WHAT SHOULD WE DRINK?    WHAT SHOULDN’T WE DRINK?

We are designed to drink pure, natural water.  

• Avoiding soft drinks to provide your fluid needs.  The high sugar content and artificial flavours in soft drinks are harmful to your health.
• Tea, coffee, soft drinks contain water, but the diuretics contained in these caffeinated beverages flush water out of your body.  Don’t count on them to replenish fluid loss.
• It is OK to drink them occasionally, but if you drink them constantly and don’t drink enough pure natural water, then you are severely compromising your long-term health.
• Natural pure water is the best choice.  If you are committed to a healthy lifestyle and long-term health, make water a habit and a priority in your life.

HOW DO YOU GET DEHYDRATED?

Through activities of daily living, the average person loses about 3- 4 litres of fluid a day in sweat, urine, exhaled air and bowel movement.  What is lost must be replaced by the water/ fluid we drink and the food we eat.
We lose approximately 1-2 litres of water just from breathing.  The evaporation of sweat from the skin accounts for 90% of our cooling ability.
Exercise, sweating, diarrhoea, temperature, or altitude can significantly increase the amount of water we lose each day.  The most common cause of increased water loss is exercise and sweating.  Even though we are all at risk of dehydration the people most vulnerable are infants, elderly adults, and athletes.  They are either not able to adequately express their thirst sensation or able to detect it and do something in time.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE DEHYDRATED?

If you are thirsty, it means your cells are already dehydrated.  A dry mouth should be regarded as the last outward sign of dehydration.  That’s because thirst does not develop until body fluids are depleted well bellow levels required for optimal functioning.
Monitor your urine to make sure you are not dehydrated:
• A hydrated body produces clear, colourless urine.
• A somewhat dehydrated body produces yellow urine.
• A severely dehydrated body produces orange or dark-coloured urine.
The effects of even mild dehydration include decreased coordination, fatigue, dry skin, decreased urine output, dry mucous membranes in the mouth and nose, blood pressure changes and impairment of judgment.  Stress, headache, back pain, allergies, asthma, high blood pressure and many degenerative health problems are the result of UCD (Unintentional Chronic Dehydration).

CAN WE DRINK TOO MUCH WATER?

During intense exercise the kidneys cannot excrete excess water.  The extra water moves into the cells, including brain cells.  The result can be fatal.  For that reason, athletes should estimate how much they should drink by weighing themselves before and after long training runs to see how much they lose, and thus how much water and salt they should replace.
The studies that found 13% of the runners tested drank too much water, resulting in abnormally low blood sodium levels.  The low sodium levels made many of these people very sick, and close to the point of death.  The importance lesson here is to balance your water intake with your sodium intake.

WHAT ABOUT FILTERED WATER?

It is always wise to get a filter if you are not sure how safe your tap water is.
There are many water filter products on the market at many different prices. To shop for a good filter, you need to know what a filter factually reduces, or removes, and what it costs.  The most basic model is always better than nothing.  Ideally, you want water that has been filtered via a reverse osmosis process that removes chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride, bacteria, and viruses.
Reverse osmosis is by far the most advanced technology for home installation available to the public.  It is based on the process by which the human cells diffuse fluids between the intracellular and extracellular spaces, by separating and selectively preventing the passage of solute molecules (through a semipermeable membrane) and allowing the passage of the solvent H2O.  Through this process almost all harmful bacteria, minerals and toxins are eliminated.  Professional installation and maintenance is necessary for if the membrane is ruptured without your knowledge the final condition of the water could be worse than if it were not filtered.
How do you choose a good filter? It is important you do your own research – ask your local health food store, do on-line research and check      Reports for products and prices evaluations.