Q:
In the Cowden Support Program, it says that the patient must drink 3 litres of water per day
(I guess this also may be including herbal tea, fresh vegetable/fruit juices
and sparkling water as well as normal tap-water). Everybody seems to have
problems with this amount. Is the 3 litres including the liquid that is in
their food or is it on top of that? Also a problem is that in England an
alternative practitioner has been charged for recommending her patient to drink
3 litres per day, her patient got a brain damage from this. So I really need
some more clarification on this.
Dr Cowden's Answer: I would like to see all of the
details on the patient in England who reportedly got “brain damage” from
drinking only 3 liters of water per day. I have spoken to dozens of other
integrative practitioners who recommend 3 quarts or 3 liters per day of water
for their average-sized adult patients & none of them have seen adverse
reactions in their patients with that volume of daily water except in patients
who already had heart failure or kidney failure or possibly in patients who
drank 3 liters of distilled or reverse-osmosis water daily for a protracted
time without taking replacement minerals.
In
India there are reportedly many practitioners who recommend a water fast where
their adult patients drink one gallon (4 liters) of mineralized spring water on
the first day, 2 gallons on the second day, 3 gallons on the third day and 4
gallons on the fourth day (which is the last day) without adverse
effects. I did, however see a patient many years ago who was a
psychogenic water drinker and who drank 5 gallons of distilled water in
one day, developed hyponatremia & status epilepticus & died from the
seizures (that’s almost 20 liters of distilled water, rather than 3
liters).
I
advise against drinking distilled water or reverse osmosis water (unless
sufficient minerals are added back into the water first). Drinking 2-3
ounces (60-90ml) of mineralized water every 10-15 minutes during all waking
hours causes most of the water to go into the cells, hydrate the cells,
mobilize toxins out of the cells & ultimately mobilize toxins out of the
body (mostly through urine & feces). Drinking larger volumes of water
at longer intervals (even though it might be the same total water volume
consumed in 24 hours) causes more washing of minerals out through the kidneys
& less toxin removal.
Black
tea, green tea, coffee, sodas & alcoholic drinks are not
hydrating. Alcohol is a diuretic. Caffeine (in coffee, sodas & even
in the regular tea-leaf) is a diuretic. Theobromine in the regular
tea-leaf is also a diuretic. Most herbal teas, though, are
hydrating. Vegetable juice is hydrating. Fruit juice, when consumed
by someone who does not spill sugars into their urine, is hydrating (but
otherwise will act like a diuretic). Likewise, when too much sugar is added to
herbal teas, they can be dehydrating rather than hydrating; therefore, the best
choice of sweetners for herbal teas would be Nutramedix Stevia.
Most chronically-ill patients have tissue acidity. Sparkling water
contains carbon dioxide, which is converted by chemical reaction in the water
into carbonic acid, which further worsens the tissue acidity. Therefore, I discourage
patients from drinking sparkling (carbonated) water unless they know, from
measuring their saliva pH prior to meals, that their saliva pH is greater than
7.0.
Many of these techniques & principles used by me & other
integrative medicine doctors to help patients get well, when allopathic
medicine fails, are described in video courses on the website for the Academy (www.acimconnect.com)
