Perhaps there is no more important need our body cries out for at the promise of a long, hot summer than two quarts of pure water and three grams of salt daily. Indeed most of us are probably chronically dehydrated and don’t even realize it because we mask our thirst with chemicals, caffeine, sugar and food. Some of us, though, (like jo.com) will down a gallon of water a day to try to quench our thirst, but it never will be until we get the salt we need. I’ve learned so much from Dr. F. Batmanghelidj and his 1997 book, Your Body’s Many Cries For Water, that I hardly know how to choose what is most important to tell you. I can only hope to stimulate your interest enough to pick up this book or at least take his advice because you know drinking more water can’t hurt.

You’ll notice in my title that I call the body electric. I believe Walt Whitman wrote a long poem called I Sing The Body Electric like two centuries ago (published 1900) and I read a little bit of it. In line 41 it says that this eighty-year-old man, still a strapping six feet tall, only drank water, which gave him the healthy color in his cheeks. What a difference a hundred and one years make! Do you know an eighty-year-old man today as erect and flushed with health? I didn’t think so.

Does That Mean The Body Is Really Electric?

Think about it. Isn’t the human body comprised of 75% water? Doesn’t water generate electricity? It only then makes sense that drinking more water will keep us plugged in, sparked and raring to go like a good engine. The doctor, who comes from Iran, points out that the medical establishment has been using a ‘shot-in-the-dark, symptoms-treating’ approach, but not one based on accurate science. Instead of understanding the solvent or water content of our bodies (a clear majority) to regulate the body’s functionality, which includes the workings of the solutes or solid content, the establishment somehow would rather believe that what keeps us alive is the water-dependent, non-electrical solutes.

When Dr. Batman(ghelidj) fled to America from Iran in 1983, he had recently been released most miraculously from Evin prison there because of his discovery that water therapy healed the peptic ulcers of prisoners almost immediately. This discovery was only the beginning of what further research and trial would conclusively show him, that chronic dehydration is the root cause of all of our degenerative diseases.

From peptic ulcers, heartburn, headaches, backaches, allergies, asthma and hernias to the growing incidence of Alzheimer’s, Multiple Schlerosis, Heart Disease (including high blood pressure and high cholesterol), AIDS, Diabetes and Cancer, Dr. Batman explains in convincing and logical detail how two quarts of water, three grams of salt, exercise and a nutritionally-balanced diet every day, without caffeine, are the medicine you need to be cured of your stress-caused-from-dehydration problems.

Of course, he cautions us from up and throwing away our doctor-prescribed medicine as if drowning ourselves with water suddenly will make everything all right. Depending on how dehydrated and sick we have become, healing may take anywhere from a few minutes to several months of adequate water and salt distribution in our bodies.

Conclusions

I know you are likely shaking your head in utter disbelief at his cure-all claim, laughing that viruses cause these diseases as everybody knows. Well, I thought the same, but now...Let me give you an example of only part of his reasoning in the case of AIDS. It is proven that people who get AIDS are all “drastically” deficient in the amino acids methionine, cystine and cysteine and are too high in arginine and glutamate. Such an amino acid imbalance for a long time will make a person sick, compromising their immune system so they can’t fight off bad bacteria. Lack of cysteine, in particular, will leave one vulnerable to HIV, according to lab results.

And so, Jan, if good protein metabolism is so important in preventing HIV and AIDS, then why is adequate water intake also needed? Precisely because the water is needed to carry the amino acids, hormones, chemical messengers and other nutrients throughout the body. You will get edema if you don’t get your water and stay still so long the blood stagnates. If you drink enough water with salt and move around, you won’t have that problem. So enough water is what is needed for your blood with all its components to circulate.

Granted, I’m giving you only the barest taste of the full course meal Dr.Batman has provided to refresh our mental and physical health, but perhaps your interest has been sparked enough to seek out this and his other books. The next one is called ABC of Cancer and Depression, which I hope to find in the near future.

If you read my last book review on Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, But Were Afraid To Ask by Dr. David Reuben, you know his claim that frequent orgasms into your old age will prevent arthritis (heart attacks, too, are cut in half), but Dr. Batman would advise that adequate water is also needed for cartilage health around your joints. Finally, prevention of morning sickness and the success of fetal development (as well as a baby’s, child’s and adult’s) depends on how much water is available.

I now must leave you with a warning. I can’t tell you how hard it’s been to choose what to tell you or what to quote because from the twelve chapters in this 165-page book with correspondence included to other doctors and from people thanking him for making their illnesses leave when mediation failed. I could show you the brush-off he got from the American Medical Association and the National Institute of Health who said they’re only interested in biological research, meaning, I guess, that water is only a packaging material for the real stuff. Instead of wasting your time and mine, though, I’ll quote probably the most important message of the book:

The “dry mouth” is the very last sign of dehydration. The body can suffer from dehydration even when the mouth may be fairly moist. Still worse, in the elderly, the mouth can be seen to be obviously dry and yet thirst may not be acknowledged and satisfied. Pp 18

Please, go drink a couple of glasses of simple tap water now, unless it’s contaminated, and stick with it. In summer heat it’s especially important you don’t substitute water for sodas, juices, coffee, tea and alcohol. They are all diuretics and dehydrating (except for 100% juices), so drink them in limitation after you’re well-hydrated (or not at all!).


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