Why is hydration critical to wellness
Why hydration is critical to wellness.
Dr Jaroslav Boublik
There is a large, and growing, body of evidence that maintaining optimal cellular hydration is a critical step in developing and maintaining wellness. Many people believe that simply drinking more water is all that we need to do. If it were as simple as drinking more water, a lot more people would be a lot more hydrated than they are. It is pretty clear to me looking at the people around me in the world that it is not that simple. Forcing yourself to drink more water may have a short-term impact on your potential state of hydration but it will do little to address your baseline long-term hydration state. That depends on both intake and metabolism, comprising both uptake and clearance. The volume fraction of fluid inside a cell is a very carefully regulated parameter but without sufficient available water (intake) the mechanism that cause water to flow into cells (uptake) cannot regulate the fluid level in the cells and insufficient water is available to flush waste products out of the cell (clearance).
The analogy I make is one that many people who work in office spaces will be familiar with. It’s the sad and sorry potted plant in the corner of the boardroom that is often badly neglected. The fact is that if you water that potted plant chances are that most of the water will simply flow through it and end up in a puddle on the floor. I think many of us are like that potted plant. We have been neglected so long in terms of providing adequate amounts of hydrating fluids into our systems that when we do pour a large amount of water into our bodies, most of it simply flows through. Certainly when people have an epiphany and decide they are going to get really hydrated by drinking their 8 or 10 or 12 glasses of water a day they find that the only real impact on them is that they spend a lot more time going to the bathroom. This suggests to me (and has been long supported by research) that there are multiple pathways for water flow in the body.
We have termed this short path and long path hydration. The short path is into the mouth, into the digestive tract, into the circulation, straight to the kidneys then down to the bladder and out. Very little of this fluid impacts the hydration of individual cells. Then there is long path hydration. Here the circulating fluid does manage to get into extra cellular fluid, then into the cells where it carries nutrients in, and then back out of the cells where it carries toxins out into the circulation and then through the kidneys and bladder for excretion. Long path hydration is what we are looking for.
Long path hydration unfortunately does get switched off with neglect. Simply pouring more water into the system doesn't necessarily switch it back on again. You need to take a proactive step. We believe the Aqua formulas* are a good example of a proactive step but there are probably other things you can do to provoke long path hydration. Our research suggests that none, however, are as simple or effective.
Once we have established this kind of long path hydration in the body there will be sufficient fluid for the cellular volume fraction to be maintained and for the movement of nutrients into cells and waste products out of cells to occur without impediment. We then have a critical component of the wellness puzzle in place.
Bio:
Dr Jaroslav Boublik B.Sc.(Hons), Ph.D. (Med), MRACI, C.Chem. AACNEM
Jaroslav has spent almost 30 years in medical research with 15 years in drug development and then 15 years in nutritional medicine. He consults to the nutrition industry as a formulator, researcher, presenter and educator. His primary research interest is water and hydration and he is the co-developer of The Aqua Formulas.