How much water should you drink?

Dr Batmanghelidj author of many good books on water gave this formula for the amount of water we should take in every day. 

His guide as a rough rule of thumb was that we should drink 15ml (half ounce) of water for every 0.45kg (lb) of body weight. 

This equates to a person weighing 90kg drinking 3 litres of water per day. One of the best indications is the colour of our urine.

In Dr Batmanghelidj’s book Water & Salt he makes the following observation...

“The human body is in constant need of water. It loses water through the lungs when we breathe out. It loses water in perspiration, in urine production and in daily bowel movements. A good gauge for the water needs of the body is the colour of urine. A well-hydrated person produces colourless urine- not counting the colour of vitamins or colour additives in food. A comparatively dehydrated person produces yellow urine. A truly dehydrated person produces urine that is orange in colour. An exception is those who are on diuretics and flush water out of their already dehydrated bodies and yet produce colourless urine.” 

Very many people have lost their sense of thirst. However when they begin to drink water that thirst signal begins to return. However there are very many pain signals in the body which are signals of dehydration and excess acidity in the body.

Regretfully the answer to that is no. We quote Dr Batmanghelidj from his book Obesity, Cancer & Depression, who responds to the myth that all manufactured beverages and fluids will serve the body in exactly the same way as water. “ This is probably the most serious of all mistakes when it comes to fluid management of the body.

This mistake is background to all the health problems of our society at present. Through the power of advertising alone, the beverage industry has manipulated the lifestyle of everyone from toddlers to octogenarians.

Some of the manufactured beverages in common use today do not function in the body like natural water. If you begin to understand the natural reason some plants manufacture caffeine, or even cocaine, you will then recognise the problem. Even milk or fruit juices cannot meet the body’s daily water needs. Like it or not, you have to get used to the taste of water.”

Unfortunately in our view the type of water you drink is going to have a significant benefit in terms of your hydration and the health benefit that water can bring. Tap water has got chlorine and other chemicals added to the water during processing and as a minimum should be removed. However, although most tap waters in the UK meet minimum standards set down by the World Health Organisation, there is no credible research to show the impact of a cocktail of very low levels of contaminants can do for the body. Consequently tap water should be filtered.

If you are unfortunate enough to have fluoride added to your public supply then it is, in our view, important to install a filter system to give you high levels of fluoride removal. Many filter systems do not remove fluoride. Fluoride is added to approx. 35% of the water supply in the UK, in all the water supply in the republic of Ireland and in several other countries.

Bottled water might appear on the surface to be a better option. However, the concern is in terms of the possible degradation of the plastic bottles if they are subjected to heat, while travelling or in storage.

Is filtered water, then the best option? In our view it is part of the solution to make water really health enhancing. Removal of pollutants in the water is of course very important. However, certain filtration systems such as reverse osmosis leave the water devoid of all minerals which in our view is not what you find in healing waters found in nature. It is in effect ‘pure dead water’. Also this type of water is slightly acidic.

In our view healthy water should meet five distinct criteria, it should be as free as possible of contaminants, it should be alkaline, it should have antioxidant properties, it should be suitably structured and it should have good energy. Water structure is important in terms of absorption in the body. For many years the Japanese, Koreans and other eastern countries have focused a lot in terms of systems to transform ordinary water into health promoting water.

As a result of their research over the last 60 years they have developed a number of technologies to help people enjoy the benefits of good water. Latterly a lot of that research has been using bioceramics - combinations of natural minerals with specific properties - made into ceramic balls which positively affect the biochemistry of the body.

The more we understand about water, the more we realise how little we probably know about this apparently simple but indeed complex molecule that has such an impact on human health – and understandably so as we are 70% + water. To many people drinking water is too simplistic to have any bearing on the improvement of our health. Yet that is far from the case. Good water should be the No 1 nutritional support for our bodies.

For more information on the different types of systems that can be used to filter and re-energise water click here.