12 Steps to Whole Foods

Starting Your Morning Off Right
states that absolutely nothing stands in the place of pure water. In fact, sugar or caffeine in a beverage has its
own agenda that competes with water’s agenda. To put it very simply, sugar and caffeine not only confuse the
body’s signals that it needs water, but they defeat water’s purpose.
Dr. B. spent over 30 years of his life trying to get the attention of the National Institutes of Health, the FDA,
and medical journals to take note of his documentation of this free, life-saving cure for common ailments. He
addressed a phenomenon every bit as common as constipation in our culture: dehydration! (And dehydration is
related to our chronic constipation problem, too.)
His teachings have often been repeated with the slogan, “You’re not sick, you’re thirsty.” But we are still
dehydrated and unaware of the many symptoms and problems that occur from not being hydrated.
Dr. B.’s first experience as a young doctor reminds me of Dr. Colin Campbell’s paradigm shift studying cancer
in children in the Philippines—and, for that matter, many great discoveries, like Ben Franklin, the kite, and
electricity. That is, his great discoveries were accidental and totally contrary to what he expected to find based
on conventional knowledge.
The doctor. was called to tend to a young man curled up in the fetal position, in acute pain from a peptic ulcer.
The young man was lucky his ulcer didn’t perforate, as he had eaten an entire bottle of antacid with no relief.
Having no medication, the doctor gave him two glasses of water, and the boy began to recover. Twenty minutes
later another glass of water was given, and the boy was up walking around the room, pain free.
In Iran, Dr. B. was wrongfully incarcerated after medical school during the Iranian Revolution and was about
to be executed when they discovered he was a doctor and could help in the prison. During his stay of execution,
he found an “ideal stress laboratory” in which to test his water hypotheses. He presented a paper to his
executioners, and they dropped the 32 false charges so he could continue his research. His discoveries about
water were published as an editorial in Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology and in The New York Times. The
Anticancer Research journal published the essence of his first book on pain relief and water—all in the 1980s.
The vast majority of his efforts to get the attention of the medical profession and policy makers were
completely unsuccessful. But I believe the public is now much more aware of the importance of drinking water
primarily thanks to him. You can read his theories in his books Water Cures and Drugs Kill and Your Body’s
Many Cries for Water. 1
Dr. B. studied over 3,000 peptic ulcer patients and found that all of them responded favorably to being
hydrated.
His research showed that chronic pain involved in a number of “disorders” can often be treated easily and
without drugs or expensive diagnostics, with water. Those include dyspeptic pain (for instance, heartburn,
gastritis, duodenitis), rheumatoid arthritis, anginal pain, low back pain, leg pain, migraines, hangovers, colitis,
and constipation.
The plain, simple, common sense advice to drink 1 ounce of water daily for every 2 lbs. of body weight
reminds me of another story. In the Bible, Naaman was a captain in the Syrian army, and he was very ill with
leprosy. He went to Elisha the prophet, the introduction having been made by the kings of Syria and Israel.
Imagine his surprise when Elisha, rather than receiving him, sent a messenger out to tell Naaman to simply
wash in the River Jordan seven times. Naaman was indignant.
276 12 Steps to Whole Foods
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw