Drink water to reduce cancer risk, relieve headaches, increase productivity

This is the second installment of a two part series on the health benefits of water and interesting water facts.

In addition to weight loss, drinking water helps you look younger by hydrating your skin. Water helps replenish skin tissues, moisturizes, and increases skin elasticity. Drink water for better exercise. Remember, muscle is 70 to 75 percent water and doesn’t work properly when not hydrated.

Also, water helps regulate body temperature. Water can reduce risk for cancer. Some studies show that drinking water may reduce risk of bladder and colon cancer by diluting cancer-causing agents in the urine and shorten the time they are in contact with bladder lining. Proper hydration through drinking water helps prevent cramps and sprains by lubricating joints and muscles.

Water helps relieve headaches and back pains due to dehydration. Although there are many reasons for headaches, dehydration is a common one.

Drinking water can help increase productivity at work. Remember, your brain is mostly water, so through proper hydration you’ll think better and be more alert. Water, especially with lemon helps boost the immune system and helps fight against flu, kidney stones and even heart attacks. Water even helps relieve fatigue by flushing toxins from the body. N

Now, here are more amazing water facts. The United States draws more than 40 billion gallons of water from the Great Lakes every day – half of which is used for electrical power production. A water-efficient dishwasher uses as little as four gallons per cycle but hand washing dishes can use as much as 20 gallons of water.

Eighty-five percent of the world population lives in the driest half of the planet. Ten percent of homes have leaks that waste 90 gallons or more per day. If all of the water vapor in the earth’s atmosphere fell at once, distributed evenly, it would only cover the earth with about an inch of water.

A leaky faucet that drips at the rate of one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons of water per year. An acre of corn will give off 4,000 gallons of water per day in evaporation. A swimming pool naturally loses about 1,000 gallons of water a month to evaporation. Producing a gallon of corn ethanol consumes 170 gallons of water in total, from irrigation to final processing. On the other hand, the water requirement to make a gallon of regular gasoline is just five gallons.

One pound of chocolate requires 3,170 gallons of water. One apple requires 18 gallons of water. One slice of bread requires 11 gallons of water. One pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water. 500 sheets of paper requires 1,321 gallons of water.

Hydrologists estimate, according to the National Geographic Society, U.S. groundwater reserves to be at least 33,000 trillion gallons – equal to the amount discharged into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River in the past 200 years.

At any given moment, groundwater is 20 to 30 times greater than the amount in all the lakes, streams, and rivers of the United States. In a 100-year period, a water molecule spends 98 years in the ocean, 20 months as ice, about two weeks in lakes and rivers, and less than a week in the atmosphere.

Diet or exercise question question? Email me at dwcrocker77@gmail.com or visit fitness4yourlife.org. David Crocker of Landrum has been a nutritionist and master personal trainer for 29 years. He served as strength director of the Spartanburg Y.M.C.A., head strength coach for the USC Spartanburg baseball team, The S.C. state champion girl’s gymnastic team, and the Converse College equestrian team. He served as lead trainer to L.H. Field’s modeling agency, and taught for four semesters at USC Union. David was also a regular guest of the Pam Stone radio show.