Our Bodies of Water

We live out our entire lives as water based beings. Water forms and sustains us from the moment we're conceived. As a fetus, we exist as 90% water just like many plants and flowers. Though this volume decreases as we age, we exist with a measure of water that is amazingly similar to the 70% proportion reflected on our planet.

"Body water" -- The Water Inside Us

Quoting Gardner's Water: The Life Sustaining Resource, Marks discusses the location of all this "body water." Most of the water (60%) is in our cells, while 25% of the water mass moves between the cells. Our blood accounts for approximately 8%, and a further 5% fills our eyes and acts as lubricant for the major joints.

Blood also represents around 8% of our body weight, and is mostly translucent plasma - and plasma is roughly 90% water. Less obviously, the seemingly solid parts of us also comprise of water. Kidney tissue is 8%, the liver holds 66% and muscles 75%. And amazingly, even "dry" bone is actually one-third water. In addition, the brain, which rests on a sea of protective fluid, is itself 85% water.

Water's Importance to The Body

Studying the function of cytoplasm (the fluid in living cells derived mostly from water), Nobel Laureate Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi named water the "matrix of life." Ball summarizes the current thinking by noting that, given its mysterious way of seemingly ordering proteins, ions, sugars and acids within cells, water is actually now regarded as a kind of biomolecule and not just a conveyor of other materials.

At the cellular level, all processes are considered in terms of their interactions with water, even inside the blood. Here, oxygen and nutrients are absorbed and then distributed throughout the body, while the related and parallel lymph (a watery fluid lacking the red blood cells) system maintains proper cleansing of the body. Adequately hydrated blood can absorb up to four times more oxygen.

Also, we literally need water in order to think! The flow of water around and through our cell membrane walls create electrical impulses which carry thoughts. Without this electricity there could be no thought. Marks summarizes Dr Batmanghelidj who describes how, since nerve cells are too dense for there to really be instantaneous transmission of brain impulses, our thoughts actually travel along the length of nerves through an intricate network of microstreams that connect all cells in the body. This way, thoughts floating on "neural waterways" can be transmitted instantly the same way that electricity travels instantly through water. Researchers go as far as to recommend a glass of water when faced with any mental challenge.

Water is critical in regulating our body temperature, as it prevents us from experiencing too much sudden fluctuation. Sweating not only cools the body but also carries toxins and other unwanted material. Proper hydration also ensures that our daily ablutions are regular. We need only lose as little as 1% of our "body water" in order to experience thirst, and a 5% loss can seem unbearable. A loss of 7%, or three days without water, can result in organ failure, poor circulation and death.

Oceans Within Us: Seawater and Blood

Blood is denser and more viscous than water. It is salty due to the mineral ions (sodium, potassium, chloride) it contains, but blood actually holds more pure water than seawater and about a third of the salt. Blood plasma also has proteins, vitamins, sugars and hormones.

Seawater contains the same minerals as blood, since these are essential for all life, and many more, in different proportions (actually virtually every naturally occurring element has been found in seawater) but can be diluted into an "isotonic" solution. An isotonic solution has the same concentration of mineral ions as blood. Hospitals treat patients intravenously with isotonic saline drips in which the salt content is 9 parts per thousand. This ratio is vital: too little salt will cause the blood cells to burst while too much will make them implode.

There's a remarkable history to this. In 1897, French scientist Rene Quinton discovered that human cells could survive in a solution of seawater. In an astounding experiment, Quinton pursued the isotonic connection and actually drained a dog almost entirely of its blood and then gave it a saline transfusion of diluted seawater. Amazingly, records show that the dog apparently suffered no long term ill-effects and lived for five years after the procedure. The study was replicated in France 50 years later with similar results.

Thanks to this discovery of the similarities between seawater and mammalian blood plasma, countless human lives have been saved. Known variously as Quinton Plasma, Marine Plasma and Ocean Serum this diluted isotonic seawater contains 92 of the currently 118 known elements and is essentially considered to be a living organism. It is believed that Marine Plasma is able harmonize the body's acid to alkali levels, balance ions, and actually rejuvenate and fortify the body's living cells, making it a potential wonder serum in the fight against illness.

Sources

• William E. Marks, The Holy Order of Water, Bell Pond Books, 2001
• Phillip Ball, H2O : A Biography of Water, Phoenix, 2000