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“Water, Water Everywhere...”
It makes up 60% of our bodies, it covers 70% of the earth’s surface, and a liter
bottle of San Pelligrino mineral water in a San Francisco restaurant will set you
back $2.59. You can always turn on your faucet at home for a glass of water, but
the health-conscious tendency these days is to load up on bottled water, purified
water, distilled water, carbonated water, mineral water, direct-from-the-source-water,
and spring water. Like that opening line from the poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
“Water, water, everywhere...” our choices for water are numerous. But how meaningful
are they?
The San Francisco Chronicle recently published a study of bottled water and reported
that the level of harmful contaminants in many exceeded that of regular tap
water.
Ever since the benzene scare with Perrier a number of years ago, the public has
gradually wised up to the ways of water. But before those green rotund bottles
made it to the shores of America, water was an overlooked and misunderstood part of
the American diet. And here I say, “diet.” since most health and nutritional
experts say that one should drink up to eight glasses of water a day. Instead, we
replace that with coffee, soda, and tea, all of which are slight diuretics and can
lead to water loss.
Hydration Key for Athletes
For athletes, water is often the most common nutritional deficiency. Sweating leads
to dehydration, and the result is poorly functioning muscles, blood and organs.
Even a deficiency of less than 1% can bring on signs and symptoms of
dysfunction.
According to Dr. Philip Maffetone’s Eating for Endurance, a young male athlete’s
body is typically 60% water, and may contain 42 kilograms (more than 92 pounds)
of water. A female athlete’s body is slightly less aqueous at 50% of total weight.
Approximately two-thirds of this water is in the intracellular areas—predominantly
the muscles, with most of the remaining one-third in extra-cellular compartments
in the blood.
Maffetone says, “Generally, athletes wait for their sense of thirst to signal
that it’s time to drink. However, thirst is sensed only after dehydration has
started. More importantly, once you are dehydrated, it may take as much as 48 hours
to properly re-hydrate. This is why so many athletes, unknowingly, are in a constant
state of dehydration. As blood volume becomes diminished, blood flow (along with
oxygen and other nutrients) to the muscles is significantly reduced, rendering them
less functional. This condition raises the heart rate. Many athletes who observe an
elevation of resting heart rate, or a plateau or worsening in their aerobic function
are probably dehydrated. Their elevated heart rate forces them to slow the pace. In
addition, the ability to expel heat, which is always accumulating during training
(and especially racing) is diminished by dehydration since skin circulation is reduced.
This elevates the body’s core temperature, which further reduces performance. This
situation can also be dangerous.”
A Coke in Your Veins
In ultra endurance events such as the Hawaii Ironman, it is not uncommon for up to
one-fifth of the field of 1000 triathletes to receive an I.V. in the medical tent
after crossing the finish line. As one medical tent doctor replied, “An I.V.
is like getting a Coke right in your veins. It’s an immediate rush.”
But dehydration in endurance contests is no laughing matter. At the X-Games
adventure race in Baja, Mexico, in 1997, several teams had to be evacuated due to
heat dehydration; the ground temperature was over 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and
the desert course lacked sufficient water stops. One woman went into a coma and
suffered brain damage.
Finally, if you are concerned about water shortage as Y2K approaches, you may
want to heed this advice from Colors Magazine: Buy a water bed and fill it with
distilled water; it will provide you and your family with 1,500 liters of
drinking water.
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