Dr B's book is one of the most useful detailed observations about wellness and disease relating to our relationship with water, well correlated and compellingly illustrated with concurring scientific findings--all of which are available in any good medical text on the human physiognomy.
The book covers detailed understandings of water shortage in the body related to asthma, allergies, blood pressure disorders, diabetes, constipation, auto-immune diseases, pain, heartburn, hiatal hernia, colitis, ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis, obesity, depression, gout---the list goes on and contains practically all the well-known and well-experienced villains of ill-health!
Although there are no clinically detailed case studies, for a book of this nature these are not needed. Dr B's observations and references to the relevant current medical teaching make for a solidly convincing case for reversing with water therapy what Dr B calls "Chronic Unintentional Dehydration". Most of our body is composed of water (about 75%). To think that dehydration takes place only when severe symptoms and bodily reactions take place is one the greatest single errors anyone can make as far as health and wellness is concerned. Like Coleridge's ancient mariner, in the present day we seem to be marooned upon a painted ocean going nowhere, losing our health because we have forgotten what it means to drink enough water.
Many people have knocked this finding of Dr B's without going into the merits of the findings that water is a fundamental nutrient for the body, chronic shortfall of which leads to serious dysfunction and disease. A key observation by Dr B is the pointing out the distinction between 'free' water availability in the body and the water that is priority-wise tied up with the body's metabolic functions, and the results of lack of free water in the body.
One reviewer took exception to Dr B's conclusion that morning sickness of pregnancy was not a sign of dehydration. Observation and results must guide any scientific search or research, not linking apparently similar end-points of 'dis-ease' under differing conditions--in this case: nausea-vomiting of long-distance cycling exertion (or some other cause) equated to the nausea-vomiting (morning sickness) of pregnancy.
In my own practise I confirm that Dr B's findings are perfectly correct, and the reason for it is quite straightforward. It is a signal that 'food/nutrition' other than water must not be taken, (water being a major nutrient for the body). This is because the digestion of food (even juice or milk) requires the body to tie up water resources at the cost of reduced functionality of other areas of the body where there is already a water shortfall. Morning sickness is entirely and quickly reversible by adding a proper water intake as well as a pinch of unrefined sea salt. Plain water intake acts very significantly different to watery foodstuffs in the bodily metabolism--again a fact available in any standard medical text.
In the relatively brief period of time I have systematically applied this knowledge to my practise, I have observed remarkable cures with just the addition of the water rehydration therapy to whatever other measures were being taken. In my own practise as a healer, based on Dr. B's findings I use the water requirement guideline for everyone who comes for treatment. (I give my rehydration protocol at the end of this review).
2+ Years Chronic periodic high fever (up to 105 F) in a female child of 9 years living in New Delhi, which was undiagnosed by all modern clinical tests and was over the past two and a half years variously treated as: repeated tonsillitis/acute strep infection (no medicine helped except homeopathy), Typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and of course 'Pyrexia of Unknown Origin' (PUO)and 'NAD' (nothing abnormal diagnosed/[not able to diagnose!]). The mother had been giving the child fruit juices and milk more or less as a 'healthy' alternative to water while the child had no more than 8-12 ounces of water per day.
All juices were stopped. In this particular episode, all antibiotics that had been given continuously for 10 days were stopped in the morning (fever 103 F) and increasing the water intake to between 800-1000 mls for the day, plus 2 pinches of unrefined sea salt on the tongue directly started bringing down the fever within 1 hour; fever gone in 3 more hours with no repetition of fever since then. All fruit juices were stopped. The liver and spleen enlargement disappeared in a few days.
Beginnings of arthritic knees in a 74 year old male from Nepal hitherto healthy, with inability to walk usual distances reversed by 30% in 15 days by his own report with the water rehydration protocol. He continues to improve slowly, where all painkillers and anti-inflammatories failed--he has stopped using anti-inflammatories on his own. If we factor in the fact that he has improved by 30% in distance walkable and pain after having given up the painkillers taken so far, I would think his improvement rate is actually much greater than 30% as a comparable situation.
Other results with rehydration therapy--Many cases of acute constipation reversed/cured; burning in urine with no infection and days later urinary infection diagnosed reversed and cured where antibiotics failed; chronic migraine headaches with nausea, vomiting---reversed/cured. Skin infections, pimples--cured. Angina pains--reversed/healed/cured. (Too early to say what is the clinical/pathological picture--it is under observation). Tear in the meniscus of knee requiring surgery healed with water therapy (and other energy healing methods) not now needing surgery according to the surgeon. Back aches and pains(slipped discs, sciatica) reversed= pain-free within days of water therapy (+ simple exercises in Dr B's book on backaches and arthritis--"How to deal simply with Rheumatoid joint pain & Back Pain"). Acidity and indigestions--healed. Irritable bowel syndrome with bleeding--healed alongwith addition of sugar water as recommended by Dr.B. For the auto-immune disorder, vasculitis (Behcets disease), the symptoms improved in 2 weeks on water +salt +vitamin regimen and continue to do so.
Conclusions: (1)The rehydration therapy works as a stand alone protective, preventive measure against disease. (2)The water therapy reverses many serious disease conditions. (3)Other therapies work much better with the water therapy, and in many cases additional medicinal/surgical measures are not needed where previously considered essential or inevitable. (4)The Ayurvedic dictum "indigestion is the mother of all disease" is fully proven here as all disease arise from three indigestion conditions:(a)Inability to digest (transform) the intake of food/liquids, emotions and thoughts; (b) Inability to expel/excrete indigestible matter or toxic matter (material or emotional), leading to: (c)Storage and accumulation in body fat and body tissues distorting the structures and functions of the body's organs and working systems.
Summary of the Rehydration protocol that I use based on Dr B's work is as follows:
Body weight in kilograms multiplied by 35 milliliters=Standard Total Plain water requirement per 24 hours. (Wt.KG x 35 mls or: Wt.Pounds x 0.55 ounces).
To the Standard Plain water requirement ADD the fluid amount (ounces or mls) of tea+coffe+colas multiplied by 1.1 as these fluid are diuretic as well as inducing sweating (the hot drinks)so you lose more water than you take in with these beverages.
This brings up the total plain water requirement for 24 hours. (Other fluids such as milk/juices do not count for supplementing the plain water requirement because being foods the body responds very differently to them as compared to plain water.) Add to this a couple of pinches of sea salt a day, and in a few hours/days/weeks the condition starts to reverse.
Telling people 'drink more water' or 'drink 10-12 glasses of water a day' is rarely followed, and people have a greatly erroneous idea about their actual water intake! I find a written schedule handed out to my patients works unfailingly.
The protocol I follow for adults as per Dr. B. is:
About 2 glasses of water (1 glass=8 ounces/230 mls) on waking in morning.
1 to 2 glasses of water 1/2 hour before meals.
1 glass of water 2-1/2 hours after a meal.
Other plain water during day as needed.
One multivitamin with minerals, and Vitamin B6 (50-100 mg per day) rounds off the program. (In practise I find the vitamins may not be needed after a few weeks if there is a dietary change in favor of a healthier diet which include more fresh vegetable and some fruits and nuts.)
This seems to be working very well generally. One of the first things to be noticed by all was that frequency of passing urine increased and the color became pale. (According to Ayurvedic guidelines passing urine 6 times a day is normal.) In the case of people who have water-retention/edema, a temporary salt restriction in food along with placing a pinch of sea salt on the tongue twice a day along with gradual increase of water helps in a few days to clear up such chronic conditions. The salt on tongue seems to get the brain to reorder the body's potassium-sodium-water balance when there is adequate availability of free water in the body. The need for diuretics and their attendant ill-effects was eliminated.
I do not offer any of the above as medical advice or suggestions-- I only share a summary of my observations as a results of following Dr. B's protocol. For complete details refer to his book. Anyone who understands and follows Dr. B's regimen can benefit similarly as have many patients in my practise. The man was a genius and apparently is still being greatly misunderstood.
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