The human body is over 70% water and the brain is 90%. Water is the most important essential in our lives yet we take it so much for granted. We need water to keep our bodies hydrated and functioning properly. Water is needed to transport nutrients and oxygen through the blood system to the cells. It's needed to remove toxins, and provide lubrication for the joints. We even need water to breathe. Our lungs must be moistened to facilitate the breathing process. Every day, we lose approximately one pint of water from our bodies just from exhaling.
Water helps regulate our body temperature through perspiration. The movement through our bodies of foods we consume would be impossible without water. Over 99% of all chemical reactions depend on water. If we do not consume enough water, all the systems and organs within our bodies become clogged, operate inefficiently, and sometimes shut down all together. Water also helps to generate the electrical potential in our cells. Without electrical polarity, we could not live. Without water, our existence on this planet would cease.
The Fountain of Youth
Many people confuse the quest for the fountain of youth with living longer. In actuality, it has nothing to do with life expectancy. It has everything to do with good health and the quality of life. If we knew the secret to the fountain of youth, we could not only conquer disease but all sorts of degenerating conditions of the body and skeleton.
A French scientist named Alexis Carrel, who is the award recipient of at least one Nobel prize, kept the cells of a chicken heart alive for 34 years. Dr. Carrel said, "The cell is immortal. It is merely the fluid (water) in which it floats that degenerates. Renew this fluid at intervals, give the cells what they require for nutrition, and as far as we know, the pulsation of life may go on forever." It was this statement that may have sparked the hunt for the fountain of youth that continues to this day. --JAMA 1984;252:1;44-45 and JAMA 1980;244:10;1110-21.
As important as water is to our very existence, the poor quality of water we drink here in America seems to go completely unnoticed by the general population. Surprisingly, the amount of water on Earth today is the same as it was for the dinosaurs. Unfortunately, 97% of it is salt water, 2% is frozen and the remaining 1% is seriously threatened. There is hardly a single location in this country, both above and below ground, where water supplies are not being contaminated.
Water Facts
In 1993, over 400,000 people in Milwaukee became sick from contaminated tap water and more than 104 died as a result. At the time of this outbreak, the Milwaukee water system met all of the state and federal health standards.
In 1992, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tested 8100 municipal water systems and found that 819 of them (over 10%) were distributing water with unsafe levels of lead. Those 819 systems supplied water to over 30 million people. Lead causes permanent neurological damage.
Another 1100 water systems did not complete the EPA's required monitoring, so the results from those areas are not available.
In just two years, the EPA issued over 300,000 violations to water systems around the country. Most involved failure to test properly, failure to follow proper treatment procedures, and failure to report and notify the public of known contamination problems. Penalties were assessed in less than 1% of cases. Ironically, if you visit the headquarters of the EPA in Washington, you'll find that the employees pitch in their own money to buy bottled water.
In 1993, the National Resources Defense Council reported that roughly 42% of all U.S. water systems violated federal health standards. This affects 120 million people, which is almost 1/2 the population of the United States. The General Accounting Office suggests that there's no way to tell just how many violations occur. Required test results are routinely falsified and they estimate that only 34% of violations are reported.
In 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and the EPA officially recommended that people with compromised immune systems such as AIDS and people who have undergone chemotherapy or transplant surgery either boil their drinking water or use bottled water or appropriate purification methods.
Researchers in Montreal Canada found that 1/3 of all gastrointestinal illnesses were caused by drinking water and were preventable.
The chlorine-resistant parasite, Giardia lamblia, is now found in pretreated water sources that supply 40 million Americans. Symptoms mimic irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, lactose intolerance and chronic pancreatitis. Many doctors overlook the connection and misdiagnose the condition.
Cryptosporidium parvum, or Crypto for short, is an extremely small parasite. It is excreted by cattle and other animals and finds its way into watersheds. A recent report by American Water Works Service Company states that 86% of surface water tested on multiple occasions at drinking water intake locations contained Crypto. After the water was treated and filtered using currently recommended water purification techniques, 56% of the water still contained Crypto.
There is no known cure for a Cryptosporidium infection. Once you've become infected, your recovery is totally dependent upon the strength of your immune system. Recent studies have shown it doesn't take many of these parasites to cause an infection. A healthy individual can experience low-grade fever, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and severe diarrhea for a week or two. The effects can be much more devastating for someone with a compromised immune system.
This is just a small sampling of thousands of water problems. Space does not allow me to go into much more detail. Officials with the EPA and the federal Centers for Disease Control have publicly acknowledged that all of the measures put in place to ensure pure drinking water are unreliable and unenforceable. When it comes to ensuring that your water supply is safe, -- you're on your own.
Chlorine Can Do More Harm Than Good
Of the 46,122 ground water systems registered with the EPA, almost 32,000 serve 500 people or less. Unless you live in one of the larger cities in this country, about the only thing your water supplier can do is add chlorine to the water to kill bacteria. We've known for over 25 years now that chlorine has direct links to some very serious health problems.
Chlorinated water contains cancer-causing compounds called trihalomethanes. Studies by the National Cancer Institute have shown that drinking chlorinated water can double your risk of developing bladder cancer. Right now, more than 50,000 people develop bladder cancer every year. Other studies have linked it to increased rates of colon and rectal cancer.
Water treated with chlorine also destroys vitamin E stores in the body, leading to mitral valve problems and other heart problems. Many researchers now feel it may have a strong link to the development of our #1 killer in this country, clogging of the arteries.
There's not a water system in the world that has the time, manpower, money or capability to check for all the dangerous pesticides and pollutants now being found in our water supplies. It would be an impossible task. Even if we could somehow ensure that each and every water system in the country could supply fresh, pure water, getting it into our homes would still be a serious problem due to our aging water distribution system, which in some areas is over 100 years old.