Recent Changes

How does being hydrated promote good health?
Your body is mostly (50 to 70 percent) water. Exactly how much water depends on how old you are and how much muscle and fat you have. Muscle tissue has more water than fat tissue. Because the average male body has proportionately more muscle than the average female body, it also has more water. For the same reason — more muscle — a young body has more water than an older one.
When your body doesn't have enough water, that's called being dehydrated. Dehydration also can keep you from being as fast and as sharp as you'd like to be. A bad case of dehydration can make you sick. So keep that water bottle handy when the weather warms up! Not only does water fight dehydration, but it's awfully refreshing and has no calories.

My Questions:
What are the systems that have to be flushed?
Our bodies are about 60 percent water [source: Mayo Clinic]. Water regulates our body temperature, moves nutrients through our cells, keeps our mucous membranes moist and flushes waste from our bodies. Our lungs are 90 percent water, our brains are 70 percent water and our blood is more than 80 percent water. Simply put, we can't function without it. Most people sweat out about two cups of water per day (0.5 liters). Each day, we also lose a little more than a cup of water (237 ml) when we exhale it, and we eliminate about six cups (1.4 l) of it. We also loseelectrolytes -- minerals like sodium and potassium that regulate the body's fluids. So how do we replace it?

Drink frequently throughout the day to prevent dehydration.
Drink at least eight glasses daily, or one cup for every 20 pounds of body weight. For example, a 150-pound person who does not exercise or work in hot climates needs 7.5 cup
Freedrinkingwater.com
http://www.stockfood.com.au/PreviewPage.asp?image=00801423
eceive the rest of your daily hydration by drinking water and water-based beverages.

To support this water-based system, the average person needs to consume about 8 cups of water a day. The human body loses more than 1 cup (237 milliliters) of water each day just in the vapor exhaled from the lungs, and the body sends another 6 cups (1.4 liters) down the toilet every day. Some 20 percent of your liquid needs can come from solid foods - - although this depends entirely on the food you eat, because some foods, like watermelons, are made almost entirely of water.
http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/why-people-need-water
Drink twice as much as it takes to quench your thirst.
Drink frequently throughout the day to prevent dehydration.
Drink at least eight glasses daily, or one cup for every 20 pounds of body weight. For example, a 150-pound person who does not exercise or work in hot climates needs 7.5 cup
http://www.stockfood.com.au/PreviewPage.asp?image=00801423
eceive the rest of your daily hydration by drinking water and water-based beverages.

If you notice that your urine is dark yellow, or if you feel other symptoms of mild dehydration (dryness of the mouth, headaches or dizziness), you probably need more water.
Severe dehydration can make your pulse weak and cause rapid breathing, convulsions, loose skin and sunken eyes. Untreated dehydration can eventually lead to heart failure and death.
http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/why-people-need-water

What organs are affected by lack of water?
Ever notice how lifeless a house plant looks when you forget to water it? Just a little water and it seems to perk back up. Water is just as essential for our bodies because it is in every cell, tissue, and organ in your body. That's why getting enough water every day is important for your health.
source: Human blood is more than 80 percent water. Water flushes waste products out of our kidneys and livers, lubricates our joints and keeps our eyes, mouths and nose tissues moist. It regulates human body temperature and protects our internal organs. Our lungs are 90 percent water and our brains are 70 percent water. In fact, about 60 percent of the average human body is water.

The sweat leaves your skin through tiny holes called pores. When the sweat hits the air, the air makes it evaporate (this means it turns from a liquid to a vapor). As the sweat evaporates off your skin, you cool down.
Sweat is a great cooling system, but if you're sweating a lot on a hot day or after playing hard you could be losing too mu
http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/water-education/water-health.htm
Water serves as a lubricant
Water serves as a lubricant in digestion and almost all other body processes. The water in our saliva helps facilitate chewing and swallowing, ensuring that food will slide easily down the esophagus. Water also lubricates our joints and cartilages and allows them to (pardon the pun) move more fluidly. When dehydrated, the body rations water away from the joints. Less lubrication equals greater friction and that can cause joint, knee and back pain potentially leading to injuries and arthritis. Even our eyeballs need plenty of lubrication to work well and remain healthy.

Then special glands in your skin called — what else? — sweat glands start making sweat. Sweat is also known as perspiration (say: pur-spuh-ray-shun), and it is made almost completely of water, with tiny amounts of other chemicals like ammonia (say: uh-mown-yuh), urea (say: yoo-ree-uh), salts, and sugar. (Ammonia and urea are left over when your body breaks down protein.)
The sweat leaves your skin through tiny holes called pores. When the sweat hits the air, the air makes it evaporate (this means it turns from a liquid to a vapor). As the sweat evaporates off your skin, you cool down.
losing too muchmu
Water serves as a lubricant
Water serves as a lubricant in digestion and almost all other body processes. The water in our saliva helps facilitate chewing and swallowing, ensuring that food will slide easily down the esophagus. Water also lubricates our joints and cartilages and allows them to (pardon the pun) move more fluidly. When dehydrated, the body rations water away from the joints. Less lubrication equals greater friction and that can cause joint, knee and back pain potentially leading to injuries and arthritis. Even our eyeballs need plenty of lubrication to work well and remain healthy.
ch water through
http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/food/water.html

In addition to being an important part of the fluids in your body, each cell depends on water to function normally.
Without water, your body would stop working properly. Water makes up more than half of your body weight and a person can't survive for more than a few days without it. Why? Your body has lots of important jobs and it needs water to do many of them. For instance, your blood, which contains a lot of water, carries oxygen to all the cells of your body. Without oxygen, those tiny cells would die and your body would stop working.
Your body works best when its temperature is about 98.6ºF (37ºC). When your body gets hotter than that, your brain doesn't like it — it wants your body to stay cool and comfortable. So the part of your brain that controls temperature, called the hypothalamus (say: hy-po-thal-uh-mus), sends a message to your body, telling it to sweat.
Then special glands in your skin called — what else? — sweat glands start making sweat. Sweat is also known as perspiration (say: pur-spuh-ray-shun), and it is made almost completely of water, with tiny amounts of other chemicals like ammonia (say: uh-mown-yuh), urea (say: yoo-ree-uh), salts, and sugar. (Ammonia and urea are left over when your body breaks down protein.)
The sweat leaves your skin through tiny holes called pores. When the sweat hits the air, the air makes it evaporate (this means it turns from a liquid to a vapor). As the sweat evaporates off your skin, you cool down.
Sweat is a great cooling system, but if you're sweating a lot on a hot day or after playing hard you could be losing too much water through your skin. Then you need to put liquid back in your body by drinking plenty of water so you won't get dehydrated (say: dee-hi-drayt-ed).
http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/food/water.html

Water that you consume is absorbed in the upper small intestine through osmosis. It enters the bloodstream and is transported all over the body. This is why animals have circulatory systems -- otherwise, our cells would absorb water and salt until they swelled. Our circulatory systems move water around our bodies and remove it as needed through sweating and urination.
All the stuff the body doesn't need has to get out of the body somehow. Some of it goes from the blood to the kidneys, which make urine (wee) - which is mostly water. Some stays in your gut and comes out as faeces (poo) - which is also mostly water! Some comes out in the air you breathe (if you breathe onto a really cold mirror you will see little drops of water on the glass - this is water from your breath).
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/h2o3.htm
http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetailsKids.aspx?p=335&np=284&id=1494#1