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Dr. Batmanghelidj (1931 - November 2004) was an Iranian doctor who trained at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School where he studied under Sir Alexander Fleming.  He devoted years to studying the effects of dehydration on the human body.  He claims that “chronic pains of the body that cannot be easily explained as injury or infection should first and foremost be interpreted as signals of chronic water shortage in the area where the pain is registered – a local thirst”.

CHEAPEST FORM OF MEDICINE
Unfortunately, medication is often given in the first instance when the pain arises and this can be very detrimental.  Dr. Batman, as he is universally known, recommended that to find out if dehydration is the prime cause, water intake should be much increased for several days before resorting to analgesics or other pain-relieving medication. Water is the cheapest form of medicine to a dehydrated body and often that is all that is needed to alleviate pain.

Dr. Batman in his book “Your body’s many cries for water” relates how he has treated over 3,000 people with dyspeptic pain using only water.  He said, “they all responded to an increase in their water intake and their clinical problems associated with the pain disappeared”.

IMPORTANCE OF WATER FOR BODY FUNCTION
Dehydration is the number one stressor of the human body or indeed, any living matter.  It is not difficult to understand how easily the body can become dehydrated when one considers the daily loss of water due to normal body functions.  The body is made up of 25% solid matter (the solute) and 75% water (the solvent).  Brain tissue is said to consist of 85% water.  Thus water plays a very important part in our lives, indeed the body cannot function without it.  In the first place water is needed for digestion; the pancreas which manufactures a “watery bicarbonate solution” that neutralises the acidity of the stomach contents, cannot work properly without it.  Dyspeptic pain is a thirst signal associated with chronic or severe dehydration in the human body.

JOINTS LUBRICATED BY WATER
In the spine the inter-vertebral joints and their disc structures are dependent on the different hydraulic properties of water stored in the disc core.  Not only is water a lubricant for the disc surfaces but it is held in the disc core within the inter-vertebral space and supports the compression weight of the upper part of the body.  “Fully 75% of the weight of the upper part of the body is  supported by the water volume that is stored in the disc core; 25% is supported by the fibrous materials around the disc.  In all joints, water acts as a lubricating agent and it bears the force produced by weight or the tension produced by muscle action on the joint.”  Similarly, cartilage cells are immersed in a matrix containing much water.  However, in a dehydrated cartilage abrasive damage can occur, as in rheumatoid arthritis. 

Added to the amount of water needed by the body every day is the further need for even more water to combat the diuretic effect of drinking tea, coffee, alcohol and cola drinks. 

THIRST AND HUNGER CONFUSED
Dr. Batman believes that the sensations of thirst and hunger have become confused and people often eat when they should be drinking water instead.  Hence, it is all too easy to over-eat while misinterpreting the body’s cries for water.  Furthermore, he found that by drinking water before eating food, people learnt again to separate the two sensations and among those who were over-weight they were actually able to lose pounds fairly rapidly by adopting this simple regime.
COLOUR OF URINE ESSENTIAL GUIDE
At least 1½ litres of water should be drunk every day with an extra cup of water for every cup of tea or coffee drunk.  These latter drinks are NOT a substitute for water.  To check on whether you are becoming dehydrated or not the colour of the urine is a very good indicator.  It should be almost colourless to pale yellow.  If it is dark yellow or even orange this is a sign of dehydration and should be corrected as soon as possible.  The dark colour means that the kidneys are working hard to get rid of toxins in the body in very concentrated urine. 

In Dr. Batman’s opinion “the primary cause of Alzheimer’s Disease is chronic dehydration of the body”.  He claims that brain cell dehydration is the initial cause of this distressing disease.

Children who suffer from asthma can be greatly helped by an increase in their daily water intake.

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
USE OF DIURETICS QUITE WRONG
“High blood pressure (essential hypertension) is the result of an adaptive process to a gross body water deficiency”.  Dr. Batman goes on to explain that, naturally, it is essential that the blood volume in the body is maintained and so when the body is dehydrated there is no alternative for the blood vessels other than to close their lumen (decrease their aperture) to cope with this loss in blood volume.  He claims that “in water shortage and body drought, 66% is taken from the water volume normally held inside the cells; 26% is taken from the volume held outside the cells; and 8% is taken from blood volume.”  The closing of the lumen causes the rise in pressure that we recognise as hypertension.  Therefore prescribing diuretics would be totally wrong.

MORNING SICKNESS
When a woman becomes pregnant, water for the cell growth of the embryo has to be provided by the mother.  Dr. Batman considers that the very first indicator for the water needs of the fœtus seems to be morning sickness in the early days of pregnancy, a thirst signal of both the fœtus and the mother.

Dr. Batman recommends that the best times to drink water are: one glass half-an-hour before taking food at breakfast, lunch and dinner and the same amount 2½ hours after each meal.  This, he says, is the very MINIMUM amount of water that your body needs.  He advises that “a well-regulated and constantly alert attention to daily water intake will prevent the emergence of most of the major diseases we have come to fear in our modern society”.