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Drink More Spring or Filtered Water to Improve Every Facet of Your Health
You’ve heard it repeatedly: make sure you drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day. The key words are "at least," because, unless you are a child or the size of a child, you need more water than that. The rule of thumb is, for every 50 pounds of body weight you carry, drink one quart of bottled spring or filtered water per day. The average person weighs 150lbs, so they should drink three quarts per day. A 200lb person should drink a full gallon per day. Athletes should drink even more than that. Follow these guidelines and you’ve adopted one of the most crucial health habits.

Our bodies are mostly water, and so this ongoing intake of water is essential to our every function. Drink the appropriate amounts, and everything is much more likely to function at optimal levels. Don’t drink enough water, and over the short term you will experience routine fatigue, dry skin, headaches and constipation;

• constipation

• fatigue

• Headache

over the longer term, every body function will degrade more quickly. It really is as simple as that.
Things get a bit more complicated in what type of water to drink. Bottled spring water and filtered water are both good options. Do not drink tap water or distilled water.
The spring (not "drinking") water should be bottled in clear polyethylene or glass containers, not the one-gallon plastic (PVC) containers that transfer far too many chemicals into the water. Filtered water can be obtained through low-cost filters, such as those provided by Brita or PUR brands. Another recommendation of mine is the GE Smart Water, which was top rated in Consumer Reports December 2002.

Tap water should be avoided because it contains chlorine and may contain fluoride, toxic substances that, with ongoing consumption, can have dire consequences for the body. Distilled water should also be avoided because it has the wrong ionization, pH, polarization and oxidation potentials, and can drain your body of necessary minerals. It has been tied to hair loss, which is often associated with certain mineral deficiencies.
Finally, drink water at room temperature if possible, as ice-cold water can harm the delicate lining of your stomach.

Read more about the benefits and right types of water -- and beverages to avoid -- in the eating plan. You can also use our powerful search tool, or explore some of the links below.
Finally, the extensively researched and fascinating book, Your Body's Many Cries for Water, should be required reading by all, and definitely belongs on every health care practitioner’s bookshelf. 

ARE YOU TOXIC?

Aspartame Can Harm Your Health
By Dr. Joseph Mercola

I wrote the following letter to the editor of the British Medical Journal for an absurd editorial they wrote and they posted my letter last month.
Aspartame, an artificial sweetener containing two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylanine, can be found in products such as NutraSweet and Canderel. Many health disasters, which are highlighted by horrific personal accounts found on websites against aspartame, can be attributed to its use. Disasters that result from aspartame use include:

• Cancer
• Hair loss
• Depression
• Dementia
• Behavioral disturbances

Public concern of the dangers related to aspartame is being taken seriously by health agencies. These concerns prompted a review of aspartame, which involved over 500 reports. It concluded that the allotted daily intake of aspartame was entirely safe, except for those people with phenylketonuria, a metabolic disorder caused by an enzyme deficiency.
With around 10 percent of a person's daily calorie intake provided by sugar, the notion has been raised whether replacing sugar with a non-nutritive, non-caloric sweetener like aspartame could eliminate obesity.
Marketing strategies for aspartame claim that it aids in embracing a healthy way of life and prevents obesity. This evidence however remains inconclusive.
Aspartame is 180-200 times sweeter than sucrose or sugar. By displacing saturated fat the risk of heart disease may be reduced. Further, large amounts of sucrose will increase triglycerides, a main component of the metabolic syndrome, and lead toward promoting heart disease. Marketing for aspartame focuses on the idea that it may aid in the elimination of dental decay, due to sugars forming bacteria in the mouth. The problem with this theory is that sugar is not the main culprit behind decay; rather it is caused by fluoride deficiency and prolonged exposure to sugar between meals.
In order to eliminate the concern of aspartame, manufacturers are encouraged to use cocktails of sweeteners, making it difficult for anyone to reach the allotted daily intake.
British Medical Journal October 3, 2004

Dr. Mercola's Comment:
In the past, the British Medical Journal has always done a decent job on reporting medical issues. However, it seems they dropped the ball with their editorial on aspartame (NutraSweet).
Because I feel so strongly about the negative outcomes caused by aspartame, I posted a letter to their site explaining the truth behind this artificial sweetener.
If you still believe that aspartame is not dangerous you are in for a serious surprise. There are far too many people who are clueless about its serious dangers.
You see, although aspartame is about 180-200 times sweeter than the refined sugar it is meant to replace, it is known to erode intelligence and affect short-term memory. Once upon a time, aspartame was on a Pentagon list of biowarfare chemicals submitted to Congress, which just goes to show you how lethal a chemical it really is.
There were many health disasters listed that could pertain to aspartame use, however the most common complaint, aside from seizures, is headaches. According to a nutrition consultant, diet could be one of the reasons 18 million Americans suffer from migraines, with aspartame listed as a possible culprit.
Because more than 5,000 products contain aspartame, it's in your best interests as well as your family's health to read the labels of any processed food you're concerned about.
What you must understand is that your body does not do well with regular sugar, let alone synthetic sugar substitutes. About 70 percent of the population suffers from an excess of insulin, which is often marked by excess weight, high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol. Nearly all of these people would benefit from avoiding ANY sweeteners, and this includes sucralose, until their signs of excess insulin are resolved.

• Headache
• High blood pressure

If you want to better understand why I feel so strongly about aspartame -- a toxic poison you need to avoid at all costs -- you'll want to consider viewing Sweet Misery, a 90-minute documentary that perfectly summarizes its history.