Is water important to my chiropractic care? Water comprises roughly 70% of your body and nearly 85% of your brain. Not drinking enough water leads to decreased mental and physical function. Early signs of the lack of water are headiness, dizziness, irritability and headaches. The connective tissues in your spine are directly affected by how much water you drink. By reducing your water intake below an acceptable level you risk losing your ligament’s flexibility and strength. Weakening the tissues ability to hold the adjustment to your spine by dehydration affects how long the vertebra will stay in place and that causes you to return to our office more frequently. So yes, proper hydration is directly proportional to how quickly you may respond to chiropractic care.
Proper Hydration / Drinking Water
What is the optimum amount of water I should drink? To have healthy connective tissue in your spine you should drink Z number of ounces of water (Z= .5 x your body weight in pounds). So a 150 pound person should be drinking 75 ounces of water per day. Sweat Tea, Tea, and Soda Pop dehydrates your body and is not considered in the measurement at all and may cause you to increase the ounces of pure water needed to hydrate the body. Now that you have the basic rules (100% pure water) for hydration, take your body weight and divide it by two and that’s the amount of water in ounces you should consume daily.
Types of Water
There are different types of water? Yes, man has created many types of water. According to the EPA, these are the standard areas of contamination to our drinking water in the US:
- Microorganisms
- Disinfectants
- Disinfection Byproducts
- Inorganic Chemicals
- Organic Chemicals
- Radionuclides
These are the reasons that you should go to your local big box hardware warehouse and purchase a reverse osmosis system to reduce 99.5% of the pollutants that are coming out of your well and “city water” sources. Yes, there are different types of water…
| 1. | Unfiltered water flows in from the source |
| 2. | Source water contains various contaminants to be removed |
| 3. | Pressure is applied to force the source water through the RO membrane. This process separates pure water molecules from impurities, producing water that is clean, fresh and “pure”. |
| 4. | Semi-permeable RO membrane with millions of microscopic holes |
| 5. | Clean/filtered water fit for drinking |
| 6. | Contaminants concentrate water flows out |
So now that you have a better understanding of how water can affect your chiropractic care, don’t panic, just make slow changes in your habits, make them long lasting, and this should assist your chiropractor with your care.
Water content alters viscoelastic behaviour of the normal adolescent rabbit medial collateral ligament. – Study – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1639827
Dr. Trace Palmer – Chiropractor
Yours in Health,
Palmer Chiropractic
11400 Ford Ave
Richmond Hill, Ga 31324
912-756-3433
Chiropractor Richmond Hill GA 
Christopher Lauria
/ February 23, 2012Great information for all. An area of peoples health and wellness where most people drop the ball. Mainly because they think tea,soda and other things can take the place of good clean fresh water. This is a post everyone should read. Thanks
Henry Garcia
/ April 9, 2012a well researched article !! …thanks a lot for sharing your chiropractic experiences and knowledge…this was really helpful indeed ! =)