Drink Water  -- The Ultimate Guide

Drink water!  The ultimate water guide is here! 

How much water should I drink?  What kind of water is best for me?  Get ready to have all of your water questions answered right here, right now!

We all know that a plant will wilt and die if it doesn't get enough water.  But did you know that a person also wilts and dies if he doesn't drink water?

Don't let your body wilt.  Water yourself!  Get hydrated!  Drink 8 to 12 glasses of pure water each day.  But what is pure water? Today we are going to teach you how to get the purest and best water.

Why Is It So Important to Drink Water?

We all are very aware just how important water is for the planet. If there is no water, there is no life. It is the one thing that binds all living things. 

We have all seen how dry and brown grass becomes when it doesn't see rain for a long time.  That is how your body feels when you don't drink water.

We can live without food for several weeks, but we can’t last more than 4 days without water.

Why is Water so Important?

• Water is essential for our cells to function properly.
  

• Our body uses water to break down the food that we eat so our body can utilize the nutrition.
  

• Water plays a role in transporting nutrients to our cells.

• Water is vital for waste removal and body temperature regulation.

Don't Drink Water?  Common Health Problems Caused by Chronic Dehydration

What is chronic dehydration?  Even if you drink water regularly ... if you drink a little less water than you need every single day, then your body is chronically dehydrated. 

Sometimes during an illness or extreme prolonged exposure to heat, we can become so dehydrated that we have to be rushed to the emergency room and put on an IV drip to survive.  But I am not talking about that kind of dehydration. 

Your body uses water, and lots of it, every day.  You must drink water to replace at least as much water as you are using,  if you don't drink enough,then you are becoming more and more chronically dehydrated over time.  It's basic math.

Most of us are chronically dehydrated.  It is an epidemic these days.

Health Problems Caused by Chronic Dehydration

So what are some common health problems that can be caused by or exacerbated by chronic dehydration?

1.  High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is very common in the developed world. And while there are many factors for elevated blood pressure, chronic dehydration is one of them.

Why does chronic dehydration lead to hypertension?

• Dehydration causes the blood to thicken, because there is less water in the blood. Thick blood is a lot harder for the body to pump than thinner blood. So of course the body must increase the pressure to get the blood circulating throughout the body. But wait, there's more ...
  

• When the bodies cells have a low water content, the body secretes a chemical called vasopressin. Vasopressin causes the blood vessels to constrict (become more narrow). This makes it harder to push blood through the arteries, so the body must increase blood pressure to continue circulating the blood. That is why blood vessel constriction causes the blood pressure to rise.
  

So if your blood pressure is high, drink water on a daily basis. Make sure you are drinking at least 8 glasses per day. Your blood pressure won’t go down overnight, but if you continue to drink water (the right type and correct amount) over several weeks, then you should see a difference in your readings.

2. High Cholesterol

The body has an automatic bulit-in mechanism to make up for lost water. It increases cholesterol levels as a protection mechanism. The increased cholesterol slows down water lost from cells.  If you don't drink water daily, or if you drink too little water, you may be gradually running up your cholesterol.

3. Fatigue

Water is responsible for many chemical reactions in our bodies. When we are dehydrated, those chemical reactions become less efficient, and we feel this as a loss of energy. If you are having bouts of low energy throughout the day, drink water regularly, and lots of it.  You may be surprised in how much better you feel.

4. Asthma and Allergies

The body will constrict your airways to conserve water when you are dehydrated. As a matter of fact, the more dehydrated you become, the more histamine that the body will produce!  If you suffer from seasonal allergies, or any other type of allergies, drink water, drink lots of water.  Keep it up over time and you will see improvement.

5. Bladder and Kidney Problems

If you have problems with chronic UTI's, lack of water is one of the culprits. When you are dehydrated, your body's ability to detoxify is reduced. When these toxins can’t get out, they go back into the blood and organs.  When the toxins can’t be flushed they end up in your kidneys and bladder where they increase the risk  infection.  If you have any problems with your urinary tract, you owe it to yourself and your body to drink water regularly. 

6. Skin disorders

The skin is our biggest detoxification organs. Dehydration slows detoxification, and this shows up on our skin with diseases like dermatitis and psoriasis.  Having adequate water in your body will also improve the look and feel of your skin.  Drink water and watch your skin transform!

7. Digestive Disorders

Water is essential to a healthy digestive system. Dehydration leads to chronic constipation, which leads to all kinds of illness. Dehydration can also cause ulcers and acid reflux.

Now that we know how important drinking water is, what type of water is healthiest?

Don't Drink Tap Water!

What's wrong with tap water?

Corporations, factory farms, fracking, industries, all contribute to the poisoning of our water.

But it is not just industrial run off we have to worry about. Contrary to popular belief, the fluoride and chlorine added to our water is harmful as well. 

1.  Flouride

• Toxic to the human body.
  

• Implicated in causing low IQ in children, brain damage, brittle bones later in life, and even coronary artery disease.

• No definitive proof that flouride actually prevents cavities.

2. Chlorine

• Added to the public water supply to kill water borne pathogens.
  

• Reacts with natural compounds found in water to form cancer-causing byproducts called Trihalomethanes.

Other potential threats include:

• chemical waste from factory run-off

• pesticides

• lead

• cadmium

• other heavy metals

• pharmaceutical drugs
  

The list could go on ... but the point is that our water supply is not clean. If you are drinking straight tap water, you are putting some bad stuff into your body every day.

Build up in plumbing pipes adds even more toxic load to the water coming out of your tap. 

The Best Water Filtration Systems 

Now that we know why it is important to filter your drinking water, we are going to look at our options to obtain the cleanest water for our bodies.  There are many types of water filters on the market.  What are the pros and cons of each?

1. Carbon filters

Carbon filters are the most well-known type of water filter.  You have probably heard of some of the most popular brands, such as Brita, Pur, Zero, Culligan, and Everpure.

So what are the pros and cons of these carbon filters.....

Pros of Carbon Filters:

• Most affordable

• Easy to find in many stores

• Remove chlorine

• Remove some heavy metals such as lead
  

Cons of Carbon Filters:

• Don't remove fluoride

• Don't remove all pharmaceutical drug residue

2. Reverse Osmosis

Probably the second most popular type of water filter is reverse osmosis. One of the big downsides  of reverse osmosis filter is it's inefficiency.  Reverse osmosis actually wastes 4 gallons of water per every gallon of water it filters.

The good news is reverse osmosis has been shown to remove fluoride, and reverse osmosis systems that use carbon also remove up to 98% of chlorine from the water. Reverse osmosis even filters the pharmaceutical drugs out of the water.

Pros of Reverse Osmosis Filters:

• Remove fluoride

• Remove up to 98% of chlorine if they use carbon

• Remove pharmaceutical drugs
  

Cons of Reverse Osmosis Filters:

• More expensive than carbon filters

• Very inefficient (wastes 4 gallons of water for every gallon produced).

• Must be installed in your sink unit.

3. Ultraviolent Light Water Treatment

UV light is electromagnetic radiation. The main purpose of this method of filtration is to disinfect the water of harmful microorganisms. The method is especially useful if you are camping and want to drink water from a lake or stream.

Unfortunately the method does not work well for tap water because it does not remove the harmful chemicals such as fluoride, chlorine, heavy metals, etc.

The UV system can be paired with reverse osmosis to remove those chemicals, but we have already discussed the short comings of RO water treatment.

4. Gravity Filters

A gravity water filtration system has two containers stacked one on top of the other. You simply pour the water in the top container and it trickles down to the bottom container. Gravity pulls the water through the top container, through the filters, and into the bottom container.  The filters are usually ceramic and sit in the top container.

To increase their filtering power, many models (such as Berkey) also offer fluoride filters.

Gravity filters are very effective.  These systems have been shown to remove all types of microorganisms bacterial and viral (up to 99.9 %).  They are so effective, they can be used to filter murky, stagnant water and turn it into safe drinking water.  

They remove lead and other heavy metals up to 95%. The Berkey can remove chlorine to undetectable levels, as well as fluoride if you get the special fluoride removal filters.

These units are good for camping and home use. They don’t require electricity to operate which is a plus. They do not remove inorganic minerals from the water.

Pros of Gravity Filters:

• Very effective

• Removes up to 99.9% of micro-organisms

• Removes chlorine
  

• Removes lead and other heavy metals

• Removes fluoride if you add extra flouride filter

• Removes pharmaceuticals
  

• No installation required, sits on your counter top.

• No electricity required (Great for camping and prepping).

Cons of Gravity Filters

• Leaves inorganic minerals in the water. (Some believe this is a pro instead of a con, but it is a con for me).

5. Steam Distillation Filters

Water distillation is a simple concept that produces some of the cleanest water possible.  Personally, it is my favorite form of water purification.

How does it work?  Water has a lower boiling point than the contaminates found in it. Water turns into vapor when it is boiled, leaving the contaminants behind in the boiling tank.  The steam then condenses and is collected as clean water in a pitcher.

Steam distillers remove fluoride, heavy metals, inorganic minerals, bacteria, viruses, and any other contaminant that has a higher boiling point than water.

Unfortunately, chlorine has a lower boiling point than water. But this is why most distillation machines come with a carbon filter. The filter does the job of removing the chlorine.

Quite simply, water distillation is one of the most complete and affordable water filtration methods available. Distillation doesn’t waste water either. For every gallon of water you distill, you get a gallon of clean water to drink. 

If you have researched these filtration methods, you may have read that the water produced by steam distillation and reverse osmosis methods pull the minerals out of your body.

It is true that distilled water will pull minerals out of the body, but the minerals pulled out are inorganic minerals that your body can't use and doesn't want.  If left in the body, these inorganic minerals can cause health problems like arthritis and clogged arteries. 

So I am a fan of distilled water.  Distillation gets rid of harmful man-made contaminants, and it also gets rid of harmful inorganic minerals that could undermine our health.

Buying a Filtration System -- Making a Decision

So what to do?

We have found three systems that will do a good job at eliminating the toxins that are undermining our health, including fluoride, chlorine, heavy metals, bacteria and viruses, etc.

The top three filtering systems are distillation, gravity filters, and reverse osmosis.

A good way to narrow down which one you prefer should be pretty simple. If you don’t believe that the minerals found in water are bad for you, go with the gravity filter. Click here for a high quality gravity filter, https://amzn.to/2XlOILY

If you believe in drinking the cleanest water possible, then distillation and reverse osmosis would be your best bet. If you are on a budget and are serious about protecting our environment, distillation would be your best bet. Click here for a high quality distiller, https://amzn.to/2Vc7nan

At the end of the day, the moral of the story is drinking the cleanest possible water that you can. This habit will make a huge impact on your health in the long run.

Sources

[http://www.getskinnybehappy.com/healthy-living/why-water-is-essential-for-health-and-weight-loss/].

[ http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/drugs-in-our-drinking-water#1].

[ http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/07/01/water-supply-fluoridation.aspx].

http://www.cancer.ca/en/prevention-and-screening/be-aware/harmful-substances-and-environmental-risks/chlorinated-water/?region=on].

 [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21136197]

https://www.theperfectwater.com/waste-water.html]

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