How Water Affects Your Body

How Water Affects Your Body Dr. Travis Stork: Now your body is made up of 60 sometimes up to 75% water. And anyone never know how much water that actually adds up to. For the average, a 160 pound female, that’s how much water you are. And of course it depends on how much muscle mass you have, et cetera. That’s quite a bit. And water is the fuel that your body absolutely needs. We’re talking about water, not soda, not coffee. When you drink water, it goes down your digestive tract. It gets absorb in your small intestines. And then that’s 50% water. What you’re seeing those green pallets, those are nutrients to water helps to pull that to your bloodstream, to your kidneys now. What your kidneys do is it takes unfiltered blood and it filters out waste and then returns filtered blood to your body. And believe it or not, this is what’s amazing. In this kidney, there are these little micro filters. And we have over a million of these tiny filters called nephrons. And they work overtime if you’re dehydrated. If sometimes kidneys stones are caused by build up of calcium. And believe it or not, one of the things that we recommend to people with kidney stones is to drink plenty of water, because it helps flush things through — it prevents those crystals from forming. And it’s important when it comes to -- Dr. Lisa Masterson: Muscles and your joints. Water is really important for building muscles and maintaining the protectiveness of your joints. Water is the main component in muscle and did you know that water makes up 75% of your muscles. 75%, that’s huge. So when you’re working out, that’s one reason why you have to hydrate yourself really well when you’re working out because even if you drop a little bit, it can decrease your productivity for the muscles by 15%. Dr. Travis Stork: This is what’s called skeletal muscle, like say the bicep. This is called smooth muscle in your digestive tract; the muscles that help propel food through your system. Dr. Lisa Masterson: So you see a difference there. Dr. Jim Sears: I know we stay -- try to stay so hydrated because the moment you get dehydrated just a little bit, your strength just is zapped. Dr. Lisa Masterson: It goes down. Dr. Travis Stork: It really is. Dr. Lisa Masterson: But the other thing that’s made up of water is bones. The bones have 20% of water, a little bit more than that. But the other thing is the water also keeps the joints lubricated so that they can move and it cushions and protects them as well. But this wouldn’t be complete if I forgot about my pregnant women. Pregnant women especially have to drink water hydrate themselves because their blood volume doubles. This also protects them against constipation, against preterm labor, so they need about eight to 10, eight ounces of glasses a day. And then the caveat is breastfeeding women don’t need even more than that. More water won’t necessarily make more breast milk but they need to drink when they’re thirsty. Drink at meals, drink when they’re breastfeeding because that does help breast flow and breastfeeding. So it’s really going to -- Dr. Jim Sears: That’s a good point because I’ve heard a lot of people talking on message boards like maybe getting too much water when they’re breastfeeding. Dr. Lisa Masterson: Guys, yeah, you don’t want to do that. It’s not that you have to drink tons, tons while you’re breastfeeding that will make more breast, no. Dr. Travis Stork: Jim, you got a quasi muscle on your hand that I don’t know much about this muscle. Dr. Jim Sears: This actually we’ve removed the brain from a certain Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and we have it here today to show to you -- Dr. Drew Ordon: -- you’re the man with two brains. Dr. Jim Sears: Yeah, I’m the man with two brains. This is your brain and if you feel -- this is actually very heavy and your brain actually contains about a liter of water. And that’s about how much water is shown right here. I’m going to soak this up with a sponge. If your brain is dehydrated, stress hormones are released, and that actually, can actually damage your brain over time. That’s why you really want to keep your brain hydrated. It’s really important. If you start to get dehydrated, your brain actually won’t work as well and that’s one of the reasons I advocate putting a bottle of water in kids to school lunch’s that way, they’re at peak mental performance in class. Right exactly. It’s like the brain move --