ARE there any special reasons Mother Nature made about 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface water, and, also, made water about 70 per cent of the human body? Why does water, in like manner, account for 15 per cent of the Earth’s inner core and constitute about 70 per cent of plant and animal tissue? These questions should have begun to engage the attention of 41-year-old Abdulrasheed Bawa, chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) since he slumped in public on September 16 while making a speech. When he came round, Bawa admitted that he was dehydrated. What he meant by that was that he did not have enough water in his body!
This column is devoted to him and all those people who like him, including my own Udeme Edet James, find it difficult to drink water, unless they are chocking or dying. In this regard, I would like to first let them know what happens in a motor vehicle engine in which enough water is not circulating and, then, let them into the works of Dr. F.Batmanghelidy, the Iranian doctor who changed the attitude of his fellow doctors to water from an inconsequential factor in the human body and to see it now as Medicine. Batmanghelidy wrote two great books, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water and You’re Not Sick, You’re Only Thirty. Both document his medical experience in an Iranian concentration camp where he was detained on charges of anti-government activities. Meals were irregular and hardly nutritious. Inmates were falling ill and doctor visits were irregular. As a doctor who trained under Medicine’s giants such as Sir Alexander Fleming, who discovered Penicillin, this was an agonising experience for Batmanghelidy. He was like a soldier without arms in the midst of armed enemies. But there is always a way where there is the will. So, instinctively, or rather intuitively, he began to ask his suffering co-detainees to drink more water than they did, having discovered from their histories that they never drank enough of it. Cases such as asthma, arthritis, insomnia, peptic and duodenal ulcers, constipation etc began to clear up. By then, doctors thought more of the solite and less of the solvent which suspended it and carried it round the body to about 100 trillion cells in the average adult human body. That was why, for example, if a patient was dying of elevated blood cholesterol levels, a doctor focused more on drugs to knock down the total cholesterol matrix, help the good cholesterol to count more and force down counts of the bad one.
Batmanghelidy said cholesterol counts was rising not necessarily because of increasing dietary cholesterol but because water levels in the human system was going down and, to prevent further dehydration, the body was producing more cholesterol to seal the water hydrants and thus help to prevent a catastrophe.
Abdulrasheed Bawa slumped while he was making a speech in the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa in Abuja during the National Identity Day celebration.
Before I return to Bawa and to Batmanghelidy and who died while he was writing his epic book, Dehydration, Stress, Inflamation and Cancer, the title which inspire this column, I would like to quickly visit what happens to a vehicle engine running without enough cooling water. A red light should come up on the dashboard to warn the motorist that the engine is overheating. Sometimes, the radiator is so hot its delicate cells in which water circulates are damaged. The gasket of the engine may also burn and the engine could “knock”, as we say, unable to roll. As Google puts it: “The answer: … coolant circulates through your car and extracts heat from various components, keeping their operating temperature within normal parameters. Without coolant, there’s nothing to extract this heat, and these parts quickly overheat and breakdown.”
Frankly speaking, Bawa’s body system headed for a breakdown. Water in the human body is stored and used at three levels. There are about 100 trillion cells in the average adult body. They are connected at the same by collagen, a protein, to form a mesh like a fishing net. Water is stored in these cells.Water is stored, also, in the spaces around the cells (intercellular or interstitial fluid). Finally, water is stored in blood vessels.When water is short somewhere and life may be endangered, water may be borrowed from another storage. When water is lost in the cells, they become flacid, not robust, and even the skin may be rough or wrinkled like an orange overheated by the sun. Water loss in the blood vessels may reduce water blood volume to the point that the lumen(internal space) is contracted to void an air bloc, and this may increase blood pressure which Batmanghelidy, to the shock of his peers, says should not be fought with diuretics. His belief is that, removing water when water is already scarce, may amount to stoking a fire with more fuel. He would rather give more water, and ensure the kidneys do not run it out by adding a little salt (preferably sea salt nowadays) to the drink.
Google takes us to the inside of the body’s three mighty oceans, as some authorities have described water holdings in the cells, interstitial fluid and vascular space:
“Intracellular fluid (2/3 of body water) is contained within cells. In a 72kg body containing 40 litres of fluid, about 25 litres is intracellular, which amount to 62.5 per cent. Jackson’s texts states 70 per cent of body fluid in intracellular.”
James L. Lewis advises us in www.msdmanuals.com: “Water accounts for about one half to two- thirds of an average person’s weight. Fat tissue has a lower percentage of water than lean tissue and women tend to have more fat, so the percentage of body weight that is water in the average woman is lower (52 to 55per cent) than it is in the average man (68 per cent). The percentage of body weight that is water is higher (70per cent) at birth and in early childhood. A 154 pound (70kg) man has a little over 10.5 gallons (42 litres) of water in his body. 7 gallon (28 litres) inside the cells, 2.5 gallon(about 10.5 litres) in the space around the cells, and slightly less than one gallon(3.5 litres, or about 80 per cent of total amount of water) in the blood.”
We lose water in several ways. When we think, the brain uses water. When we speak, we lose water. Breathing consumes water. So does sweating. Urinating does as well. Defecation is no less a water exporter, especially during diarrhea. We are comforted that in the assurances that we gain metabolic water when we eat. This is the water in the foods we eat. But how much metabolic water do we gain from today’s breakfast of, say, bread, margarine, fried egg, milk and sugar, or from snacks such as meat-pies and biscuits? Former United States President Bill Clinton said his greatest regret while he was in office was that his meals were white flour snacks. He suffered massive coronary artery blockage which made him undergo coronary artery bypass. Most of today’s meal are dense meals with not enough water to transport them and on top of which sodas (soft drinks) with all their heavy solute, are drunk to wash them down. The unanticipated result unknown to many people is that they did not have enough water to produce enough enzymes to digest these meals. Besides, if perchance they had enough water in their systems, they may have become too old to produce enough digestive enzymes for the dense foods they are eating. So, when nutrients from the dense meals arrive in the bloodstream, they suffer from “thick blood”.
The “thick blood” is like an overcrowded passenger bus or dwelling or classroom. As thick blood moves through the brain, it reminds us, through some types of headache, what we learned in secondary school biology…Osmosis. When fluids of different concentration are separated by semi-permeable membranes, the stronger concentration of fluid will suck the weaker concentration. As “thick blood” passes through the brain, it sucks water from the brain tissues. This may be the beginning of dehydration in the brain, signalled to us through the “dry mouth syndrome”. But, rather than go for clean, plain water, we reach out for lager or “soft” drinks, which further thickens the blood with solute.
The brain is under stress. We suppress the warning signals of headache with pain killers. We do not sleep well. Free radicals mushroom in brain tissue that cannot easily relax after heavy workloads or readily move wastes which are becoming more concentrated. We see the doctor. If he has no natural inclinations or has not heard of the paradigm shift of Batmanghelidy, or if he does not believe in it, he hammers us with drugs in a scenario Dr. Ray Strand describes in his books, What Your Doctor Does Not Know About Nutrition May Be Killing You. He wrote the book after he and his professors literally rolled out “fighter jets” against troublesome “flies” worrying his wife but failed to kill any of them. She suffered for years from fibromyalgia but secured her freedom from natural medicines and water to which one of her friends introduced her.
Batmanghelidy said we should drink one or two glasses of water half an hour before a meal, another two glasses about two hours after a meal, two more glasses before bed and another two on rising.The water we drink before a meal will be used to produced digestive enzymes in the stomach and pancreas. It is advisable to not drink water or too much with a meal to avoid diluting and weakening potency of the enzymes. The water we drink last thing at night will partially help with absorption from 8p.m to 4a.m, according to the Circadian Rythmn. Water drunk early in the morning will help with evacuation or detoxifacation from 4a.m to noon, while water taken in day hours when the sun is up will power digestion from noon to about 8p.m.
When we disobey the Circadian Rythmn, stressed up by work and negative emotions, and do not drink the right amounts of quality water every day to replace the deficits we are running, a water rationing begins. If the digestive system gets less than it requires, food may stay longer in the stomach and begin to decay, producing more acids than the tissue can stand. Acid reflux to the esophagus may occur as a herald of esophageal cancer in extreme cases. Antacids would not help. Milk, being acid forming, will not help either, although the Calcium may absorb some acid load. But wouldn’t the protein require acid to digest it? Thus peptic ulcers may develop. Acidic content expulsions to the duodenum may cause duodenal ulcer. Different sites of the colon may become acid-irritated, inflamed, ulcerated and cancerous. In the joints, water shortage may cause synovial fluid shortage, a rubbing of cartilage on cartilage or grinding of bones, resulting in pain, inflammation and immobilty, which may sometimes warrant the need to replace the natural knee cap with a plastic version. Following successful treatments of these conditions through rehydration and the use of salt to keep water in the body, Batmanghelidy went on to explain how dehydration, in his view, causes other diseases like asthma, insomnia, hypertension and diabetes, to mention a few.
Thick blood is sluggish, promotes poor blood circulation, does not deliver oxygen and nutrients in good time and fails to remove wastes and toxins in record time. Wastes and toxins congregate, forming sediments or “silts” as in slow moving drains and rivers. Tissue irritations cause inflammation, pain and disease, oxygen is not delivered in the right amounts and speedily. Many Nigerians suffer from this scenario, with kidney diseases now topping the chart of the death of people below 60 or in the early 60s. Everyone is too busy with either work or money making that less attention is given to the demands of the body for radiant health till ripe old age. I feel sorry for policemen when their health comes to harm as in Bawa’s case. Many of them are fine gentlemen. Never mind that many bad eggs among them are giving them all bad names. Where do you have no bad eggs in Nigeria? My father was a fine colonial policeman. I grew up in police barracks and know how tension-soaked policemen can be. Many of them you find on the road, rushing to quell riots or to fight armed robbers, are aging rapidly and hypertensive or asthmatic and riddled with joint pains. The enemy of the policeman is that policeman who, out of selfish or class interest, prevents the creation of more police forces in Nigeria to lessen the existing work load in Federal police. Nigeria’s population had grown about 400 per cent since independence. Has the size of Federal police grown by this ratio? Overburdened, ailing, grossly underpaid, the policeman peps up his sagging energy with all sorts of stuff, many of which cannot be mentioned here. Among the ones we can mention are spirits, caffeine-loaded energy drinks and conventional coffee. I say conventional coffee for caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee because there is now another coffee brands in Nigeria…Alkaline Coffee. It is not only decaffeinated and loaded with alkalising substances but with phyto energiser and anti-aging substance as well. I recommend it as a breakfast energy source for every policeman.
I adjusted my breakfast lately to accommodate this coffee brand, which is said to be the world’s first alkaline coffee. I like a combination of the red and yellow pap. The red is very high in phenolic compounds. I add a scoop of soyabean powder to the mixture, mix thoroughly in room temperature water and then cook. The soy powder provides protein and fiber. Down from the store, I add Jute Mallow(Ewedu) powder for chlorophyll, more vitamins and minerals, especially Magnesium. Then I add pinches of either Amla for vision or Hawthorn berry for heart. Finally comes the sachet of alkaline coffee. If I wish to be naughty, I would add a sachet of My Choco, a cocoa drink with phyto energiser and anti-aging factors. I do not need anyone to inform me I’ve had a good breakfast when it’s all over. It isn’t like bread, egg and margarine, all of which I took off my diet decades ago. I feel energised all day. The alkaline coffee doesn’t stop me from sleeping or napping whenever I feel like. I discovered long ago that sleeping requires not only the will to sleep but the energy to conduct certain sleep protocols as well. A combination of the alkaline coffee and My Choco actually lures me to sleep if I am under engaged. I feel full till evening when I need only a small meal to keep my blood sugar up all night. But it demands that I take lots of water. Thanks to the Ewedu powder, the poop is one of the smoothest and easiest I have.
There are more natural energisers for the policeman sleeping for energy in the health food store. There is Cordyceps, Korean Ginseng, Golden Chia. This one brings added value in the form of Omega-3 fatty acids and dietary fibre. FLP sells it as GIN-CHIA, a combination of Ginseng and Golden Chia. Livepure sells it as MILA, in powder form. There is, also, Goyin from LivePure. It balances the body every day. Then, there is CBD oil from various sources. Nature Gift For Life (NG4) has a wonderful array of CBD oil. By the way, CBD oil from Cannabidiol, is cannabis (Indian hemp or weed). This oil is the medical or useful oil in cannabis. The dangerous oil in cannabis, which turns the brain upside down and alters the personality, is Ttetrahydrocannabinol or T.H.C. Cannabidiol or CBD oil has been purified of T.H.C. the medical communities and drug authorities in many countries approved its use for even 30 month old infants suffering from seizures and epilepsy only after it was discovered that the human body produces it. It is known that, like the digestive, circulatory, excretory or the nervous system, there is also a Cannabinoid system in the human body which produces CBD oil. This system is said to be the Master System. It balances out the activities of all systems, so that no one over drives the others or drags them down or backwards. When this system is out of order, everything seems to get out of wack. Smoking weed for energy brings the wheat and the chaff into the body. But taking CBD oil soft gels brings in only the wheat and re-energises the Canabinoid System, which then re-aligns the body. There are more energy aids for the overworking Nigerian policeman than space and time permit here. All colleagues of Bawa must be glad he cave round. So am I. As a policeman’s son who grew up in the barracks, am I not a policeman myself?
