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Enhancing Absorption for Complete Cellular Hydration by Gabriel CousensWellness Letter December 2002 The search for pure water in this day and age is a little bit like walking in the dessert looking for a water hole. Water is essential to life force, to life. Approximately 75% of our body weight is water, and water makes up over 80% of our brain and 90% of our blood. Water affects every major function in our body including body temperature, lubricating our joints, metabolic rates of our biochemical reactions, enzymatic functions, transportation of nutrients and oxygen to cells, and removal of body wastes. Proper hydration can help ameliorate diabetes, arthritis, obesity, migraines, headaches, high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, and even Alzheimer’s. In essence next to the air we breathe, water is the most important thing we will ever put in our bodies. Unfortunately the idea of naturally occurring, clean, healthy water is a nostalgic wish in this day and age. Sixty Minutes in January 2000 reported that as many as one hundred million Americans may be drinking water contaminated with MTBE, a gasoline additive that’s been leaching into underground tables since 1992. At only 10 ppb it is considered carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reported that almost every source of surface water, lakes, rivers, and so forth, are contaminated with organics. And that, paradoxically enough, the disinfection of these waters with chlorine is producing a host of toxic chemicals that are linked directly with increasing rates of cancer. Even the EPA acknowledges that the regular consumption of chlorinated surface water will increase the risk of cancer by at least 93% in one’s lifetime. Unfortunately bottled water is clearly not the solution. Bottled water not only is an attempt by the corporations to make us pay continually for the use of natural water but also it isn’t even that good. Recent tests show that over one-third of all the bottled water brands in the United States fail to meet the minimum tap water standards. In addition, these same plastic bottles contain toxic plasticizers that can leach into our water after even a few weeks on the grocery shelf. To make things worse, it isn’t just the water we drink; it is also the water we bathe in. Our skin and lungs absorb as much as 600% more contaminants in a 10-minute hot shower than from drinking the same water all day long. In my search for healthy water, I’ve gone from distilled water to reverse osmosis water, which removes virtually all of our suspended and dissolved solids. Unfortunately, this very pure water, although in the short term may be good for getting out toxins, has a problem that is known as negative stability. All demineralized water (like reverse osmosis and distilled water) is chemically aggressive due to its absolute purity and will dissolve minerals and metals from its immediate environment – which means our bodies. Long term use of this water may strip the body of magnesium, calcium, and other trace minerals. The lower we are in minerals the less well our body functions and particularly, the higher the rate of osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, heart disease, high blood pressure and other degenerative diseases. Of course, if you already are on an RO unit or you have a water distiller then you can add a little bit of Celtic sea salt and the product Hydrogel, previously known as crystal energy, to the water and that can compensate for some of the problems. The next level of water processing that I consider really interesting is ionized water. Ionized or alkaline water is what I have been currently recommending. For these to be effective you need pre-filters because they don’t purify the water. They do produce high levels of negative ions and very alkaline water. The ionized water that is alkalinized is also very high in negative ions. Originally approved by the Japanese Ministry of Health in 1960s, the long term health studies recently prompted by the ministry to publish a health warning about the potential adverse affects of routine consumption of highly alkaline water, which is water with a pH greater than 9. My feeling is that what is needed is an alkalinized water that is closer to 7.5 – 8.5 pH. The other advantage of ionized water is that it is highly absorbable into the system and greatly enhances the absorption of the water molecules into the system and therefore the hydration of all the cells. Carbon filtered water is a useful system that is the least expensive. These filters are capable of removing chlorine and chlorination byproducts (such as THMs), organics, and pesticides; they can be combined with other additives to remove arsenic as well. Most of them are excellent but because there are a lot of different carbon filters, they are really not all the same. The other drawback is that the traditional carbon filters have to be changed on a regular basis because they eventually saturate with contaminants and fail to meet removal standards after that. They also have a tendency to accumulate bacteria over time and then obviously they release this bacteria into the water. The result is that unless you are really on top of the carbon filter, they often last only six months to a year. The Wellness Filter seems to combine the best qualities of all these systems. It gets out essentially as much contaminants as the RO water and distilled water without wasting water. It has a high tech carbon system that doesn’t get clogged up because it has a special backwash system in it. It is a highly ionized water so you get all the negative ions that you need to build up health. And its alkalinity is somewhere between 8 and 8.5 so it remains in the safe zone. In addition to this, it has several layers of filtering and enhancement media in it that really makes it superior:
Japanese studies (note these are not double blind) have shown that the Wellness Filters water:
I am truly very excited to be able to introduce this to my E-Wellness readers. This has been the water filter breakthrough that I have been seeking for a long time. I plan to use it in a variety of successful ways. In addition, although it is more costly initially, because there is no cartridge replacement and it lasts for 20 years, its cost per gallon is about 4.9 cents, which is less than half of the nearest system. Even though its initial cost is higher, the lower effective cost coupled with its enhancing benefits make this a product worth owning. The Wellness Filters come in 5 basic types of systems: a kitchen unit, two different sized whole house systems, a shower system, a portable unit, and a custom built commercialized system. I have used both the residential and the portable unit with great success in the last three months and I am extremely pleased with it. It does, as I explained, get out Giardia and other parasites. The shower system filter, I do not recommend buying at this moment. I believe by February 2003 they will be coming out with a very high quality shower system. (Editor's note: The new shower filter model is available now, and overcomes the weaknesses of the previous model.) But if you can get one for your whole house or a countertop, which is what we have in our personal home, and the portable unit you will be doing very well. Water is essential for our health. It is time we take back the power in our lives over all the elements: air, earth, water, and food, and sunlight. This article is about taking back the power over creating a high level of energy in our water for our healing and well being. |
Last modified: 02/21/05 |