Water: A Biomarker for Aging
This is a guest blog, featuring a presentation by Dr. Al Costanza, Functional Medicine Consultant, who practices holistic health counseling and education in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Dr. Al is also a successful MULTIPURE Senior Builder. Learn more about his work at: www.DrAlCostanza.com or reach him at Naturopathy@juno.com
How important is water? Well, lets think about it. When you are born your total body water is about 80%. At death it is closer to 30-40%. We start out like a grape and as we age we become more like a raisin.
Or worse… if there is much inflammation leading to osteoporotic calcification we become more stone-like.
As we age we all become more inflamed. In the presence of inflammation especially in and around the joints, calcium will target those areas in an attempt to heal the body. Besides calcification much of this process called “senescence” (aging) is due to a lack of water within the cells. Cholesterol also does the same but within our coronary walls and arteries. One way of slowing down or even reversing this process and is to put out the fire (inflammation) naturally by moving water back into the cells. How do we accomplish such a daunting process?
First and foremost is to make sure we are drinking enough water. How much should we consume a day? Take your body weight, divide that number in two and then drink that many ounces a day. So a 140 pound person should drink about 70 ounces of water a day (8+ glasses). Not just any water, but your best bet is purified filtered water. A good system such as MULTIPURE will remove contaminants but still leave in the minerals. Why are minerals important? Minerals help alkalize your body and bring the water back into the cells.
By increasing intracellular water (water inside the cells) one increases total body water. Remember, think grape, not raisin. Think of water inside the cells as good water and outside bad water, particularly if it is excessive (called edema). We have all seen people who have a puffy look to their skin.
As a practitioner in the field of nutrition and functional medicine, I like to see adult patients with at least 60% water inside the cells and 40% outside. When we test an athlete or body-builder we see at times as much as 72% inside vs. 28% outside, which is awesome. Using BIA (Bioimpedance analysis) technology which is fast and inexpensive, we can determine the percentage of water inside and outside, total body water, biological age to a degree and much more.
Though there are many other lifestyle choices such as diet, supplementation, exercise, stress management, sleep, etc., increasing your water intake using a high quality filter should be your first line of defense in slowing down or even reversing the aging process.
I personally own four MULTIPURE units, one in my office and three in my home.
Alfred A Costanza, Ph.D., C.N.C., C.P.T., Cn
www.DrAlCostanza.com
Naturopathy@juno.com