Water For Health, For Healing, For Life by F Batmanghelidj, MD

Dr. Batmanghelidj has an interesting history. He was a doctor in Iran. When the revolution overthrew the Shah in the 1970s, mullahs and the Ayatollah Khomeini him in jail.

While there, because he was a doctor, other prisoners asked him for medical help. He had no medicines and no equipment, so he told them to do the only thing he could -- drink water until the pain went away.

To his surprise, drinking lots of water would make the pain go away!

Before long he had organized the other prisoners into groups to study the health effects of drinking lots of water. After a few years, even the Iranian government recognized the value of his work and wanted to release him from jail. He wouldn't go until he finished his latest study.

Once he came to America, he studied the effects of water on health and illness and wrote YOUR BODY'S MANY CRIES FOR WATER. This book is followup to that one.

Drinking at least 8 glasses of water per day has been standard alternative health advice for many years. Napoleon Hill -- not known as a health writer -- was advising it back in 1928.

A modern writer on exercise and weight loss advises super-hydration -- the drinking of at least a gallon of ice water per day. He says to drink ice water because your body then has to burn calories to warm it up.

I tried this not long ago, and just couldn't do it. I kept a big water of ice water by my desk and drank enough to force me to run to the bathroom often. Yet I still didn't drink half as much as advised.

And I'm privileged enough to work at home. I don't see how anybody could do it in a normal work environment.

An alternative health writer with a mail-order newsletter published by Agora says that the advice to drink eight glasses a day of water is nonsense. Drink when you're thirsty, he writes. The sales letters sent out for him say that people who give this advice have nothing scientific to base it on.

Dr. Batmanghelidj's book contains plenty of scientific facts to back up that advice.

According to his studies, water -- or rather the lack of optimum levels of it in our bodies -- helps cause arthritis, obesity, asthma, high blood pressure, strokes, heartburn, colitis, allergies, diabetes, lower back pain, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, coronary heart disease, kidney stones, hot flashes, gout, and osteoporosis.

That's a long list, and some of them seem counter-intuitive. For example, people with high blood pressure are prescribed diuretics, to force water out of their bodies. Yet obviously doesn't address the cause of the high blood pressure, just keeps it low through a mechanical process.

He gives a lot of practical advice on how much water to drink.

Some people may be offended that he says American tap water is just fine, but remember that tap water in Iran probably contains many contaminants that American tap water doesn't.

It's important to keep in mind that he advises drinking WATER -- not liquids.

When he says water, he means water. Not coffee, tea, milk, juice, energy drinks, lemonade, soda or anything else that just happens to be liquid but is more than water.

Following his advice is not always easy, since when we're driving around or busy at work we don't stop and think to drink more water.

But yet it's a lot easier and cheaper than other health advice. He's not telling you to stop eating the foods you love or to eat less of them. He's not telling you to spend money on supplements. He's not telling you to go to the gym and sweat three days a week.

Nope -- just drink water until your urine is clear, and keep it that way.