Aric D. Cox, DC
The maintenance of healthy hydration is a complex process. However, hydrating our body for health and healing is simple. There is a sophistication bias in healthcare that makes both patient and practitioner lean toward the more involved, state of the art, and most advanced treatments. This bias not only complicates things; it also rejects the simple, yet powerful aspects of healing. Building healthy hydration is a crucial, but often overlooked, aspect of the healing process.
Many practitioners have incorporated hydration into their patient recommendations. But this often only consists of asking patients to drink half one’s body weight in ounces of filtered water or supplementing with electrolytes. This recommendation is arbitrary and, at best, places the significance of water in health as understated and underappreciated.
Water is life, and without water there is no life. It is the first thing science considers when searching for signs of life in space. Water is right behind oxygen in importance to the body; we can only last so long without water. If we look at the cradles of the healing arts (i.e., Ayurveda, 5 Element Acupuncture,) water gets respect for reasons beyond being an essential nutrient. Instead, these ancient practitioners saw water as a lens for viewing and better understanding the balance of creation.
Water is three general things at once:
It is matter – H2O makes up 99% of the molecules in our body.
It is energy – Properly structured water produces the necessary voltage for proper function.
It allows for information exchange – Water is woven into the fabric of our living matrix from which self-regulation and communication flow.1
Through these features, water protects our tissues, removes toxins, aids digestion, supports circulation, carries oxygen to cells, and lubricates joints and membranes. Of course, we know how important water is to every function of our mind, body, and spirit. But what are the most powerful factors that affect optimal hydration?
1. Toxic Terrain
What would a bioregulatory medicine conversation be without talking about our biological terrain? Especially when we consider the work of Alfred Pischinger or James Oschman. Their research shows the need to understand both the cell and its environment. Pischinger was the first to describe the importance of the space between cells, or extracellular matrix.
“A cell cannot be considered by itself without taking its environment into account.”
-Alfred Pischinger
Oschman’s work revealed more of how molecular fabric nestles every cell. This living matrix allows communication between cells for proper function. Without this matrix, each cell would perish. Combine these principles with those of bioregulatory medicine and terrain theory and gain a great deal of depth as to why just a cell-focused approach (i.e., supplementing nutrient deficiencies and opening detoxification pathways) isn’t enough to heal. Sure, as dis-ease and the disease process settle in, the cell can become a toxic mess. But the compromising of its surroundings in the biological terrain occur long before toxins infiltrate the cell.
At this point, hydration is necessary to facilitate drainage in our emunctories, i.e., the organs and tissues of elimination. Hydration is the backbone of the adage, “The solution to pollution is dilution.” This concept is foremost for detoxing the terrain. Without the proper flow of drainage, detoxification is irrelevant.
Therefore, the largest threats to our biological terrain are:
Mineral/nutrient deficiencies (e.g., trace minerals, sunlight, vitamin D)
Persistent environmental intoxicants (glyphosate, heavy metals, fluoride, electrosmog, etc.)
Stealth pathogens and mold (Lyme and coinfections, parasites, candida and non-candida fungi, viruses)
Unreleased/unprocessed trauma (limbic impairment, ACEs, distress)
Solution:
A personalized program rooted in bioregulatory medicine adds potency compared to conventional approaches. Addressing all the bioregulatory priorities is essential: dental terrain, interference fields, constitutional therapy, autonomic tone, drainage, immune/inflammation support, epigenetics, and influencing pleomorphism and the microbiome. By addressing the individual needs of each patient’s terrain (deficiencies, toxicities, and energetic obstacles,) the self-healing and self-regulatory power can switch back on.
2. Deuterium
Deutenomics is a growing field of research and knowledge regarding the biological processing of hydrogen. This is an interdisciplinary approach to medical biochemistry relating all things deuterium. Also known as “heavy hydrogen,” deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen. Thanks to the work of doctors such as Laszo G. Boros, MD and Petra Davelaar, ND, we now know more about the science behind the movement of hydrogen and water in the body.
Given its additional neutron, deuterium is twice as heavy as hydrogen. The presence of this one extra subatomic particle makes all the difference in how hydrogen, and its compounds, behave in our body. Deutenomics is based on the concept that water serves as a vehicle to carry either hydrogen or deuterium.
It was Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi that found hydrogen, not oxygen, to be the fuel of life. From his research we see that the better hydrogen comprised of a single proton moves within the body, the better we function. In other words, life is the movement and recycling of protons.
“Life is water dancing to the tune of solids.” Albert Szent-Györgyi
Too much deuterium stands in the way of this. Naturally, deuterium concentration will vary in all bodies of water. It stands at 12th place in the order of chemical elements within the human body.2 This means that deuterium accounts for more than many of the microelements in body, such as: copper, iron, zinc, molybdenum, and manganese.
According to Dr. Davelaar, there is another way to consider the amount of deuterium in the body:
“At approx. 12-14 mmol/L deuterium is present in the bloodstream 2 to 4 times as much as glucose, 3 times as much as potassium, 6 times as much as calcium and there is 10 to 16 times more deuterium as there is magnesium in the blood.”3
Once deuterium surpasses 125 ppm, it begins to corrupt mitochondrial function. It does so by damaging and slowing the turning of the hydrogen powered turbines of the electron transport chain.4
The generation of a hydrogen ion transmembrane electrochemical gradient produces energy that can rotate the ATP synthase to produce ATP. The balance between hydrogen ions trapped in the intermembrane space (located between the outer membrane and the inner membrane of mitochondria) and the hydrogen atoms within the mitochondrial matrix regulate this electrochemical gradient. Any change in the deuterium/protium isotope ratio can lead to an acceleration or retardation of biochemical reactions within the mitochondria.5
Of course, there is a place for deuterium in the natural order of things. This is evident when the deuterium concentration becomes too low and has an inverse relationship with peroxide. Therefore, as with most things in our biochemistry, we should seek balance.6
Solution:
Eating foods with high structured water content, and building up the structured water within our body, is best. Eating foods that are naturally low in deuterium (unprocessed foods and high-quality fats) further reduce deuterium entering the body. Building up the structured/exclusion zone water of our cells and tissues will naturally deplete the deuterium concentration of our body, as is the nature of structured water.
3. EZ water
Exclusion Zone water (EZ water) is also known as structured water. Considered the fourth phase of water, EZ water goes beyond the solid, liquid, and vapor phases we learned in school. This liquid crystalline state has more of a gel-like form and is an irreplaceable thread in the living matrix of nature. This negatively charged water, in its structured form (H2O3), is more energized. The presence of the negative charge allows EZ water to work its magic.
Cellular Hydration – The negative charge of EZ water creates water movement. Therefore, even if there were no other external forces involved, EZ water would facilitate hydration and delivery of nutrients through the interstitium and into the cells.
Detox – Researcher Dr. Gerald Pollack at the University of Washington originally labeled structured water as EZ water. He gave it this name due to its ability to surround itself with an exclusion zone, whereby it excludes toxins and impurities. Therefore, optimizing the structured water outside the body serves to exclude toxins from our cells.
Cellular Energy – Dr. Pollack’s research almost begs the question if E = mc2 should it instead be E = H2O? The hexagonal structure and charge of EZ water creates an optimal framework for electron flow. Since the flow of electrons creates energy, EZ water is like a battery that fuels cellular function and supplies the mitochondria with electrons.
But what structures the water of our body? Light does!7 Infrared (IR) is the most influential wavelength for structuring water. Living tissues create electrical energy when IR light contacts H2O and splits water into H+ and OH- ions. This separation of charges is all it takes to create an electrical current and, therefore, a flow of energy in the body. This means that the IR energy that comes from sunlight, saunas, and the human hand via healing touch all have potential to structure water.8, 9
EZ water also builds around hydrophilic surfaces, of which our cells have plenty. This usually comes from the proteins that pack the cytoplasm, which are water-loving surfaces for building EZ water. When we have the full complement of structured water in the cytoplasm, it creates a better cellular form and thus, better function for our cells.
Solution:
Drinking structured water, and eating plants that have high structured water content, will create the greatest probability for sustaining EZ water levels. But we also need to keep in mind the elimination of that which excessively “unstructures” water. This is essentially anything that influences the buildup of additional positive charges in the body (EMFs, heavy metals, toxins, inflammation, oxidative stress). So, beyond healing the toxic terrain, turmeric, coconut water, sunlight, and grounding will all support proper water molecule alignment.
There are plenty of additional factors that influence hydration:
Timing and rhythm of hydration
Movement of the body
Filtered water
Dehydrating factors (excessive caffeine, processed foods)
Mold illness and its effect on antidiuretic hormone
The goal is to consider the unique perspective of bioregulatory medicine to observe the depotentiation of water’s ability to help in the regulation of our body. As healers, we must go beyond the arbitrary platitude, “Drink half your body weight in ounces.” Water is so much more.
“The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”
-Voltaire
I believe it is in our nature to be a vessel to carry water as well as a conduit for flowing water. But like vessels and conduits, we get leaky and lose water with age, stress, and the deterioration of health. Though wonderfully simple and beautifully complex, water has its role in the cure of disease. With just a little more effort than telling patients to stay hydrated, we can unleash the healing power of water.
Reference:
Spyrakis, Francesca, et al. “The Roles of Water in the Protein Matrix: A Largely Untapped Resource for Drug Discovery.” Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, vol. 60, no. 16, 2017, pp. 6781–6827.
Syroeshkin, A V et al. “The effect of the deuterium depleted water on the biological activity of the eukaryotic cells.” Journal of trace elements in medicine and biology : organ of the Society for Minerals and Trace Elements (GMS) vol. 50 (2018): 629-633. doi:10.1016/j.jtemb.2018.05.004
Dorfsman, Petra. Dr. Petra, drpetrad.com/.
Wang, Hongqiang et al. “Deuterium-depleted water (DDW) inhibits the proliferation and migration of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells in vitro.” Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie vol. 67,6 (2013): 489-96. doi:10.1016/j.biopha.2013.02.001
Xie, X., Zubarev, R. Isotopic Resonance Hypothesis: Experimental Verification by Escherichia coli Growth Measurements. Sci Rep 5, 9215 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep09215
Pomytkin, I A, and O E Kolesova. “Relationship between natural concentration of heavy water isotopologs and rate of H2O2 generation by mitochondria.” Bulletin of experimental biology and medicine vol. 142,5 (2006): 570-2. doi:10.1007/s10517-006-0420-9
Chai, Binghua et al. “Effect of radiant energy on near-surface water.” The journal of physical chemistry. B vol. 113,42 (2009): 13953-8. doi:10.1021/jp908163w
Schwartz, Stephan A et al. “Infrared spectra alteration in water proximate to the palms of therapeutic practitioners.” Explore (New York, N.Y.) vol. 11,2 (2015): 143-55. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.12.008
Chien, Chin-Hsiang, et al. “Effect of EMITTED Bioenergy on Biochemical Functions of Cells.” The American Journal of Chinese Medicine, vol. 19, no. 03n04, 1991, pp. 285–292., doi:10.1142/s0192415x91000375.
Aric D. Cox, DC