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| Unknown properties |
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By Dr. Jordi Carbonell Abelló
Head of the Rheumatology Unit
l'Esperança Hospital, Barcelona
One may be a doctor by trade, but one remains above all a citizen just like the reader; and as a citizen, I take pleasure with the affairs of the table and everything that is dealt with there: the human and the divine, food and drink.
To get down to the topic of this article, let me say that I am a water lover.
I am indeed a long-serving water drinker, and of all waters, VICHY CATALAN is the best to my palate, a point on which I concur with my father, who drank nothing else just after the Civil War.
Having introduced myself, the lines which follow merely seek to acquaint you with the health advantages offered by water, particularly the mineral waters from the town of Caldes de Malavella, stressing their effects on our bone structure.
If I say that water is essential for life, since we are essentially made of water, this will not be news to you. If I further point out that 90% of our brain by weight is water, perhaps that will make a greater impression on you. So nobody can doubt the need to drink water, and it can be obtained through all kinds of drinks, since H2O is the main component in them all.
How much water do we need? The minimum is approximately one litre more than our diuresis, since we also loose liquids through perspiration, breathing and defaecation. The daily amount of liquids, water, that we should ingest will thus be variable, depending on climate, physical effort, the state of our lungs and our bowel habits.
There is no product other than water which, when taken in quantities ranging from two to three litres a day, will not cause toxic effects of varying seriousness in the medium and long term. I might thus say that water is for living and other products for enjoying.
There are two situations, apart from illness, in which an adequate water intake is vital: childhood and old age. At both ends of life, insufficient water intake has dire consequences. The kidney is particularly sensitive to changes in the blood supplying it, and so a kidney receiving a poor flow of blood will always be working at the lower limit of its normal condition, and will be nearer to the point of no return. Moreover, a healthy water intake will enhance the purifying work of the kidney, clearing out toxic products and making our bodies cleaner.
Turning now finally to VICHY CATALAN, I will tell you that it is a natural mineral water of great interest in the field of musculoskeletal disorders, since it is bicarbonated and fluorinated.
The composition of VICHY CATALAN
water makes it an effective supplement
in the treatment of hyperuricemia
and gout, disorders which are historically
associated with wining and dining,
since the water alkanizes the urine
and thus increases its capacity to
dissolve uric acid crystals, preventing
their precipitation and reducing
the potential for the formation of
those uncomfortable, painful and
sharp "urate stones". Conversely,
this water could even exacerbate
"stones" that form in alkaline media
such as the calcium oxalate type.
Though this effect has long been
known, the same cannot be said of
the effect of the water's fluorine
on the bone and its structure. I
devoted three years of my career
to this topic in preparing my doctoral
thesis, which was called "The effects
of fluorinated water on bone mass",
which was unanimously awarded the
grade of "cum laude" at the University
of Barcelona.
In that project, we studied two rural
communities usually drinking water
with different and historically stable
concentrations of fluorine. The epidemiological
design was made by specialists, while
the clinical study of the patients
was performed by members of the Rheumatology
Unit of the Esperança Hospital,
Barcelona, and the bone mass measurements
were made with a simple "Norland"
photon densitometer. To spare you
long, involved explanations, I will
just tell you that the people who
drank water from the same spring
as the one from which VICHY CATALAN
is drawn had a significantly higher
mineral content in their bones. Thus
using this water is a kind of prophylaxis
against one of the epidemics of the
twenty-first century, osteoporosis.
I must specify that from one to two litres of VICHY CATALAN should be taken every day.
To round off this brief article,
I wish to return to my status as
a citizen to say that for my taste
there is no better natural mineral
water than VICHY CATALAN, and I would
like to end speaking as a doctor
to say that this water may also prove
useful for those suffering from gout
and osteoporosis, though adding the
customary caution, "consult your
doctor"!
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