Clean Water Science

Water is a transparent and nearly colorless chemical substance that is the main constituent of
Earth's streams, lakes, and oceans, and the fluids of most living organisms. Strictly speaking, water
refers to the liquid state of a substance that prevails at standard ambient temperature and pressure;
but it often refers also to its solid state (ice) or its gaseous state (steam or water vapor). It also
occurs in nature as snow, glaciers, ice packs and icebergs, clouds, fog, dew, aquifers, and
atmospheric humidity.
Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface. It is vital for all known forms of life. Safe drinking water
is essential to humans and other life forms even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients.
Access to safe drinking water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the
world, but approximately one billion people still lack access to safe water and over 2.5 billion lack
access to adequate sanitation. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than
half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A report, issued in
November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand
will exceed supply by 50%.
Water plays an important role in the world economy. Approximately 70% of the freshwater used
by humans goes to agriculture. Fishing in salt and fresh water bodies is a major source of food for
many parts of the world. Large quantities of water, ice, and steam are used for cooling and heating,
in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances; as
such it is widely used in industrial processes, and in cooking and washing.
WHY DO WE NEED TO DRINK WATER?
1. Drinking Water Helps Maintain the Balance of Body Fluids. Your body is composed of
about 60% water. The functions of these bodily fluids include digestion, absorption, circulation,
creation of saliva, transportation of nutrients, and maintenance of body temperature.
2. Water Can Help Control Calories. For years, dieters have been drinking lots of water as a
weight loss strategy. While water doesn't have any magical effect on weight loss, substituting it for
higher calorie beverages can certainly help.
Food with high water content tends to look larger, its higher volume requires more chewing, and it
is absorbed more slowly by the body, which helps you feel full. Water-rich foods include fruits,
vegetables, broth-based soups, oatmeal, and beans.
3. Water Helps Energize Muscles. Cells that don't maintain their balance of fluids and
electrolytes shrivel, which can result in muscle fatigue. "When muscle cells don't have adequate
fluids, they don't work as well and performance can suffer."
4. Water Helps Keep Skin Looking Good. Your skin contains plenty of water, and functions as a
protective barrier to prevent excess fluid loss.
5. Water Helps Your Kidneys. Body fluids transport waste products in and out of cells. The main
toxin in the body is blood urea nitrogen, a water-soluble waste that is able to pass through the
kidneys to be excreted in the urine.
When you're getting enough fluids, urine flows freely, is light in color and free of odor. When
your body is not getting enough fluids, urine concentration, color, and odor increases because the
kidneys trap extra fluid for bodily functions.
If you chronically drink too little, you may be at higher risk for kidney stones, especially in warm
climates.

6. We need water to make our bowels function properly.

Our hearts need water to pump blood around our blood vessels.
Our lungs need water to enable them to breathe.
Our brains need water to tell us to put one foot in front of the other.
Our liver needs water to purify the blood.
Our eyes need water to enable us to see.
Our muscles need water to stretch and contract properly enabling us to move around.
Our stomach and bowels need water to function properly.
When we are not properly hydrated the body sucks all the moisture out of the bowels to utilize
elsewhere in the body. Perhaps somewhere it deems more important like ensuring that our heart is
able to beat or our lungs are able to breathe.
When the digestive system becomes dehydrated it ceases to function. What happens is:
Our salivary glands are unable to start breaking down the food as it passes down our esophagus.
Our stomach spasms and bloats as it is unable to do the job of breaking down the food even
further.
Our pancreas and small intestine are unable to produce the correct enzymes to break down the
food and extract the nutrients.
Our colon isn’t able to pass waste through it properly, leading to cramps, pain, constipation and/or
diarrhea.
Our digestive system starts to shut down and is unable to do what it is supposed to do and digest
food.
This often leaves us suffering with malnutrition as the sole purpose of the digestive system is to
extract nutrients from food and pass out the waste. If we refrain from keeping hydrated we are in
effect, exacerbating our own IBS symptoms.

HEALTH EFFECTS OF BEING DEHYDTRATED

Water is the most valuable life support product for our health, right up there with oxygen. Water
and oxygen are the only two things in life that without for just a short period of time we would die.
Studies have been done that show if a 175 pound man were to lose just 2.5% of water in his body
(2 quarts) he will lose 25% of his body’s effectiveness towards survival.
When a person begins to dehydrate more things happen in the body than just being thirsty. The
more liquid in the body that is lost, the thicker the blood becomes and the harder the heart muscle
must work to pump the blood through the circulatory system. When a person loses their abilities
to reason and think straight because of dehydration it means they will die very soon, unless they
drink water to rehydrate. Depending on the circumstances, mainly environment, a person can die
within 24 to 28 hours after having no water if they are laboring in the hot dry sun with no water. If
a person is sedentary indoors and the elements, such as wind, sun, and heat is not present they may
live up to 3 days, tops. So water is very important for survival, but water is also very important to
your overall health.
Most people think they drink enough liquids throughout the day to keep them hydrated. But if you
counted all the beverages besides water that people drink you would see that they are actually
dehydrating themselves. Most liquids such as coffee, tea, soda, alcohol, Gatorade, and sugary fruit
drinks do not hydrate the body like pure water can. Some people are walking around actually
dehydrated and they don’t know it because they don’t feel thirsty. Let’s take a look at 4 of the
main reasons you should make sure you’re getting enough water.
1. Fatigue and Tiredness
The first sign of dehydration is the feeling of being tired; some people experience a headache and
feel like taking a nap. When the body begins to dehydrate it means the tissues and cells are not
getting enough water to make a person feel like doing anything; enzymatic activity slows down
and without water the enzymes are unable to produce energy either. In fact a dehydrated person
may have no enthusiasm or joy for life. The good news is once the individual starts to drink some
water their energy reserves speed back up and sometimes the headache completely goes away.
2. Constipation and Digestive Problems
If a person is not drinking enough water they do not have enough liquid to help with the
elimination process and without eliminating the foods we digest we gain weight, gain toxins, and
feel awful. Being constipated is the beginning to many health problems from allergies to toxic
overload syndrome to digestive disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome, gas bloating, stomach
pain, nausea and loss of appetite in chronic cases.
3. Stomach Ulcers
To protect the stomach from its acidic digestive fluids that is made during the digestion of food,
the stomach is coated with a lining of mucous, which are 98% water and 2% sodium bicarbonate.
Sodium bicarbonate helps in the digestive process by neutralizing the acids. When a person is
dehydrated the stomach does not have enough liquid available to make the mucous, thus a poor
mucous lining protecting a person from the acidic fluids the digestive process makes. This is why
some people are more acidic rather than alkaline, and have digestive problems such as acid
stomach and heartburn, which eventually without the alkalinity results in an ulcer of the stomach
lining.
4. Weight Gain
When you drink enough water throughout the day you are feeding the tissues and cells in your
body and that gets the enzymatic system moving, which actually releases fat toxins out of the
body. Rehydrating the body through pure water gets your metabolism running in full balance
rather than being slow and sluggish, which is a cause of weight gain.