This is an abbreviated version of a chapter from Gut-Brain Secrets and The Mitochondriac Manifesto.

We’re all dehydrated inside cells… where it counts

We’ve all heard that it’s important to stay well hydrated. But do you really know why? Do you really know how? What does water actually do inside the body when it’s plentiful? And what happens when you don’t have enough? There’s a huge gap between what people think they know about hydration, and the real story of the vital role that water plays inside us. The surprising facts involve how water actually gets into cells, and what it does while it’s there.

This is some of the most influential material in the Gut-Brain Secrets saga. And its influences are felt in nutrient delivery, energy usage, detoxification, disease resistance and anti-aging efforts. Hydration plays a crucial role in all aspects of human physiology. Whatever your state of health or dysfunction, water, properly utilized, is one of the best medicines you can take to optimize the performance of your body of water that you live with.

How do we get so dehydrated?

First, we drink too many diuretic (dehydrating) beverages like coffee, soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit juices and alcohol. Second, we don’t drink enough pure water – many times due to a loss in sensation of thirst. Third, we’ve moved away from eating foods that are naturally abundant in water – toward processed foods that are relatively dry (e.g., breads and meat). Fourth, the water we drink doesn’t get into cells for the reasons we’ll discuss in a bit. And fifth, environmental threats like glyphosate, gluten, and pharmaceuticals interfere with the movement and usage of water throughout the body, which we’ll also be discussing.

Daily water loss

Each day, we lose about

• 1.5 liters in urination through the kidneys.
• 0.5 liters in perspiration through the skin.
• 0.3 liters in bowel movements through the colon.
• 0.2 liters in breathing through the lungs.

Total water loss for an average person is 2.5 liters per day. Unfortunately, drinking more water is not necessarily the answer to raise hydration level, because we gradually lose the ability to get water into the interior of cells as we age. At the same time, many people perpetuate a state of dehydration by purposely avoiding water because it makes them visit the bathroom more than they’d like, or because their feet swell.

To give you a sense for how dehydration progresses in a lifetime: when we’re born, the total volume of water inside our cells compared to outside is 1.1 to 1. By the time we’re 80 years of age, this ratio drops to 0.8 to 1. That may not sound like a lot percentage-wise. But that 27% drop represents not just a reduction in cell volume. It represents a great deal of the aging process, because the body loses efficiencies in the absence of water, and must employ coping mechanisms when it doesn’t have enough.

Misconceptions we have about water

This list is from the book Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, by Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj.

False belief #1: Drink plenty of water and you must be hydrated. For babies in perfect health, and less affected by toxins, hydration is easy. However, as we age, we lose the ability to get water from the bloodstream and extracellular space into cells, where it can do its job. To rephrase, if you drink more water, and it doesn’t get into cells, you’re just going to pee it out without accomplishing the more important things that water is supposed to do for us. Think of it this way: From birth to death, our ability to get water into cells drops steadily from 100% to let’s say 35%. That number, as we’ll discuss in a minute, determines the rate at which we age biologically. Bottom line: The ability to get water into the cell, and the ability to clean toxins out, is a majority of the aging process.

False belief #2: Clear urine means you’re well hydrated. We’ve all been told to drink enough water so that your pee is lighter in color. That means you’re well-hydrated, right? Well, not exactly. Clear urine simply means that water entered and left your body with no cellular waste products to darken its color. On rare occasions, it means you drank enough water to dilute a healthy flow of waste products to a clear state. But in the majority of cases, especially in advanced age, it might mean that water never saw the interior of a cell. It got into the bloodstream, circulated around, and did little more than bulk up your blood volume. This is not the same as true hydration. So, whether you drink copious amounts of water, or you receive many liters intravenously in a hospital setting, having lots of water in the bloodstream does not necessarily mean it’s getting to where it really needs to go: inside the cell.

False belief #3: Thirst indicates dehydration. Instrumental to the aging process, we lose the perception of thirst as we get older. It’s like dryness becomes the body’s new normal as time goes by, and so we don’t even realize when our cells are starving for water. Consequently, we don’t drink as much as we should. Thus nutrients don’t get in. Toxins don’t get out. Inflammation persists. And aging accelerates.

That’s why this information is so crucial to the wellness and longevity of us all: It’s a subtle, secret driver of the entire aging and decrepitude process. On the flip side, replacing your declining sensation of thirst with an active hydration program can work wonders in outsmarting the aging process and staying young on a cell level.

False belief #4: If it’s fluid, it can hydrate like water. The truth is, nothing hydrates the body as well as pure water. Milk, for example, is basically food in a liquid form. Although milk does contain plenty of water, it carries baggage that restricts its ability to hydrate the body. It takes a lot more work for the digestive system to separate water from milk’s other constituents. Same thing goes for vegetable juices, soups and smoothies. They do have high water content. But it’s nowhere near as plentiful or accessible as pure water, because they contain other substances that complicate the process.

False belief #5: Dry mouth is a reliable sign of dehydration. Some people say that the presence of dry mouth indicates dehydration. But, really, it’s not the greatest way to diagnose dehydration, because a variety of situations can make you misread your state of hydration. First, the body places a high priority on chewing, swallowing and digestion. So it puts salivation high in its pecking order of water allocation – even when the rest of the body is dehydrated. Plus, the mere thought of eating can make a person salivate in anticipation. On the other hand, nervousness is notorious for shutting down salivation and causing “cotton mouth” – even when the body is fully hydrated. Bottom line: A dry mouth is one of the more severe signs of dehydration. So you can’t rely on it to tell you when you need more water.

False belief #6: Solutes (particulate solids) do all the work in the body. Medical science has long thought that the stuff dissolved and transported around in water does all the work. The assumption was, the therapeutic agents and nutrients dissolved in water performed all the biological functions that science cared to examine, and that water has no direct metabolic role in these processes. They believed water was merely a taxi cab in biology. But researchers in recent decades have come to understand that water plays as many essential roles in human physiology, if not more, than the substances it solubilizes and shuttles around. It’s much more of an active participant than a means of transportation.

False belief #7: The body’s water regulation mechanisms don’t change during a person’s lifetime. As we age, we gradually lose the ability to get water in and use it to full effect. This is the crux of the aging process (unless we take steps to tame it).

What happens when you’re dehydrated?

(Water-rationing programs, crisis calls, and disease complications)

Dehydration disrupts a wide range of processes we count on every day for our bodies to run properly. Here are some hidden consequences of water scarcity in the body:

1. Back pain. 75% of our upper body weight is supported by fluid in the discs of the spine. 25% is supported by fibers around the discs. So prolonged sitting, standing, or exertion basically squeezes water out of the discs and fibers, thereby compressing the supportive structures of the back, leaving no cushioning to relieve the stress. Using simple hydration strategies, many people are shocked to find that their back pain goes away simply by drinking more water instead of soft drinks, fruit juices and coffee.
2. Stomach ulcers. The stomach’s protective layer of mucosal lining is made mostly of water. So it’s one of the first areas to be impaired by dehydration. The remedy: You can support the stomach’s natural barrier to acidity by drinking a glass of water thirty minutes before eating. This thickens the mucosal wall, thereby protecting the walls of the stomach from its hydrochloric acid, and preventing ulcers from forming. Avoid drinking too much as you eat though, because fluids dilute stomach acid and can impair digestion.
3. General pain. Nerve endings interpret a high acidity level in tissue as pain. So locally-produced pain (as opposed to pain produced by the central nervous system) can be caused by a shortage of water to wash acidic compounds out of tissues.
4. Asthma. The body uses the neurotransmitter histamine to regulate water use, and to manage drought. What happens in cases of asthma is, histamine constricts the bronchial tubes in an effort to minimize water lost through respiration of the lungs.
5. Allergies. Excess histamine in drought conditions hyperactivates the immune system in the nasal sinuses (i.e., inflammation), leading to an allergic-type reaction to pollen, dust and dander. Consequently, many people are amazed to learn they can reduce or eliminate allergies just by drinking more water. This is shown to calm down inflammation and allergies – even if someone has had allergies since childhood.
6. High blood pressure. In dehydration, little capillary networks shut down to conserve full blood volume in other vessels. With more resistance to flow, and less vasculature to distribute the load, pressure has to be increased to keep the blood pumping.
7. Edema.The body so desperately needs water when chronically dehydrated that it sometimes stores water as edema, and tries to force the water into cells by increasing blood pressure and retaining salt.
8. Headache. Brain cells shrink from lack of water, causing headache.
9. Hormones and insulin issues. Drought messes with hormones, and can contribute to metabolic problems. In dehydration, prostaglandin E (a drought regulator subordinate to histamine) lowers insulin production as a coping mechanism to keep sugar, potassium, amino acids, and water out of cells. Water can then be used for more critical needs such as digestion and the brain (that doesn’t use insulin). All that contributes to insulin dysfunction and metabolic issues.
10. Hard, dry stools and constipation. The colon removes water from fecal material to form stools. So, in an effort to conserve water, the colon is ordered to save every last drop that it can, which can make stools overly firm, dry, and possibly hard to move.
11. Weaker oxygenation. The smallest air sacs of the lungs, called alveoli, use moisture to exchange CO₂ with O₂. So when you’re dehydrated, the lungs can’t completely get rid of all the CO₂ wanting to leave the bloodstream, and you lose oxygen-exchange capacity.
12. Joint pain/rheumatoid arthritis. Cartilage lubricates joint movement. To do that, it needs to hold water in its structure. So in a well-hydrated state, the friction and normal wearing away of cartilage is minimal. But when water is withheld, cartilage shrinks and becomes abrasive. It then wears away faster than it can be replaced.
13. Digestive problems. In the mouth, saliva solubilizes and lubricates the food we chew and swallow. In the stomach, the very act of breaking down food requires gastric juices in order to turn solid material into a nutrient soup. After the stomach, the pancreas needs water and salt to make the sodium bicarbonate solution that neutralizes the acidity of material leaving the stomach. All these depend on water to make them go. And digestion is a high-priority activity. So, in mild dehydration, the body takes water away from other processes to make sure digestion proceeds as planned.
14. High cholesterol. In a well-hydrated state, water gets into cells through gaps in their membranes. But in a drought, the body plugs up those holes with cholesterol to retain water. So rehydrating alone is shown to reduce cholesterol levels.
15. Disturbed brain function. The brain is a hydroelectric system. It contains the highest percentage of water of any body tissue. But in prolonged dehydration, brain cells shrink, blood flow diminishes (particularly in capillaries), minerals aren’t broken down properly, and amino acid levels (the precursors to neurotransmitters) suffer. Water is also supposed to deliver neurotransmitters to nerve endings. So no hydro, no brain function. As a result, dehydration can cause or contribute to depression, negative thought patterns, multiple sclerosis, ALS and Alzheimer’s.

All of this goes to show that a plethora of problems is caused, or worsened, by poor hydration in the cells: Water can’t get in. Minerals and glucose can’t get in. And detoxification slows. The geometry of proteins changes so they don’t work properly. And aging accelerates. Are you beginning to see how water deprivation is making us sick and tired, without us having the slightest clue why it’s happening, or how to fix it?

Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj (author, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water)

“We are beginning to understand dehydration manifests itself in as many ways as we in medicine have invented disease conditions. We in medicine, not knowing that dehydration becomes symptom-producing, and lack of water in the body is pathology-producing – we have labeled states of dehydration, and complications of dehydration, as disease conditions… and most often diseases of unknown origin. When the body has been calling for water, it has become [standard practice in medicine] to give it toxic chemicals.”

The body needs minerals in its water

As you know, sweat, tears, blood, and most bodily fluids taste salty. The reason is, once water enters the body, it is not normally present as pure water. Instead, the body needs water to be in a solution of minerals (electrolytes). Water must contain minerals because pretty much all biochemical reactions take place in a bath of water and minerals. That’s what makes body fluids taste salty: it’s the minerals.

Therefore, problems can arise when bodily fluids have too much water, and not enough minerals. For example, people have died from drinking too much water in water drinking contests. Likewise, people can die when they sweat profusely for many hours and replenish with mineral-free water. The point is, the body needs minerals to perform critical tasks such as sending nerve conduction signals that run the heart, brain and nervous system. So when the concentration of minerals in water drops too low (or too high), delicate processes all over the body can malfunction and cause medical emergencies

Nothing scrubs toxins, acidity, and inflammation out of the cell better than water

Water is the ultimate cleanser. Water dissolves, dilutes, and carries away toxins, as well as oxidative compounds and metabolic waste products. However, the average person drinks only a liter of water per day – despite the fact that the kidneys filter over 200 liters of fluid a day. So, if you only put back a liter of fluid to the volume with which the body can do its work, you handicap its ability to separate the “wheat from the chaff” and rinse the waste away.

As an adaptation mechanism, the body then borrows essential amino acids such as tryptophan, tyrosine, methionine, cysteine, and histidine to de-acidify those waste products, where they are stored. The body basically can’t wash the toxins out of the cells. So it does the next best thing to minimize the damage: it takes neurotransmitter precursors out of circulation and uses them as antioxidants to make the intracellular garbage less toxic where it is.

This further depletes the body’s neurotransmitter availability – regardless of how the shortage affects brain and nervous system function. In consequence, oxidative compounds accumulate in cells, and inflammation lingers. Without reacting chemically, water also reduces acidity throughout the body simply by making more urine and washing away acidic substances that salt helped to draw out.

“If we could stay perfectly hydrated in the intracellular environment, our aging would slow down, if not reverse. And the reason is: water is the ultimate scrubber [of toxins and cellular waste products].” —Dr. Zach Bush.

Hydration strategies

1. Drink more water. Duh. And purity matters. Make it easy on your detox systems by testing your water supply, filtering it, or buying water that helps your body remove toxins, not adding to your already high toxin load.
2. Reduce beverages and foods that dehydrate. Avoid diuretic beverages like coffee, soft drinks, and energy drinks because caffeine dehydrates. Stay away from fruit juices and sweetened beverages because sugar dehydrates as well. Their concentrated sweeteners are a burden on your system. Avoid alcohol for the same reasons. And cut down on salty foods when you can. They soak up water.
3. Barbara O’Neill’s sea salt “hydration hack.” Dissolve a crystal of Celtic sea salt under the tongue as you drink some water, or before. It’s absorbed quickly through the oral mucosa, and beats the water into the bloodstream. The salt then gets into cells first, which pulls water inside from the magnesium in the salt (it’s hydrophilic). Just make sure not to put the salt directly in the water you drink. It will just absorb water before it enters the cell and not help you hydrate.
4. Hydration protocols work better when you’re fasting. Fasting reduces the workload on your detox pathways. And it clears the exit routes out of your body. In contrast, when you do a hydration protocol in a fed state, a lot of that water will be retained by food in the gut. Whereas, when you do a hydration protocol while fasting, more of that water is available to be used by cells and mitochondria. For these reasons, Dr. Bush starts his patients on 3–4 days of hydration protocol on day 1 or 2 of a fast.
5. Fiber helps manage hydration. Fiber helps the body manage water more efficiently by grabbing hold of it and escorting it slowly through the digestive tract. This allows more time for the water to get to the places it needs to go, instead of running right through you. Fiber is also often accompanied by nutrients when it comes from a whole food. And it feeds microflora the cellulose that they thrive on. Organified silica from horsetail also aids hydration and is beneficial for the microbiome. But you do NOT want to ingest silica in a mineral form (the primary ingredient in glass) because it’s super oxidative and dehydrating.
6. Spread out your intake. Drink small amounts throughout the day, instead of all at once. That makes it easier for the body to absorb. You may want to add a mild natural flavoring like lemon juice to pure water so the digestive tract takes longer to process it.
7. Get more water from moisture-rich foods. Unsweetened tea, unprocessed broths, and homemade soups are good ways to hydrate, as are fruits and vegetables with a high water content. This is how we used to get much of our water.
8. Drink water sparingly with meals. Water dilutes stomach acid, which neutralizes its acidity and can impair digestion. Instead, drink most of your water up to a half an hour before, or 1½–2 hours after meals.

For more information, watch “The Importance of Salt and Water”, presented by Barbara O’Neill, ND.

Water quality

We’ve talked about the health effects of what is in the water you drink. Now let’s examine the importance of what you want to avoid in water:

• Test your water supply. The most common contaminants to look for are chlorine, chloramine and fluoride, as well as residues of birth control pills, antidepressant/anti-anxiety meds, statins, beta blockers, and hormone replacement therapy such as artificial estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Unfortunately, many municipalities rotate sources, and may mix them, so you may never know for sure what you’re going to get on a given day. Consider collecting samples at different times, over a course of several weeks.
• Don’t assume bottled water is pure and healthy. Most brands are sourced from municipal water systems, use fungal-promoting reverse osmosis filtration, and are contained in plastic bottles that leech toxins such as bisphenol-A. Glass bottles protect purity better than plastic.
• Spring water is usually better than city water. Water gains trace minerals, beneficial microorganisms, and subtle energies as it moves through the hydrological cycle.
• Fluoride is not your friend. Do whatever it takes to make sure there’s no fluoride in your water. Filter it, or buy natural spring water. Even reverse-osmosis water is better than fluoridated water.
• Chlorine is pretty bad too. Reduce your water’s chlorine content by letting it sit in an open container overnight. Since chlorine is a gas in its natural state, it off-gasses over several hours. However, chloramines (a chemical cousin of chlorine used to disinfect) evaporate much more slowly. So this trick doesn’t work with them.
• Get a water filter that reduces toxins to undetectable levels, and keeps performing that way for many months. Make sure it removes the hard stuff like chloramines, heavy metals, crop chemicals, SSRIs and birth control hormones. In most cases, the bigger, the better, because small filters lose effectiveness quickly. Or change the filter frequently. Get a whole-house water filter if you can afford it.
• Even if the water you drink and cook with is bottled or filtered, you still need to consider the water you absorb bathing and showering, because any water that touches your skin is absorbed in seconds and enters the bloodstream. You can absorb up to a pound of water when you shower, bathe or swim.

Do what you can do. Testing your water can be very revealing. Consider buying an advanced water filtration system that reduces harmful chemicals to undetectable levels, while leaving the trace minerals. A whole-home system can be a sizable investment, while an under-sink one is a fraction the cost. It’s impossible to avoid all toxins, so just do your best.