By this point in this Section you certainly expected this claim!
Well, think about it.
As I have acknowledged elsewhere, the primary source for the water-related concepts in this Section come from Dr. F. Batmanghelidj. I don’t know of any other person who has done this type of research.
As I’ve written earlier, your arteries are flexible when healthy, and can get larger or smaller, as the body needs dictate. One of the reasons the arteries might need to get smaller is if there is actually a reduction in the supply of volume of blood.
In other words, if the volume of the arteries stayed the same while the volume of blood reduced, you’d have to have pockets of gas or air inside the arteries -- where there wasn’t enough blood to fill the space. So, the arteries contract, get smaller, when there is a reduction in blood volume.
Arteries also change size to reduce the amount of blood going to some particular area, and increase in size when the body requires more blood in some area. For instance, when you eat you need more blood going to the stomach and intestines. Since the body can’t just manufacture new blood for this short-term need, the body shuts off the blood supply in one place in order to increase the blood supply in some other place.
This change in blood supply is not actually handled by changing the size of arteries, but rather by turning on, or turning off, entire sections of capillaries. Arteries are large tubes, containing blood which is moving at a rapid rate. Capillaries are extremely small tubes, carrying blood at very slow rates.
Blood moves through the arteries as fast as 13 miles per hour, but slows down tremendously, to about .02 mph in a capillary! The blood rushes through the arteries, but when it gets to the capillaries, it goes through them, often, one molecule at a time. Some of the capillaries are so thin that the blood molecules have to be bent in half to move through.
There are nerve and chemical messengers which can turn off a whole network of capillaries from receiving new supplies of blood. The blood that was in that "bed" of capillaries mostly stays there until the valve is opened again, and new blood pushes in.
But, the point here is that as these areas of capillaries are turned off, there is more blood available that can go to a different area.
Thus, the blood supply to the stomach and intestines increases during the time of eating and digestion, and decreases somewhere else. The usual place that blood is turned off is in the muscles. When a person has been doing a lot of exercise, the turn-off in the muscles will be less, and more somewhere else.
Thus, the body changes the total volume of the tubes through which the moving blood is moving.
This water/blood rationing system eliminates any need for the total supply of blood to be changing from time to time.
Whether you have just eaten or not, there are priorities for the supply of blood/water, and these are very rigid in the body.
The highest priority in the body is the brain. It gets more blood than any other part, and no matter where else there might be a need for blood, the brain gets its supply first.
The lungs, liver, kidneys and glands come next in priority. When they need blood, they get it, if there is any available.
A shortage of water in the body is first handled by closing off some capillaries. When that happens the areas served by those capillaries can then become diseased or unhealthy in some way. When these capillary networks are closed down, they provide an obstacle to blood movement and the blood pressure must go higher to push through the area.
When the shortage of water is greater than can be accommodated by a shut-off of some capillary area, then the water shortage is made up from the liquid in the arteries.
About 66% of the water shortage is taken from water inside the cells. These cells become dehydrated. Dehydrated cells become diseased much more easily than cells filled with the proper amount of water.
About 26% of the water shortage is taken from the water outside the cells. This reduction in water means that the blood becomes thicker. Thicker blood needs to be pushed harder to move it along -- high blood pressure.
About 8% of the water shortage is taken from the volume of liquid moving through the arteries. When there is less volume of blood in the arteries the arteries MUST get smaller to avoid those air pockets. Smaller tubes require a higher blood pressure to push the amount of blood needed by the body.
So, two of the areas where the body takes water during a shortage will cause an increase in blood pressure.
When you exercise your muscles the capillaries in that area will develop a larger network and they will stay open more often because the larger mass of muscles needs a larger supply of blood. This larger network of capillaries does not close down so easily when there is a water shortage, and therefore exercise is very healthy for you for this reason.
But, most basic, you can see now how a lack of water can cause a tremendous increase in blood pressure, and how just drinking more water can reduce your blood pressure.
Amazing! And, so simple!
Salt plays an important role in balancing the amount of water held outside the cells. There is a great deal more to be written on this subject, in other Books or in my regular newsletter. You’ll find that when you are drinking enough water you can use far more salt than you normally do, enjoy the taste, and have no adverse effects.
Drink water and enjoy salt!
You should realize that many of these variations in the amount of water in the blood cells, or outside the blood cells, or in the capillaries, or not -- all of these various measures of water get missed in most physical examinations.
High blood pressure should be treated by taking increased amounts of water! Blood pressure should NOT be treated by the very drugs which cause the body to need more water. Can you imagine the evil of a drug which decreases your body’s ability to use water, and that reduction in water handling causes high blood pressure -- exactly the symptom which the drug is supposedly handling.
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