Water: For Health, For Healing, For Life (21 page)
Edmund, the husband of my office manager, a very young man, had exactly the same type of paralysis and was taken to the hospital. His wife, Joy, was informed of the devastating crisis in their family. I was nearby when she received the information. I asked her if Edmund drank enough water. Apparently he would seldom drink water. I asked her to get him to drink lots of water straightaway to prevent the damage from continuing. She did, and he recovered completely. It is now four years since that episode.
The moral of these stories: Give stroke candidates lots of water—if possible, before they actually develop clots and then neurological symptoms.
HORMONES AND DEHYDRATION
Stress to the human body immediately translates into dehydration. In other words, stress equals dehydration, and dehydration equals stress. They both initiate the same series of physiological steps for crisis management. Immediate and automatic steps are taken to pre-pare the body for “battle stations.” The available body resources of water and food products will be distributed according to battle-station requirements. How is this done? Five major regulators become operatives of the system. These regulators have their individual codes, which are indicators of one or another mode of activity through their cascade of chemical reactions, much like the directives of a central command that are delivered to the commanders in the field.
Vasopressin
Vasopressin indicates a water shortage and a rationing of water delivery into the interior of certain cells according to a priority plan. It opens small holes in the cell membrane and forces water through the membrane so that cells sensitive to vasopressin will benefit more from the available water supply. This allows the brain, kidneys, liver, and other organs to maintain efficiency, particularly when the blood becomes more concentrated from the breakdown of muscle and fat. Vasopressin regulates water delivery into the cells until there is an unmistakable signal of abundant water supply for all body functions. Vasopressin also tightens the arterial system to put a squeeze on the blood volume to force serum out of the vessels. This enables some of the water content of the serum to enter the dehydrated cells through the holes in their membrane.
Once vasopressin becomes secreted, it acts as a strong on-off-on (modulating) stimulant for the release of cortisone. It is a very strong cortisone release factor. It is this action of vasopressin that converts persistent dehydration into a metabolic problem that can cause serious disruption in the reserves of the body's essential elements (see figure 7.4).
Cortisone Release Factor
Cortisone release factor promotes the secretion of hormones from the adrenal glands, which rest on top of the kidneys. Cortisone promotes the breakdown of proteins, fats, and stored starch into their primary components, some of which will be converted to sugar for brain use. This process will eventually deplete some of the essential amino acids, such as tryptophan and tyrosine, from the stored reserves of the body. As a result, many health problems that are the consequence of prolonged dehydration may develop. Cortisone directly suppresses the body's immune system. It is this mechanism that results in immune system suppression when the body becomes dehydrated and remains dehydrated. Production of interferon and interleukin-2—the vital activators of the immune system—is inhibited by cortisone.
The lost essential elements are not easily replace-able. The body can become short of some of its most essential amino acid needs for protein manufacture. Some of this loss can become irreversible. Even if raw materials are made available at a later time, the same state of physiology as before may not be attainable. Thus, muscle activity to avert the damaging effect of stress is indispensable—hence the need to walk, walk, and walk. Increased water intake to avert the physiological damage of stress is even more important.
Endorphins
These are the natural opiates of the body. They bring about immediate pain relief at the time of battle; they enhance the efficiency of the body in the process of fight or flight. When the body is exposed to injury or great stress, endorphins are released. Bleeding and severe pain also promote endorphin release. Endorphins raise the pain threshold so the body is able to endure and effectively continue to function to the last moment, despite physical trauma. Long-distance runners become dependent on the release of endorphins to continue until completion of a marathon race. When there is no injury or trauma, endorphin release translates to well-being and gratification.
Women often have a much greater dependence on the endorphin codes for their pain relief, especially for the physically traumatic processes of pregnancy and childbirth. Generation after generation of women have passed this strong ability for the expression of endorphin code to their offspring. It has become a stronger part of the chromosome code for the female of all species, particularly humans. This is why women have a greater ability to endure pain than men, and also why they live longer.
Alcohol is a dehydrating agent. Furthermore, it inhibits the full and widespread actions of vasopressin, causing further dehydration. In women, alcohol initiates release of endorphins. The more alcohol that is consumed, the more endorphin high will be experienced as a consequence of cellular dehydration. The addictive property of alcohol is most probably the con-sequence of endorphin release from the process of establishing dehydration. Although the process is the same in men and women, in women it becomes more strongly and rapidly addictive than in men. The reason lies in the women's ability to activate more quickly the endorphin-manufacturing system and its release in alcohol-induced stress. This is probably why women become addicted to alcohol in about two to three years, whereas men become addicted in about seven years.
Figure 11.1
Renin-Angiotensin (RA)
The RA system codes for water intake and its retention and distribution in the body by forcing a salt appetite and the collection of salt in the watery areas outside the cells. It is responsible for closing some of the blood vessels in the periphery so that the shunting of circulation to other more vital parts, according to a priority plan, can be established. It is also responsible for decreased urine production. It is produced in the kidneys, which play a part in water preservation of the body. The RA system is a focus of attention by the pharmaceutical industry in antihypertension therapy. Instead of giving the system more water to pass through the kidneys, chemical products are given to attempt to block the drive of the body for salt retention by the RA system.
Prolactin
Prolactin codes for breast-gland-cell stimulation and milk production. It coordinates with other hormone agents to maintain the reproductive organs of the body in a well-functioning state. The milk-producing tissue is a water-secreting gland, and its milk-water-secretory capability has to be maintained. Gland cells have to be activated and given secretory properties. If such cells are already formed and functioning, their activity has to be maintained. At times of stress, when the water-rationing system becomes operative, breast function has to be maintained to feed the offspring of the species. In a very severe state of stress, this milk-secretion property of prolactin may not be enough, and milk production may have to stop. There is a balancing mechanism involved.
In chronic dehydration, or ongoing low-grade stress, there may be a constant and ongoing effect on the breast tissue caused by the increasing amounts of stress-induced prolactin production. If the breast is already fully developed and has had past experience of milk production, the result may be an enlargement of the gland tissue. If the breast tissue is uninitiated, or a long time has elapsed between its initial milk-secretory learning period and the advent of stress, the result of stress-induced increased prolactin production may be cystic adenoma formation. Over a longer period of time, the end result of stress/dehydration-induced increases in prolactin production may be cancer transformation of the adenoma tissue. By this time, because of other damaging effects of dehydration and protein loss, many other controlling and anti-cancer-cell defense systems are already out of commission. The immune system is suppressed, and interferon production is decreased as a result of too much cortisone release. I am of the opinion that cancer of the breast in the majority of women is the consequence of chronic dehydration, associated with stress.
Figure 11.2
DEPRESSION AND CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME
As mentioned, the brain uses a great deal of electrical energy that is manufactured by the water drive of the energy-generating pumps. With dehydration, the level of energy generation in the brain is decreased. The ATP pool of energy becomes gradually depleted, more at some sites of activity than others. Many silent functions of the brain that depend on hydroelectric energy become inefficient. We recognize this inadequacy of function and call it depression.
To the human body, caffeine is very much like the booster system in an engine. In the same way a booster system burns fuel at a faster but inefficient rate to propel a car or plane at an exaggerated speed, so caffeine forces an increase in consumption of ATP. Caffeine in coffee, tea, and other beverages forces an excess expenditure of ATP energy by the brain. The brain always keeps some energy in reserve for emergency use—such as the energy surge of the last few miles of a marathon runner. Caffeine also dehydrates the body. One cup of coffee or tea, or a glass of an alcoholic drink, produces more urine than the actual ingested volume of liquid of any of the beverages. On top of that, by trying to cool down the body temperature to adjust for the hot tea or coffee, more water is lost in the form of perspiration. Tea addicts are always thirsty, but they continue to drink tea.
Normally, low levels of ATP give a lasting and constant signal of a lowered level of energy. This signal of a low battery reading puts the system on guard and does not permit the overuse of the ATP energy pool in the cell. In this way, each cell will have a fatigue signal of its own. It will take far stronger stimulus than before to fire up these fatigued cells. Consequently, the conscious mind is deprived of the possibility of accessing the cells' ATP energy pool, and will function at a less efficient level. Even the volition to perform a function is lost. It should be remembered that there is a time gap between energy expenditure from the ATP pool and the remanufacture of the spent energy, so the brain will operate at less-than-normal efficiency or at a depressed level for some time.
It seems that caffeine and other chemical stimulants alter the level at which spent ATP registers its signals of lower battery reading. Eventually, these stimulants may not be able to overcome the inhibitory influence of ATP loss. There may even come a time when
almost
no ATP is left to tap into for outside work. Now all a cell can do is stop most of its functions in order to survive. More and more, the body loses its ability to use brain energy to do mental or physical work, and the person becomes passive, in a vegetative mode of social behavior. What began as a depression now becomes a generalized fatigue. Once you add the problems of chronic dehydration to mental fatigue, a conglomerate of many different symptom-producing states with a general label of “chronic fatigue syndrome” (CFS) is born.
CFS is a manufactured label to describe a series of disparate symptoms and signs. In different parts of the world, the same series of conditions are labeled “postviral fatigue syndrome,” “neuromyasthenia,” “myalgic neuroencephalomyelitis”—tongue-twisting labels that mean little. Until it was shown to be an inaccurate assumption, it was thought that CFS was caused by the Epstein-Barr virus.