation when a dam is built on a large river. Thus, the brain uses two mechanisms for its energy requirements: One, from metabolism of food and formation of sugar: two, from its water supply and conversion of hydroelectric energy. It now seems that the brain depends very extensively on energy formation from "hydroelectricity,"
particularly for its transport system in its nerve supply to different parts of the body.

To satisfy the brain's requirements, the human body has developed a very delicate balancing system to keep a normal range of sugar concentration in the blood. It/does this in two ways. One, by stimulating the intake of proteins and starchy foods that it will convert to sugar, in addition to the sugar in the diet; two, by converting some starch and proteins from stored reserves of the body into sugar. This latter mechanism is called "gluco-neo-gene-sis." It means remaking of sugar from other materials. This re-manufacturing of sugar for use by the brain is done in the liver.

The dependence of most brain functions on energy from sugar has developed a satiety or pleasure association for the sweet taste. It has established a certain coding system for coordination of functions by the other organs, particularly by the liver when sweet taste stimulates the tongue. When there is not enough sugar in circulation, the liver begins to manufacture it and constantly tops up blood levels by the addition of more sugar. At the beginning, it
will convert stored starch, followed by proteins and small quantities of fat. Fat conversion is a very slow process.

The body needs to go without food for some time before a higher rate of fat metabolism is established. Proteins are more accessible and broken down more easily than fat. Fat deposits are made up of many single units of "fatty acids" joined together. It is the individual fatty acids that are broken for their energy value. Each gram of fat gives nine calories of energy. Each gram of protein or sugar provides only four calories of energy. This is the reason,
when fat is metabolized, a person is far less hungry.

In children, fat stores are brown in color and have much blood circulation in them. In brown fat, fat is metabolized directly and heat is generated. In later years of life, fat stores have less blood circulation and are less accessible to the enzymes that would mobilize the fatty acids for conversion in the liver and the muscles. When muscles are inactive, they are more easily attacked and their protein is broken down for conversion into sugar. However, if
muscles are used, they begin to metabolize some of their stored fat as a choice source of energy to do work and maintain or increase their bulk To do this, they begin to activate a fat-breaking enzyme called "hormone sensitive lipase." It has been shown in repeated blood tests in Sweden that this enzyme's activity is seen after one hour's walk and retains its fat-breaking activity for 12 hours. Once muscles begin to use fat, more sugar will become available to be used by the brain.

With repeated walks, activity of the fat-burning enzymes become much more pronounced. Thus, a component of any dieting program should be muscle use for its long-lasting, primary and direct physiological effect on fat breakdown. It is this enzyme in blood circulation that will also clean all blood vessel walls of fatty plaques and deposits. It was this physiological response of the body to walking that reversed the health problems of Mr. John Fox. Increased water intake gave him energy and stamina and walking stimulated the enzymes that cleared his arteries.
Office work and desk jobs in our modern way of life are only a cultural transformation. The body physiology has not yet transformed sufficiently to accommodate for this functionally abnormal use of the human body. The human body still needs muscle activity to maintain normal functions. If the body functions normally, it will know when to eat and how much to eat without storing fat. Every part of the body will use its share of energy supply for efficient and well coordinated functioning. This is what it is designed for.

However, if the brain is used more (in times of stress) and the body is not used proportionately to supply the brain with its sugar needs, a less-disciplined person will give in to eating more often and in larger quantities. It becomes more dramatic if one does not recognize the other thirst signals of the human body when it needs water for its energy supply, when in place of drinking water by itself more food is consumed. In stress, the body becomes
dehydrated. The reason we tend to gain weight is one simple fact: we eat to supply the brain with energy for its constant round-the-clock activity. However, when food is eaten, only about 20 percent of it reaches the brain. The rest will gradually become stored if muscle activity does not use up its allocated portion. With water as a source of energy, this storage does not happen. Excess water is passed out in the form of urine.

Diet Sodas Can Cause Weight Gain.
My observation has been that diet sodas (all variety of manufactured soft drinks are called soda instead of using the
label on the drink), even though containing no appreciable number of calories, are possibly the cause of more weight gain in people who resort to taking them to control their weight. One person stands out: A young man in his twenties, about 5' 5" in height. Like most college students, he used to drink regular sodas while under constant pressure for completion of his studies. He had already gained excess weight by the time he graduated.

After graduation, to reduce weight, he began drinking eight cans of diet sodas per day. In about two years, he must have gained another 30 pounds. He seemed to get as round as he was tall. His walk became difficult, and he seemed to have to swing his hip to take a step. He also drank his diet soda at mealtimes and ate more than his
body needed. He still consumes his diet sodas—he seems to be addicted—and, despite all other efforts, continues to be overweight.
This paradox in our understanding of the relationship between taking a sweetener that does not directly contribute to the total calorie intake of the body and weight gain needs explanation. The following is the result of my research into this enigma. There are many such persons who resort to taking diet sodas and, instead of losing weight, they begin to gain it. The transcript of a testimonial from Donna Gutkowski, who for years only consumed sodas and steadily gained weight regardless of anything else she did to shed the excess pounds, will also follow.

In America in 1850, about 13 ounces of soda were consumed per person per year. In the late 1980s, more than 500 twelve-ounce cans of sodas were consumed per person per year.

The 1994 annual report of the beverage industry shows that per-capita consumption of sodas is 49.1 gallons per year. Of this amount, 28.2 percent of consumption is the share of different diet sodas. Diet soda consumption is beginning to decline. Eighty-four percent of all sodas consumed belong to two companies (Coca-Cola 48.2 percent and Pepsi-Cola 35.9 percent). Of this 84 percent share of market and their different labels manufactured, only 5.5 percent are caffeine-free diet sodas. These figures indicate that a vast number of people are drinking caffeinated sodas, of which 22 percent consists of diet sodas.

A survey at the campus of Pennsylvania State University has shown that some students drank 14 cans of soda a day. One girl had consumed 37 Cokes in two days. Many admitted they could not live without these soft drinks. If deprived, these persons would develop withdrawal symptoms, very much like those addicted to other drugs. Boys Life magazine surveyed its readers and found that eight percent of them drink eight or more sodas a day. The administrators of one Boy Scout Jamboree had collected 200,000 empty cans for recycling. The Soft Drink Association surveyed the use of soft drinks in hospitals in America and found 85 percent of them serve sodas with their patients' meals. Research has shown that caffeine is addictive. The media, to placate a beverage industry that spends vast sums of money for advertising its products, have come up with a less expressive word to announce the news. They call it "caffeine dependency."
When consumption of sodas is encouraged by society, it is assumed these manufactured beverages can replace the needs of the body for water. It is assumed, just because these beverages contain water, the body will be adequately served. This assumption is wrong. This broad-base increase in consumption of mainly caffeine containing sodas forms the background to many of the health problems of our society. The mistaken assumption
that all fluids are equivalent to water for the water needs of the human body is the main cause of many of the ills of the human body, and it is frequently associated with the initial excessive gain in weight. To understand the above statement, we need to recognize some simple principles of anatomy and physiology of the brain that regulate eating and drinking.
The confusion that all manufactured beverages will supply the body with its daily water needs, more than any other cause, is responsible for some of the diseases that we encounter. Gross disfigurement of the body by fat collection is the initial step in the decline of the human body, and in my opinion is caused by the wrong choice of fluids intake.
Some of these beverages do more damage than others.
Caffeine, one of the main components of most sodas, is a drug. It has addictive properties because of its direct action on the brain. It also acts on the kidneys and causes increased urine production. Caffeine has diuretic properties. It is physiologically a dehydrating agent. This characteristic is the main reason a person is forced to drink so many cans of soda every day and never be satisfied. The water does not stay in the body long enough. At the same time, many persons confuse their feeling of thirst for water. Thinking they have consumed enough "water" that is in the soda, they assume they are hungry and begin to eat more than their body's need for food. Thus, dehydration caused by caffeine-containing sodas, in due time, will cause a gradual gain in weight from overeating as a direct result of confusion of thirst and hunger sensations.
Caffeine has "pick-me-up" properties. It stimulates the brain/body even when a person is exhausted! It seems that caffeine lowers the threshold of ATP stockpile control. Stored ATP is used up for some functions that would not normally gain access to it when there is a set level of reserves.
When sodas contain sugar, at least some of the brain's need for sugar is satisfied. If caffeine is releasing ATP energy to enhance performance, at least its sugar companion will replenish some of the lost ATP, even if the final result is a deficit expenditure of ATP by the brain.
In early 1980s, a new product was introduced into the beverage industry—an artificial sweetener other than saccharin. It is called aspartame. Aspartame is 180 times as sweet as sugar without any calorie output. It is now in common use because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has deemed it safe to use in place of sugar. In a very short period of time, it has been incorporated in over 5000 recipes.
In the intestinal tract, aspartame converts to two highly excitatory neurotransmitter amino acids: aspartate and phenylalanine, as well as methyl alcohol/formaldehyde—wood alcohol. It is claimed the liver renders methyl alcohol non-toxic. I personally think this claim is made to brush aside voiced objections for commercialization of a
manufactured "food" that has a known toxic byproduct.
If caffeine converts ATP to AMP, a spent energy "ash," aspartate converts GTP energy stockpile to GMP. Both AMP and GMP are spent fuels; they cause thirst/hunger to replace the lost fuel stockpiles in the brain cells. Thus, diet sodas cause indiscriminate overuse of energy reserves of cells in the brain.
It is a well-recognized, scientific fact that spent fuel (AMP) does cause hunger. Caffeine causes addiction, and people who consume it on a regular basis should be assumed to be "sodaholics." Hence, caffeinated diet sodas in sedentary persons must cause weight gain; they indirectly stimulate more food intake because of the brain's forced use of its energy reserves. Bear in mind that only some of the energy value of foods eaten will be used by the brain.
The rest of the consumed energy will be stored in the form of fat if not used by muscle activity. This weight gain is one of many results of diet soda consumption.
The more important reflex that occurs is a brain reaction to sweet taste. The jargon used is "cephalic phase response." A conditioned reflex becomes established as a result of life-long experience with sweet taste that is associated with the introduction of new energy into the body. When sweet taste stimulates the tongue, the brain
programs the liver to prepare for acceptance of new energy— sugar—from outside. The liver, in turn, stops the manufacture of sugar from the protein and starch reserves of the body and instead begins to store the metabolic fuels that are circulating in the blood. As Michael G. Tardoff, Mark I. Friedman, and other scientists have shown,cephalic phase responses alter the metabolic activity in favor of nutrient storage; the fuel available for conversion is reduced which leads to the development of appetite.
If it is indeed sugar that stimulates the response, the effect on the liver will be the regulation of that which has entered the body. However, if sweet taste is not followed by nutrient availability, an urge to eat will be the outcome. It is the liver that produces the signals and the urge to eat The more sweet taste without the accompanying calories that stimulates the taste buds, the more there is an urge to eat—overeat.
The effect of cephalic phase response to sweet taste has been dearly shown in animal models with the use of saccharin. Using aspartame, several scientists have shown a similar urge to overeat in humans. Blundel and Hill have shown that non-nutritive sweeteners—aspartame in solution—will enhance appetite and increase short-term food intake. They report: "After ingestion of aspartame, the volunteers were left with a residual hunger compared with what they reported after glucose. This residual hunger is functional, it leads to increased food consumption."
Tardoff and Friedman have shown that this urge to eat more food after artificial sweeteners can last up to 90 minutes after the sweet drink; even when all blood tests show normal values. They showed that even when blood levels for insulin, the higher readings of which is thought to be the cause of hunger, achieved normal levels test animals consumed more food than the control batch. What this means is that the "brain" retains for a long time the urge to eat when the taste buds for sugar are stimulated without sugar having entered the system. The sweet taste will cause the brain to program the liver to store supplies rather than release supplies from its storage.
Basically, this physiological response to sweeteners without their accompanying calories that the body has been told has entered it will compel the person to find and make good the registered marker for energy consumption. This is another physiological reason why people who consume diet sodas to reduce weight may suffer from the paradoxical response of their body to repeated stimulation of the taste buds with sugar substitutes.
When caffeine and aspartame are introduced into the body, they will dictate their stimulating effect on the cell physiology in the brain, the liver, the kidneys, the pancreas, the endocrine glands, and so on. Aspartame is converted to phenylalanine and aspartate. Both have direct stimulatory effects on the brain. The sum total of the
effect of caffeine and aspartame will very quickly establish a new mode of activity for the brain just because they are repeatedly available in larger quantities than the ones that would otherwise establish a balanced physiology.
Most neurotransmitters are secondary products from one or another amino acid. However, aspartate is one of a pair of unique amino acids that don't need to be converted to a secondary product to act on the brain to cause an effect.
There are receiving points (receptors) for these two stimulant amino acids (aspartate and glutamate) on certain nerve cells that influence body physiology very dramatically.
The use of artificial sweeteners for their false stimulation of "nerve terminals" that register the entry of "energy" supplies into the body have more severe repercussions than simply causing increase in weight. These chemicals constantly swing the body physiology in the direction dictated by the nerve system they stimulate. Their use without a thorough understanding of their long-term effects in the body, just because they also pleasantly stimulate the taste buds, is shortsighted. My understanding of the micro-physiology within cells causes me concern when I think of the routine use of these amino acids. I worry for the outcome of the long-term effect of the direct stimulation of the nerve/ glandular systems in the brain with these chemical sweeteners. They are naturally positioned for other important, but balanced functions, in the body.
Research has shown that receptors for aspartate are abundantly present on some nerve systems whose products also stimulate the reproductive organs and breasts. A constant stimulation of breast glands without the other factors associated with pregnancy may well be implicated in the rise in the rate of breast cancer in women. The hormone, prolactin, may play a major role in this direction. One of the less explored complications of aspartame may be its effect as a possible facilitator in cancer formation in the brain. Fed to rats, aspartame has been implicated in brain tumor formation in experimental animals.
As an analogy, imagine a small sail boat that is going from one nearby port to another and has to reach its destination before dark when the direction of the winds is not ideal. If the sailor, instead of paying strict attention to the rules of sailing, gives in to the pleasure and exhilaration of fast sailing with the wind, he will have abandoned his purpose and sailed his boat to totally different and unknown shores, and in the dark. The odds are that he and his
boat will not survive the trip.
On its journey of life, the human body is just like a sail boat. If the mind abandons purpose and forgets the design of
the body, and gives in to the overstimulation of the palate with artificial and non-representative products (such as spices), in the long run, the body chemistry may not be able to deal with constant false information and not suffer damage.
It is primitive and simplistic thinking that one could easily lace water with all sorts of pleasure-enhancing chemicals and substitute these fluids for the natural and dean water that the human body needs. Some of these chemicals,caffeine, aspartame, saccharin and alcohol, through their constant lopsided effect on the brain, unidirectionally—single mindedly—program the body chemistry with results contrary to the natural design of the body. Very much like the sail boat in the dark that will get beached in uncharted shores if its sailor gives in to the pleasures and exhilaration of fast sailing in place of sticking to the rules of sailing with safety in mind, the intake of wrong fluids will affect the life of anyone who continually consumes them.

As it has been explained so far, the human body has many different indicators when it runs short of water. At these times, it needs only water. As it has been explained, it will complicate matters if one gives the body artificial taste enhancing fluids on a regular basis and in full substitution of the water needs of the body.
One should remember that caffeine is similarly an addictive drug, the use of which has become "legal." Children, in particular, become vulnerable to the addictive properties of these caffeine-containing beverages. Stimulating the body at the early stages of life of a child with pleasure-enhancing chemicals in beverages, in some will program the senses to use harder addictive drugs when they reach school age.

Thus, the long-term and constant use of sodas in general, and diet sodas in particular, should be assumed to be responsible for some of the more serious health problems of our society. Distorting the physical appearance of the body as a result of excess fat storage is the first step in this direction. Some manufactured beverages should only be used sparingly, if at all, by younger people, when the right programs for the future health of a child is the aim of parents.


Dr. Marcia Gutkowski is a nutrition consultant. After reading my book, she convinced her daughter Donna to begin changing her habit in fluids intake. The result has astounded the mother and daughter. The following is the transcript of Donna's testimonial.

Dear Dr. Batmanghelidj
April 25,1994
My mother asked, that I write to you and tell you about my recent weight loss success. I know that I could have a much more successful loss if I would follow your formula and curb my eating habits, along with starting a regular routine of exercise. However just getting myself to get off of 6 to 8 cans of Mountain Dew a day is a miracle in itself.

Within the last 9 months to a year, I have successfully been able to keep 35 excess pounds of baggage off. I am able to wear clothes that I thought would never touch my body again. I also have just about reached my goal size for my upcoming wedding. Even my fiancé had to admit that lam looking much better than when he first met me five years ago.

My success has been contributed to faithfully drinking 1/2 my body weight in ounces in water every day. Wherever I go, so does my water. To work, shopping, even my long 7 hour long car rides. (That does make for a lot of rest area stops, but they are worth it.) I do treat myself to an occasional mineral water or beer when I go out, but I have usually gotten my quota of water in for the day. One interesting thing that I have noticed however is that once I have finished drinking my quota of water, I have absolutely no desire to drink anymore. Also I have found that I'm not thirsty anymore and it will usually take me awhile to drink some other type of beverage whether it be juice, milk, beer, mineral water, etc.

I am looking forward to October 1st which is my wedding day when I can walk down the aisle looking better than I have looked in 15 years, since I graduated from high school. It will also be nice to put my weight on my new drivers license without having to cringe for the first time in my life.

Thanks for the smaller me!!!! 

Donna M. Gutkowski

It is now February of 1995. Donna is happily married. By the time of her wedding in October 1994, she had lost over 40 pounds.

This science-based way of weight loss will be permanent, whereas with only food limitation, even if some weight is lost, it is regained in a short period of time. Worse still, one is constantly hounded by the fallacy of needing to limit this or that food, particularly on the subject of cholesterol content of food, a temporary present-day vogue. Do not be shocked. Contrary to present trends for exclusion of eggs from daily diet, I eat as many eggs as I feel like eating—
no limitation whatsoever; eggs have a well-balanced protein content. I also happen to understand how excess cholesterol formation in the body is associated with prolonged dehydration.

 [Higher blood cholesterol is a sign that the cells of the body have ... Want To Read More Click Here ]

Priscilla Preston's letter on the next page further explains the relationship of dehydration, not only to weight gain, but to the more devastating problem of asthma, the subject of the next chapter. In taking steps to prevent asthma, she managed to lose 35 pounds.

 Another important point in her letter is the role of salt in disease prevention. Salt is important to the body. Salt sensors on the tongue, when strongly stimulated, remove the body's anxiety and stop it from panicking for water. When salt is available, the body is at least assured of an efficient water filtration system for its emergency supply to the important cells. You will read more about salt in this link, JUST CLICK HERE.

Please bear in mind, these letters are real-life stories. They are not "anecdotes." We do not need statistics to convince people of the efficacy of water, when the body is demonstrating an urgent need for it. Whose fault is it that the human body's regional calls for water, and its programs of adaptation to dehydration, have been labeled as disease conditions? Is there any plausible reason why, for evaluation of natural treatment procedures, we should adhere to the self-serving methodology and the yardstick of the pharmaceutical industry? Their inaccurate assertions have until now caused so much pain and agony for people whose bodies were only crying out for water!

NEVER LET YOUR BODY GOES WATER-DEFICIT,