Intestinal and stomach gas
Stomach bloating with excessive gas is one of the very common harmful constipation side
effects. There can be many reasons for stomach gas, constipation is one of them.
Stomach and intestinal gas consists of 3 components:
- Air swallowed during eating and drinking, that includes drinking carbonated drinks like beer, soda and other soft drinks.
- Gas generated during 2. digestion process.
- Gas generated inside the colon.
Much of the air swallowed comes out by belching, but not all of it. Some of it gets trapped in food and gets carried into the intestines. Gas that comes out by belching normally has no offensive smell.
Gas generated inside during digestion process travels into the colon and goes out through the rectum. It is flatus, meaning, mixture of gases. The process of flatus coming out of the rectum is called farting or flatulence. Unless you are constipated, flatus doesn’t smell bad.
It is natural that some amount of gas is produced during digestion of food. On the average, a healthy adult produces a liter of gas. This doesn’t form part of constipation side effects.
Excessive flatus that causes stomach bloating is produced due to the following reasons:
- Health of your digestive system. Sluggish digestion process produces more gas. For example, if you drink good amount of water just before, during or immediately after food, the digestive juices get diluted. It makes the digestion process slow and causes fermentation of food. Fermentation releases gas.
- Proteins: Food rich in proteins, starch and fat makes the digestion process slow and cause release of more gas.
- Mixing foods: Eating slow and fast digesting foods together. For example, fruits get digested very fast. Vegetables, pulses etc take more time. Non-veg food is much slower. If you eat them together, fast digesting food gets fermented since it stays along with other food. Fermentation causes release of gas.
- Health of the small intestine. Movement of food in the small intestine is facilitated by the peristaltic movement of intestine muscles. Dehydrated body or unhealthy intestine can make the muscular movement sluggish or irregular. Slow movement of food causes fermentation and release of gas.
- Constipation. More gas is generated inside the colon because of constipation.
- Health of your colon. Once the undigested food, toxins, dead cells and bacteria enters the colon, it is garbage and should be removed from the body as soon as possible. If you are constipated, the waste stays much longer inside the colon than required, may be more than a week. This stool gets putrefied and cause release of offensive gas.
- Medicines: Certain medications can cause release of gas. For example, Precose or Acarbose used for diabetes can cause excessive gas.
Let us have more details about point no.5 and 6 since it is the subject of our discussion.- Constipation side effects.
How constipation causes gas and stomach bloating?
If you don’t have regular and complete evacuation, you are constipated. Constipation causes are many. Two major ones are:
- Dehydrated body. If you are habitually drinking less water, the stool has less water content and moves much slower in the colon. As it moves, more water gets absorbed from it and becomes hard and dry. Dry stool stays longer in the colon. Germs and bacteria cause fermentation and rotting of stool, causing more gas.. Peristaltic movement of the colon, which makes stool move forward, is also sluggish and irregular in a dehydrated body, making things worse.
- Low fiber diet. Lack of enough fiber in the food. Fiber makes the stool bulky and helps to retain more water in the stool, making it soft and movement easy. Insufficient fiber results in hard compacted stool, making its movement difficult.
How to reduce stomach gas caused by constipation?
Whether stomach bloating is the result of constipation or not, if you have constipation, get rid of it.
- If your constipation is long standing, your colon surely has stool stagnated for days, may be weeks. The immediate action is, clean your colon. The best colon cleanse is colon cleansing enema with plain water.
- It is safe
- No side effects
- Not habit forming
- You can do it yourself at home
- No need to abstain from work
- Doesn’t pinch your pocket. You just need an enema kit.
You need to repeat the process for 6 to 7 days so that the hardened stool sticking to the walls of the colon gets softened and dislodged.
- Once you colon is clean, you have less chance of stomach bloating since gas produced because of constipation also gets cleaned up. Now you need to make sure that constipation doesn’t come back. Since one of the main causes of constipation is dehydration, it is important to be aware of
- The importance of drinking water.
- Benefits of drinking water.
- How much water to drink?
- When to drink water and how to pass stool twice?
- Make sure that you have enough fiber content in your diet. Low fiber diet is another major cause for constipation. Reduce non-veg food, as it has zero fiber.
- Eat good amount of fruits, vegetable juices, vegetables and green leafy vegetables.
- Alcoholic beverages make your body dehydrated. Avoid them. Chances of stomach bloating is more serious with regular use of alcohol.
- Have reasonable amount of physical activity. Physical exercises are very important for a healthy body.
- As far as possible, don’t hold stool. You get habituated and your body stops giving indications.
- If you ever feel stomach bloating, lie down and relax. Flatus escapes when you lie down. You can try 3 positions – lie on your back, on your right side and on your left side, 5 minutes in each position. Flatus escapes this way.
- Pavanamuktasana is effective in releasing flatus. Press you thighs and knees against the chest and belly. This asana releases gas trapped in the colon.
Tips for proper bowel movement: Keep your mind on the colon a few minutes before and during evacuation. Don’t carry a book, news paper, cell phone etc. into the toilet. They divert your mind.
The only effective way to treat constipation side effects like stomach bloating and excessive gas is to get rid of constipation. Go for medication only when it is a must. A number of health problems can be solved through modification of eating habits and lifestyle. It is more safe, effective and permanent this way.
Health problems from insufficient water
How much water do you drink in a day?
To get the full benefits of drinking water, this is a major criteria. How will you know if your body is starved of water? People don’t recognize or care the symptoms the body is showing. Your body shows symptoms of a deficiency. If you neglect the symptoms, it turns into a problem. If you still neglect, it becomes a major disease.
What are the symptoms of insufficient water in your body (dehydration)?
- Yellow colored urine. Urine is hot, less in quantity, foamy, smelly and burns while passing.
- Urine gives offensive smell.
- Headache
- Burning eyes
- Skin burns when you go out in hot sun.
- Dry mouth, thirsty feeling.
Only the sixth symptom may get some reaction from you. It is the last symptom you get, by which time your body’s dehydration level is quite severe.
What do you do when you are thirsty?
Only a small percentage of people drink water. Others go for soft drinks, coffee, tea, ice cream, beer etc. None of these give the benefits of drinking water. Many mistake it for hunger and go for snacks.
What happens if you don’t take remedial action when the symptoms show up?
You get into many health problems. Even though there may be other reasons for some of the problems given below, not drinking enough water is definitely one of the causes.
Water is needed for the secretion of saliva. If your body is starved of water, very little saliva is produced. What does saliva do? You can’t feel the taste in the absence of saliva. It helps in the first stage of digestion of food in your mouth. Easy passage of food from mouth to stomach.
Without Saliva, food gets obstructed in your throat. Protects mouth from extreme dryness. Protects teeth from bacterial decay by breaking down entrapped food particles. If swallowing becomes difficult or food gets stuck, what people normally do? Push the food with the help of water. They drink water, not because they want to drink it. It is only to push food.
Acidity- burning in stomach
Spicy foods can cause acidity, but only to a small extent. Often, water deficiency is the main reason for acidity. How acidity and water are connected?
When food reaches stomach, gastric acid is produced to digest food. Gastric juice contains hydrochloric acid. Food becomes acidic when the acid mixes with food. To prevent damage of stomach lining from acid, mucus is also produced and forms protective barrier between acidic food and stomach walls.
Water is a major content of this protective mucus. By drinking enough water, sufficient quantity of mucus is produced to protect the stomach. Dehydration of the body results in insufficient mucus and acid enters stomach lining. But, body has provision for 2nd stage protection as well.
As a second stage of protection, sodium bicarbonate is produced in the stomach lining to neutralize hydrochloric acid. Sodium bicarbonate combines with the acid and sodium chloride (salt) is produced. This salt in the stomach lining causes burning.
So the main reason for acidity is water deficiency. By drinking enough water, sufficient quantity of mucus is produced and there is no necessity to activate second stage protection and no formation of salt.
Gastric pain
You get gastric pain after an hour of taking food. After the second stage of digestion, food enters small intestine for the third and final stage of digestion. Food enters small intestine through pyloric valve at the entrance.
When food leaves stomach, it is acidic. If acidic food enters small intestine, it can damage intestine lining and cause ulcers. There is a protection mechanism in the form of pancreatic juice produced by pancreas. Pancreatic juice neutralizes acidic food.
Unless and until acid food is neutralized, pyloric valve doesn’t open and food can’t enter small intestine. Water is needed to produce pancreatic juice. If the body is dehydrated, no water, so no pancreatic juice, Food can’t enter small intestine.
But stomach finished its work and is pushing food towards pyloric valve, which is closed. So you get pain. There may be other reasons, but this is the one related water deficiency.
Slow digestion
Reason? Slow movement of food in intestines. In intestines, food moves through peristaltic movement. Motilin hormone produced in small intestine stimulates peristaltic movement. Water is needed for the production of motilin too. If not drinking enough water, less motilin is produced, resulting in slow peristaltic movement and slow movement of food.
Acid reflex
After 2nd stage of digestion, if the acid food is not neutralized, pyloric valve doesn’t allow food to enter small intestine. Sometimes pyloric valve has irregular contractions and food enters esophagus by reflex mechanism. Again, as in the case of gastric pain, acid reflex is also because of water deficiency.
Constipation
Constipation is one of the most widespread problems that cause many harmful side effects. Its starting point is water deficiency in the body. How does water deficiency cause constipation? Read all about the importance of drinking water.
Digestion of proteins
Inadequate water in the body causes improper digestion of proteins since proteins need more water for digestion.
Histamines
Insufficient water in the body triggers release of histamines. If you neglect drinking enough water, there is mechanism in the body to decrease water evaporation and supply the available water to the most needed organs. Histamines control water evaporation by making the respiratory bronchioles (tiny air tubes) contract. It has a side effect- you get breathlessness.
Along with histamines, some more hormones are released. They help in controlling water usage – take water supply from the less needed parts and supply to the most needed parts. In this process, some water is taken away from blood, making it more viscous (thick). If blood becomes think, absorption, transportation and delivery of nutrients become less efficient. In addition, these hormones in the body cause allergies – breathlessness, cold, sneezing etc.
Slow metabolism
Metabolism becomes slow in a dehydrated body. Even though you eat well, you feel that you lack energy.
Erosion of joints, neck pain, lower back pain
These are very common and serious problems people get into by not drinking enough water. That doesn’t mean it’s normal. A joint is a place where two or more bones meet to allow movement. Crackling sounds and erosion of joints is because of insufficient lubrication. A joint has cartilage – a sponge like substance filled with lubricant. When we use the joint, lubricant comes out to prevent friction.
Water is needed for the secretion of lubricant. If cartilage gets less water, there is less or no lubrication and joints make noise and erode due to friction. Similarly, neck pain and lower back pain are also caused by loss of cushioning property of the respective discs. Along with water, sufficient exercise is also needed to keep the joints in good condition.
Kidney stones
This is a very serious problem you get if you ignore drinking enough water. Kidneys filter out excess salts like calcium, oxalates and the filtered substances are sent out in the form of urine. Insufficient body water causes concentration of excess salts in urine and formation of stones.
Halitosis (bad breath) & under-arm smell
People having bad breath use chewing gum, mouth spray or a mouthwash. Many have body smell, especially under-arm smell. What do they do? Take bath and use body spray. You are only hiding the problem. All the smells and skin allergies originate from unclean environment inside. The problem will not go by cleaning outside. Instead, clean inside. Take care that waste matter is removed regularly and completely.
High blood pressure
Many of us don't know that blood pressure is linked with drinking enough water. When the body doesn’t have sufficient water, it tries to conserve the available water by preventing water loss through skin and respiration. How? By vasoconstriction (narrowing of blood vessels). This narrowing of blood vessels causes increase of blood pressure.
Sun allergies
Water protects your body from sun’s heat. Water evaporates through skin and keeps the body cool. When there is insufficient water in the body, water evaporation is prevented and body doesn’t get cooled.
Urinary infections
Urine consists of toxins, bacteria and acids. When there is enough water in the body, all the waste matter gets diluted and goes out in urine. If the body is dehydrated, there is heavy
concentration of waste matter in urine, causing infections.
Headache
Many chronic headaches vanished just by drinking enough water. Headache is the result of insufficient water supply to brain cells. Did you observe that more females suffer from headache than males? Females drink less water so that they need not visit toilet often.
Swelling of joints and other parts
Here, the basic culprit is salt. Insufficient water causes accumulation of salt, mainly in joints. Salt attracts water. In spite of water shortage for other essential functions, water gathers where ever there is salt – places where there is less movement. Drinking more water causes salt being taken away through urine and sweat.
Weight gain
Water shortage causes weight gain in indirect way. When you feel thirsty because of body dehydration,
- You mistake it for hunger and eat more food.
- Even when you know you are thirsty, you don’t go for water. Instead, you go for beer, ice cream or other sugar filled beverages.
These things are filled with empty calories that get stored in the body as fat, causing weight gain.
You can be free from such serious health problems by drinking enough water. You are not required to be hospitalized, no need to run behind the doctors, not even swallow a few pills. Such an easy and effective solution - just drinking enough water. Right now, start getting all the benefits of drinking water.
When you talk about the eating and drinking habits of people, you will notice a surprising, sad but true practice. People take extreme care about the water they drink. They look for the best drinking water.
But very few are bothered about what they eat – quality and quantity. What I mean by quality is – not whether you eat your pizza or fried chicken from international brands. We are concerned about the nutrition value and the harm or good it causes to your body.
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| Mineral water |
Which is a good practice – drinking softened water or mineral water? Do you use water filter or water purifier? Many important questions related water for body health:
- Which is the best water to drink?
- Why is drinking cold water or hot water not good?
- When to drink water?
- Is drinking water with meals a bad practice?
- Swallowing food is difficult at times. Why?
- Some people don’t feel thirst. Why?
This page gives you answers to many frequently asked questions related to – drinking water for health.
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| Candle water filter |
Which is the best water to drink?
Theoretically, best drinking water is - boiled and cooled water, as it kills virus and bacteria present in water. Bottled mineral water or water from water purifiers is also good as it is free of disease causing germs. You get some essential salts by drinking softened water.
The problem with all the well treated water is - if you drink a certain type of water for a long time, even the best drinking water, your body gets used to that water. You are forced to continue the same and any other water can make you sick.
When you drink well treated water for a long time, the defense mechanism of your body slowly decreases. Reason? It doesn’t have any work - it need not fight external virus or bacteria. It becomes lazy and gets deactivated. In due course, your body will lose all the resistance power.
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| Pureit water filter |
As long as you manage to drink the same type of water, you are ok. For you, it is the best water to drink. Any water change, you will be in trouble. Animals don’t drink mineral water. Neither do they have water purifiers. They drink water from dirty ponds, rivers or where ever they find it. Still they don’t get cholera or typhoid. Their body’s resistance power is so strong.
Avoid drinking water stored in a plastic vessel. Good quality stainless steel vessel is ok, copper vessel is better; mud pot is the best to store water.
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| UV water purifier |
Drinking cold water
Water can be absorbed in the stomach and intestines only when its temperature is same as that of the stomach or intestines. Cold water delays water absorption.
When you drink very cold water, its chilling effect deactivates the protection capacity of tonsils in killing bacteria. Cold water also have chilling effect on the stomach lining and makes the 2nd stage protection ineffective.
Drinking cold water or cold beverage makes saliva glands contract and they won’t produce sufficient saliva.
During summer, go for cool water from mud pot or bring fridge water from cold to cool before drinking.
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| RO water purifier |
Drinking hot water
If you have cold, the best water to drink is hot water - you should not drink but take very small sips. Sipping removes heat by the time water crosses your throat. Otherwise, avoid drinking or eating very hot or very cold stuff - let it be water or any other beverage or food.
Drinking warm water is good, especially for people with
- Burning sensation in the stomach
- Ulcers
- Isnophilia
- Cold
- Cough
- Asthma
When to drink water, when not to drink
Even if you go for the best drinking water, it will affect negatively if you drink at the wrong time.
- Avoid drinking water during food except in emergency.
- After food, give a gap of minimum two hours before drinking water.
- After water, give a gap of minimum ½ hour before having food.
Drinking water with meals is a bad practice
We often see 4 incorrect ways people drink water:
- Drink water almost with every mouthful of food. – to push food down the line into the stomach. Reason? Food doesn’t go down smoothly without pushing it with water.
- Drink 1 or 2 glasses of 2. water before food.
- Drink 1 or 2 glasses after food.
- Drink ½ glass now and then during food.
When you drink water during food, it dilutes digestive juices, making the digestive process slow. Food will stay longer in the stomach, resulting in fermentation and release of excessive gas.
Drinking water during food causes another problem: Digestive juices contain hydrochloric acid. One of the functions of this acid is, it kills bacteria present in food. If you drink water during food, this acid gets diluted and become less effective in killing bacteria.
If you drink water during meals, you become breathless and uncomfortable because of the extra weight of water in the stomach. Thus, even the best drinking water taken at the wrong time will cause harm.
Why is swallowing difficult?
By chewing, food mixes with saliva and becomes a paste. Food in this form makes swallowing easy. But, when you eat in a hurry, you don’t chew food properly. It makes swallowing difficult and you need water to push it down. Here, the most important thing to remember is, if your body is starved of water, it won’t produce sufficient amount of saliva, making swallowing of food difficult. The solution is – drink sufficient water at the right time.
Why don’t I feel thirsty?
Many people like to drink water only when they are thirsty. The first time when you were thirsty, you were too busy to reach for water or you preferred some other drink. When this happens repeatedly, you get accustomed for dehydration and you will never know that you are dehydrated.
So, don’t wait until you are thirsty. it is the last symptom of dehydration your body shows. Drink sufficient water - your best drinking water.
Drinking water and weight loss
Drinking water to lose weight - The last symptom of dehydration is thirst. Can you differentiate between hunger and thirst? Many people can’t. When thirsty, they mistake it for hunger and eat food, let it be snacks or some high calorie food. These extra calories - by eating food instead of drinking water – get converted into fat and stored in the body.
Even when they identify it as thirst, instead of going for the water bottle, they go for cold soft drink, ice cream, beer or some packaged fruit juice. Such foods contain huge amount of empty calories that get deposited as fat in your body, resulting in weight gain.
If you drink sufficient water as and when required, no dehydration and no thirsty feeling. It is less likely that you go for sugar filled beverages. Your food intake also reduces to some extent, resulting in weight loss.
Tip: Respond to the urge to pass urine as soon as possible.
Only man is capable of controlling urine - and get into problems like kidney infection and failure. Animals don’t have such control. They drink as much water as their body needs and pass urine as the urge comes. They don’t get kidney failures.
Passing urine is not a nuisance. It is essential for body health. Get hold of the best water to drink, drink sufficient water and pass urine as and when the urge comes.
Importance of drinking water, the basic facts
Water is the second most essential requirement of your body to function properly. There
are seven essential requirements. In the order of importance, they are:
- Air
- Water
- Food
- Exercise
- Waste removal
- Rest
- Good thoughts
Why water comes second?
- Without air, you can’t live more than a few seconds.
- Without water, you can live for a few days, but not more.
- Without food, you can live for a few months.
Fortunately,
the requirement of air is fulfilled automatically through breathing.
But the other six are not so. You have to provide them. This is where
the problem comes.
People get into health problems because they give more importance to food and neglect the other five items.
Many drink water as they like or don’t like. If you don’t drink methodically, you won’t get the full benefits of drinking water.
Do you know that you can avoid many major or minor health problems by drinking enough water in proper manner?
Fortunately,
people are becoming more aware of the importance of drinking water.
But, the awareness is limited to a few basic facts only.
Important facts and health benefits of drinking water
- Why drink water?
- What happen by not drinking enough water?
- Why water is essential to avoid constipation?
- Best water to drink.
- How much water to drink?
- When to drink water?
- How to drink water?
- What happens by drinking water with meals?
- Relation between drinking water and weight loss.
You
may find some of these issues very trivial or unimportant. No, they are
not. If you don’t drink in a systematic way, you won't get the full
benefits of drinking water. Instead, you will land in a few health
problems.
These
pages will give you the concepts of drinking water. By following these
simple steps, you will get the real benefits of drinking water. It is
not that drinking water alone will make you completely healthy. But it
is a strong basic step towards good health.
Average
human body consists of 60% of water by weight, which indicates that you
should give more importance to water than food in your daily intake.
But people do the reverse. They are obedient to their tongue and eat as
per the taste- when ever and what ever they like.
Tongue
is a very small part of your body. But, you make the tongue happy and
neglect the rest of your body. That is unfair and can lead you to severe
health problems.
What do you get if you eat what your tongue likes?— taste!
What do you get if you drink water?— urine! More water—more urine.
So you think- who will pass urine so many times?
It disturbs your work. You are busy and don’t like to be disturbed. So don’t drink water- simple.
Problem solved.
But, it is the starting point to your health problems.
What do you do when you feel thirsty?
- You mistake it for hunger and eat.
- You may go for a soft drink, ice cream, fruit juice, beer or some other energy drink, but not water. Even though some of them contain good amount of water, they are foods. They can’t do the work of water.
Your body needs something and you give it something different.
A mistake!
Is it right to expect your body to work properly without giving what it needs?
The result of this mistake?-
The brief disturbances (passing urine) you wanted to avoid by not
drinking water, can lead to many health problems like constipation,
kidney infections, skin allergies, hypertension and drive you to
hospitals. It is not only a very long and painful disturbance; you will
lose money and peace of mind. Never under estimate the importance of drinking water.
How does low fiber diet cause constipation?
If stool moves freely in the colon and gets evacuated completely on daily basis, there are no issues. But, if the stool movement is slow, you may have partial excretion or irregular excretion or both. This is constipation.
You need three things for free movement of stool in the colon.
- Enough water content in the stool to keep it soft.
- Enough mass to move the stool properly
- Peristaltic movement of colon walls to push the stool.
Sufficient quantity of fiber is required to meet condition no.2. When fiber absorbs water, its bulk (mass) increases and also makes the stool soft. If you consume low fiber diet, you get into problems.
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| Blocked colon |
In the absence of fiber, movement of stool slows down. As stool remains longer in the colon, more water gets absorbed and stool becomes dry and hard. This further slows down the movement.
If you consume high fiber diet, you are less likely to get constipated. Obviously, you need to drink enough water in increase the bulk of the fiber.
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (Formerly the American Dietetic Association) recommends 14 g dietary fiber per 1,000 kcal, or 25 gm for adult women and 38 gm for adult men per day.
Average daily intake of dietary fiber is only 15 gm. in U.S.
Reason?
Consumption of refined and processed foods, which lose natural fiber during such processes. Another major reason is non veg foods. Animal based foods have zero fiber. No wonder, constipation is more widespread in U.S.
Fast food
This type of American culture of eating refined and processed foods (low fiber diet) is spreading to other developing countries like India, as preparation of such foods is easy and fast. Fast food culture is the prime reason for constipation to become so common.
People having dental problems find chewing fiber rich food difficult. Seniors may find it hard to chew as well as swallow. Such people may opt for easy ways- by going for refined and processed foods and get into constipation problems. The pain an elderly constipated person has to undergo during evacuation is unimaginable. Low fiber diet has such terrible impact on health.
Dietary fiber
All plant foods contain dietary fiber. Dietary fiber is of two types - soluble and insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber is what is required to avoid constipation.
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| Low fiber diet examples |
If your diet consists of considerable amount of meat, eggs, bakery products made of refined flour, polished grains like white rice and dairy products, you are going to be in trouble- if you are already not. These low fiber diets or more properly called ‘no fiber diets’ definitely cause constipation and many associated harmful side effects.
Are you worried that you are drinking too much water? Similar to this one, people have many questions and doubts. The most important among them are:
- Drinking 4 to 5 liters – won’t it overload your kidneys?
- Won’t your body lose essential salts by passing more urine?
- Is it harmful to drink more water than required?
- What is the maximum amount of water you can drink at a time?
- Who shouldn’t drink more water?
- Drinking too much water can cause swelling of joints. Is it a fact?
Unless you have clarity on such important issues, you will not be able to get the full benefits of drinking water.
Kidneys get overloaded by drinking too much water – is it true?
Your body has two kidneys. Each kidney has about one million filters called nephrons. Two kidneys – two million filters. Together, they filter five liters of blood twice in an hour. This filtering activity is uninterrupted, whether you drink water or not.
Why blood needs filtering?
There is only one way the nutrients reach body cells – blood. There is only one way the toxins and dissolved waste reach the eliminating organs (skin, lungs and kidneys) – blood.
Since blood carries useful and waste matter, it needs filtering. Filtering does three things:
- The required amount of nutrients and salts are sent back into the blood.
- Toxins and waste matter are removed from blood and retained in kidneys.
- Extra water is also removed from blood and retained in kidneys.
The retained toxins and waste matter are dissolved in the water and removed as urine.
The important point here is: In a normal healthy person, there is no chance of essential salts being removed through urine. If you pass more urine, only excess salts will come out. Kidneys have balancing mechanism.
Kidneys get overloaded by not drinking enough water.
What happens when there is not enough water in the body?
Since water is required to remove toxins, some minimum amount of water is taken away from blood to remove toxins. Blood is left with less water. When less water is available to dissolve so much waste, urine gets very thick and very toxic.
When body water is very low, it can’t be spared to remove toxins and toxins are sent back into the blood. Next time more toxins join the blood and again sent back into the blood in the next filtering process. This repeated process, because of water shortage, saturates blood with toxins and blood becomes thick.
Repeated filtering of thick blood saturated with toxins damage kidney filters. Such is the importance of drinking water.
So, overloading of kidneys is not because of drinking too much water. It is the opposite. Extra water won't stay in your body for long. If you drink two liters of water, it comes out as urine or sweat in three hours.
Maximum amount of water at a time:
As per the experts, you can drink maximum of two liters at a time. When you drink two liters on empty stomach, your body absorbs water very fast. When water enters blood (all the two liters won’t enter blood), its gets thinner only by 3%. This two liters of water can cause only a small amount of change in your body.
Do you feel it cumbersome to carry water around and remember when to drink?
Do you want to avoid this problem by drinking all the required water at a time?
Please never do that. If you drink so much water at a time, your blood vessels get filled with water, huge pressure gets built up. It can cause giddiness, vomiting, coma etc. Drink only in the suggested way –
How much water to drink ?
When to drink water ?
– a maximum of 1.5 liters at a time.
Who shouldn’t drink more water?
If you have any of the following health problems, drink water as per your doctor’s advice.
- Kidney problems
- Liver cirrhosis
- Certain heart problems
- Glaucoma
- Water gathering in many body parts because of various other reasons
- Problems related to thyroid
Fluid gathering in joints
Many wrongly believe that drinking too much water causes swelling of joints and other body parts.
There are many reasons for accumulation of fluid in joints and other part of the body. One of the reasons is – shortage of water in your body. Surprising? You thought that by drinking too much water, the excess water gathers in the joints.
Not so.
Are you aware that salt attracts water? Deposition of excessive salt is not uniform through out the body. Its presence is more in joints. As salt attracts water, you find fluid gathering in joints.
The reason for excessive salt in the body is – either you are eating too much salt or you are not drinking enough water to flush out the salt…or both.
So, it is not ‘drinking too much water’ that causes fluid gathering, on the contrary, – ‘drinking less water’ is the cause.
How much water to drink?
You get a number of answers to this question – each one different from the other.
The fact is, many of us neither have a clear idea nor do we care about it - ‘Water is such a trivial thing to be worried about. There are many important things in life to be taken care of.’
Agreed. There are very important things in life. Your well being – physical and mental – is essential to attend to those important things. Physical health and mental health are not separate. Each influences the other.
Do you know that you can get into many major and minor health problems because -
- You don’t drink enough water
- You don’t drink water at the right time
- You drink water at the wrong time
Just one example:
Shortage of water in your body will lead to constipation. Hemorrhoids, gas and bloating, skin diseases, bad breath and many more health problems arise from constipation.
So - how much water to drink – is not a trivial issue.
People drink as they like- one glass, two glasses, four…eight glasses maximum. They don’t follow a system because, everybody is doing the same. If everyone is doing it, it must be right.
The present day attitude is- ‘If I fell sick, no matter, others are also falling sick. I am not alone! Health problems are common to humans.’
There is no time or inclination in people to think that their lifestyle is what is causing all the health problems.
Coming back to – how much water to drink in a day:
Doctors say – The amount of water your body uses per day, replenish that much water… Good theory.
Let us see how much water is spent in a day.
- Evaporation in lungs – 500 ml.
- Evaporation in colon – 400 ml.
- Evaporation through skin even without sweating – 500 ml
Total water lost due to evaporation: 1400 ml.
- Water lost in the form of urine and sweat - 1 to 1.5 lt
In winter, less sweat and more urine. In summer, more sweat and less urine. If you exercise or work more- more sweat and less urine.
Total water lost from the body: 2.5 to 3 lt.
So, as per doctors, it is enough if you drink 2.5 to 3 liters of water per day.
But, the theory of ‘refilling the amount of water lost’ holds good if and only if
- You eat natural food,
- You don’t take medicines.
- The food stuff you eat is free from chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
- Your food is free of spices, sugar, oil and excess salt.
- You are free from tension.
More water is needed for digesting food containing spices, sugar, oil and salt and some more water for flushing them out.
Water is needed to wash out chemicals in food – fertilizers, pesticides. Processed items like packaged foods, juices and soft drinks have chemicals.
If you use alcohol, tobacco etc, your body need much more water to flush them out.
In addition to all this, the present day life is filled with tension. Tension releases harmful hormones – water is required to remove them.
With all this additional requirement for water, 2.5 to 3 liters of water is not enough.
Taking the additional requirement into account, the question of- how much water to drink – is answered in the chart given below.
The quantity of water chosen was not arbitrary. If your body has shortage water, it tells you in the form of symptoms. In fact, it is not only water, your body shows symptoms of any deficiency. If you don’t react to fulfill the deficiency, symptoms become problems.
There are seven such symptoms that show up due to water shortage in the body.
By drinking less than 2 liters, you get all the 7 symptoms. If you drink 2.5 to 3 liters of water in a day, you get 4 or 5 symptoms.
4 to 5 liters a day will make all the 7 symptoms vanish. You get all the benefits of drinking water.
That answers the most confusing question – how much water to drink – you need 4.5 to 5 liters.
For people doing good amount of physical work or exercise, 5 to 6 liters
is required.
Important points related to – how much water to drink.
Drink ½ liter less water in winter and ½ liter more in summer.
Elders
Elders need less water – no extra cell growth, less physical activity, less food intake. In fact, the number of cells starts decreasing.
WHO(World Health Organization):
As per WHO, females need less water than males, but only to a small extent. But their requirement of water increases during pregnancy – to almost 5 liters and 5.5 liters during lactation period.
Pregnant women:
The basic reason why many pregnant women have vomiting and morning sickness: shortage of water in the body. She needs more water during pregnancy. Here too people make the same mistake – they give more importance to food. They are not aware of the importance of drinking water.
Normally, pregnant women are pampered - they do less or no exercise, overfed and dehydrated. The result is – morning sickness, constipation and weight gain.
Children:
'How much water to drink' is much more important in the case of growing children as they need more water for the growth of new cells. But mothers usually give more importance to food and health drinks than to water. Even when the child wants to water, he is not allowed. Because, elders’ feeling is – if he drinks more water, he can’t eat more food. Terrible mistake, because of ignorance.
Didn’t you notice mothers snatching away water glass from children? When a baby cries, we immediately feed her with milk, let it be mother’s milk or feeding bottle.
Instead, you should feed water first. It does two important things:
- Fulfills her body’s water needs.
- Keeps her away from constipation.
Children with water deficiency suffer from constipation - pass hard or ball shaped stool, making evacuation a painful exercise. Even though milk contains good amount of water, it is not enough.
Consider water is as important as milk – He will pass regular and soft stools comfortably. Stop feeling that if your child is fed with water, he will skip milk. Be assured – he won’t. He will drink just the amount of water he needs.
When to drink water?
No one tells animals when and how to drink water. Each animal category has a definite drinking pattern that never changes. No one told them to do so.
We, humans, don’t have any such definite pattern and it keeps changing. Medical literature tells us just this- drink 2 to 2.5 lt. It doesn’t tell when to drink. No books tell that.
When I ask people how much water they drink daily and when, the answer normally is –‘whenever I feel like'.
The usual answers for when to drink water :
- Mr.A drinks 2 to 3 glasses just before food (some do this to kill hunger…diet control for obesity)
- B takes one sip for every mouthful of food- just to push it down.
- C drinks 3 glasses between meals.
- D likes to finish his meal with 2 glasses after food.
- E doesn’t like water. He keeps cold drinks by his side during lunch and cold beer during dinner.
- F always finishes his meal with ice cream. ‘Ice cream is nothing but water, you know?’
- G drinks a glass when he is almost dying of thirst.
There is no definite system, method or pattern. The only pattern is, not having a pattern. Questions like- when to drink water , how to drink or how much to drink, don’t come into the mind. All these people have constipation.
The amount of water your body needs depends upon your age. In addition, a few factors like your profession, weather, your health condition etc. affect the quantity of water to a little extent- give or take ½ liter.
Average adult needs 4½ to 5 liters of water per day.
Let us come to When to drink water part. The aim is to get all the benefits of drinking water.
Divide the total quantity into two parts. Drink the first part early in the morning before breakfast and the second part during daytime. Each part serves a different purpose.
The first part of 2½ liters of water is used for internal cleaning of your body and the second part of 2 to 2½ liters is used for all body functions.
Why morning water is used for cleaning? If you had dinner at 19.00 hrs, it is fully digested by 24.00 or 1.00 hrs. From 1.00 to 6.00 in the morning, your body is resting except for a few essential service areas: heart, lungs and kidneys. Body uses this 5 or 6 hours of free time for repair, cleaning and recharge. Toxins, bacteria and waster matter are removed through sweat, urine and stool. The water you drink in the morning is used to flush out these wastes.
You are going to drink the first part in two installments of 1¼ liters each and the second part in many installments- one glass each time.
To make the process more clear, let me give specific timings. You don't have to follow them strictly. Add or subtract ½ hour as per your convenience. You may even get up much early or a bit late and start the process.
Early morning part of when to drink water -First installment.
Get up at 6. Brush your teeth.
If there is an urgent need to pass stool, finish that part. If not, no worry.
Whether you passed stool or not, you are going to drink 1¼ liters now- that too in a short time of not more than five minutes.
Fill your water bottle. Lift the bottle and drink steadily. Not in a hurry. Sometimes you may face obstruction or pain in the throat or down the line while drinking. In such case, give a few seconds gap and continue.
So, you finished drinking 1¼ liters by 6.15.
Now your stomach is loaded with 1¼ kg of water. The stomach is directly above the transverse colon. As the picture shows, your loaded stomach will apply pressure on the colon and push stool towards the rectum.
Here, you have to do something to make the stool movement easy and effective.
Move around your room with a leisurely walk and put your mind on your stomach and intestines. Imagine that your stomach is pressing your colon and stool is moving. This will relax your colon muscles and make stool movement easy. Let your mind not wander to other issues.
Normally it takes less than 10 minutes for the stool to reach the exit and you will feel urgency to pass. If it takes a bit longer, it is ok. Initially, it is a feeling but wait until it becomes urgent. Now is the time to let go. Sit on the commode. Stool comes out fast and you will finish it under one minute.
Wow! How do you feel? Very light, right? For you information, you most probably emptied only half the waste matter inside your colon. Some more is still there to be driven out. It is a step to get rid of constipation.
In case you passed sufficient stool before drinking water, and passed again after drinking, may be you completely emptied your colon.
The most important aspect to consider when you pass stool is- was it satisfactory? Did you feel light?
Let us consider a situation: You drank water, put your mind as mentioned and walked around. Still, there was no urge. Don’t get worried. It may happen a few times. But, don’t try to drink some more water immediately.
After passing stool, give a gap of 1 to 1½ hours before going for the 2nd installment of 1¼ liters. During this time, do exercise, pranayama or whatever you want to do.
Early morning part of when to drink water - 2nd installment.
Drink the 2nd installment of 1¼ liters at 8.30. Follow the same process as the first one and pass stool for the 2nd time.
Now, your colon is completely empty and you are ready for breakfast. You are on your way to cure constipation.
If you couldn’t pass first time and passed only after the 2nd installment, some waste is still left out in your colon. You try to pass it during the course of the day. If you passed stool once as soon as you got up and second time after the first 1¼ liters, drink the 2nd installment but need not try to pass stool.
After breakfast, you are into your usual routine activities. Drinking the 2nd part of water (2 to 2½ liters) begins two hours after your breakfast.
That is at 11.30.
Why two hours? It will take that much time for the food to vacate the stomach and enter the small intestine.
The 2½ liters of water you drink in the morning comes out as urine or sweat by 11.00, cleaning your body completely. The 2nd part of 2 to 2½ liters of water you drink during day time- how does it help your body?
- Protects your body from hot sun and any other external heat.
- Protects from internal heat
- Keeps the body cool by water evaporation.
- Helps in the secretion of digestive juices, lubricating fluids.
- Keeps the body and mind cool during stress and tension.
Let us assume your lunch time is 13.30. You will stop drinking at 13.00. The rule is-
- 30 minutes gap between water and food.
- 2 hours gap between food and water.
-
The 2nd part of when to drink water - before lunch.
Starting from 11.30, have a glass of water every 30 minutes. From 11.30 to 13.00, you drank 1 liter, assuming 250 ml is one glass.
Start your lunch at 13.30 and finish it by 14.00. Give a gap of 2 hours.
The 2nd part of when to drink water - after lunch.
Starting from 16.00, drink one glass of water every 30 minutes till 17.30 if your 2nd part of water is 2 liters. If it is 2½ liters, continue till 18.30.
That finishes full a day’s quota of 4½ or 5 liters- end of when to drink water. Stop drinking after18.30.
If drinking up to 18.30 is disturbing your sleep for urination, stop drinking beyond 17.30 or 18.00. In such case, to finish the required quota, drink 1 glass every 20 minutes instead of
½ hour.
A quick reference chart of when to drink water is given above for your convenience.
Passing stool any time during the course of the day is fine. It is good for your constipation.
Once you started drinking 4 to 4½ liters of water a day, in the beginning you may have to make more trips to toilet for urination. Later, it becomes normal and only the urine quantity
Importance of drinking water in avoiding constipation
Once you understand the importance of water, you are well on your way to get rid of constipation. How?
Because, shortage of water in your body (dehydration) is one of the prime causes of constipation. But how will you know about it?
Your body gives warning symptoms
You body gives warning symptoms of any upcoming health problem, so that you can initiate remedial measures.
Dehydration is indicated by
- Urine yellow, hot, burning, foamy, small in quantity and smells pungent.
- Burning eyes, eyes strain while reading.
- Skin very sensitive and burns when you go out in the hot Sun.
- Dry mouth and thirsty feeling.
- Headache.
- Constipation.
You need to recognize these symptoms and take steps so that it will not turn into problems like severe constipation with its dangerous side effects.
How does dehydration cause constipation?
Water is essential for the movement of food right from your mouth up to the small intestines and later for the movement of food waste as it enters your colon.
As you chew food, saliva is produced in the mouth for initiating digestion of carbohydrates. When saliva mixes with food, food gets lubricated for easy swallowing and later easy passing through esophagus (connecting tube between mouth and stomach).
You won’t produce enough saliva without enough water in your body.
Let us come to the specific case of constipation:
After the absorption of nutrients in the small intestines, the leftover waste enters the colon. This waste, called stool or feces, consists of undigested food, fiber, dead bacteria and dead cells. It consists of enough water when it enters the colon.
If your body is dehydrated, it tries to replenish by absorbing more water from the colon than normal. This makes stool harden much faster. Hard stool is difficult to move.
Peristaltic waves
Stool moves in the colon towards the rectum by the peristaltic waves (contraction and relaxation of muscles) of the colon walls. This peristaltic movement slows down in the absence of enough water in the body, causing ‘slow transit constipation’.
Water and fiber
Fiber (non-digestible fiber) absorbs good amount of water to increase its bulk and helps the stool to move easily in the colon. If you don’t have enough water, fiber can’t absorb water to increase its bulk. Stool movement becomes sluggish, causing constipation.
Water and colon lubrication
The importance of drinking water is once again highlighted when we consider the lubricant produced by colon walls to keep smooth movement of stool. In the absence of enough water, this production of lubricant also gets affected.
By this, two things will happen:
- Stool movement becomes sluggish, making the stool stay longer in the colon. This causes more absorption of water from stool, making it hard and black balls.
- Stool sticks to the colon walls and becomes hard much faster. It forms a thick layer along the walls of the colon, making it almost impossible to remove.
The importance of drinking water is not limited to curing constipation. There are umpteen number of health problems that can be cured just by drinking enough water. We will discuss more about that later.
Constipation causes – Apart from many direct causes like dehydrated body, low fiber diet and lack of physical exercises, there are a number of indirect causes that make you constipated. We will look into such most common causes of constipation.
When you are forced to have bed rest because of health problems, some cases of pregnancy, accident etc., your physical activity is practically zero. However, you are not going to reduce your food intake. Added to this, you are fed with low fiber foods like bread, chocolates, ice cream etc.. People think they are easily digestible high energy foods.
If you take non-veg foods for the sake of strength and energy, its worse, as all animal foods have zero fiber. Another negative aspect of non-veg foods is they take much longer time to digest.
During rest, most of the body muscles relax – including intestinal muscles. When muscles of small intestine become lazy, food moves slowly and takes more time to digest. When colon muscles relax, stool moves slowly.
The longer the stool stays inside the colon, more water gets absorbed from it and makes it sticky and hard. When colon contractions are weak, secretion of mucus that lines the colon walls is also less. All this 'cause and effect' make stool much harder, resulting in constipation.
If your physical condition forces you to take someone’s help for evacuation, things get even more difficult. If you get the urge when no help is around, the urge goes after some time. Even if you are one among those that feel embarrassed in such situations, the result is same. This is one of the frequent constipation causes.
People tend to take laxatives in such situations. Laxatives as temporary solution are ok. Long term usage makes you addicted and in due course, you need to increase the dose. Any external stimulating agent makes the colon muscles lazy and get accustomed to them.
Many are not aware that when your physical activity is less, your body needs less food. Especially if you are recovering from an accident, eat less. When the digestive system is resting, your body concentrates fully on repair and you recover from the injury much faster. Avoid low fiber food, particularly non veg.
The best thing for bed rest constipation is colon cleanse. Go for plain water colon cleansing enema. Sine no chemical are involved, no additional side effects.
You find conflicting views on this issue – do bananas relieve or cause constipation? My experience as well as majority of the views expressed in various articles, is banana is good for constipation. But, if your body is dehydrated (drinking less water in a day...Importance of drinking water ), you get constipated whether you eat bananas or any other food.
Ripe bananas are good source of fiber and are very good for bowel movement. They rarely fall among constipation causes. Fruits are the most easily digestible food. Cooked food takes much longer time to digest. Ideally, you should eat fruits separately. If you eat them along with cooked food, fermentation takes place, resulting in release of gas.
Don’t eat good quantity of fruits along with other foods. Very limited quantity of around 100gm is ok. If you like to eat in large quantity, let one of your meals consist of only fruits.
One of the common constipation causes among beer drinkers. The alcohol content of beer causes constipation. Different beers contain varied amounts of alcohol, generally ranging from 4% to 6% by volume. You get beer with alcohol content as high as 15%. The sheer quantity of beer people drink contributes to high alcohol intake.
Alcohol is diuretic – causes excessive urination. When alcohol enters the blood, body takes away extra water from blood as well as from other parts of the body in the process of removing alcohol from blood. This makes the body dehydrated. Related to constipation, 4 things happen in a dehydrated body.
1. Water content in the stool is less.
2. Body absorbs more water from stool
3. Stool movement gets difficult as colon walls produce less mucus.
4. Water shortage causes improper colon contractions.
All this causes dry stool and constipation. Consumption of alcohol, even moderately, is not good. The problem with beer is the quantity. I haven’t seen people stopping at one or two mugs or cans.
Calcium as part of food never causes constipation. But, as a supplement, if taken in large doses can be one of the constipation causes. The possible reason is, large doses of calcium supplement causes more compact and dry stool that takes more time for evacuation.
One way of avoiding constipation is by drinking a full glass of water with the supplement. Taking the supplement immediately before or after food is preferred. You need to drink sufficient quantity of water per day. Avoid taking large doses of calcium.
It is also claimed that supplements with calcium carbonate cause more problem compared to supplements with calcium citrate.
Chocolates do cause constipation, if consumed in large quantity. It is one of the common constipation causes in children. Chocolates contain almost zero fiber, good amount of fat, refined sugar and milk. Some chocolates have more milk than others. All these in large quantities cause constipation. If you are already constipated, it makes the
situation worse.
One of the major constipation causes in the modern times is junk food. Any foods containing liberal dose of chemicals in the form of preservatives, flavoring and coloring agents are bad for the digestive system. Chocolates are notorious in this aspect. People suffering from IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) get worse by eating chocolates.
A healthy person shouldn’t have any negative effects by chocolates, if eaten moderately. The problem with chocolates is – they are addictive. Many people turn to chocolates when stressed and practically live on them. They tend to have more frequent bouts of constipation.
What should you do if you are severely constipated?
1. Stop eating chocolates.
2. Clean your colon with colon cleansing enema.
3. Take preventive measures so that you won’t get constipated again
