pH is one of the most important things your need to learn about in terms of health or disease. In order for your body's cells to function at peak capacity, your body needs to ensure that its pH levels-especially your blood-are in a slightly alkaline state (that means with a pH of slightly more than 7).

pH = the measure of hydrogen and oxygen ions (electrically charges particles) in a solution. Your blood, urine, saliva, digestive juices, mucus, and the fluids inside and outside your cells each have an optimum pH level. While your digestive juices are quite acidic, your blood must be slightly alkaline. Why should your blood be slightly alkaline?

One of its jobs is to carry oxygen - the basis for most of the biochemical reactions that sustain life - to cells in your body, so your blood has to be alkaline. Your body will buffer the acidity of your blood at all costs-your body won't let your blood become acidic and therefore unable to carry oxygen - or you won't survive.

Your body does this buffering by pulling alkaline minerals (especially calcium) from your saliva, soft tissues, and bones. Despite the constant buffering, many of your body fluids may be more acidic than they should be. A shortage of buffering agents, particularly dietary minerals, can make it a challenge for your body to maintain the pH it prefers. Alkaline conditions maintain your body's ability to rebuild and repair itself, while an acidic environment ensures that your body will break down faster.

Hydration: Water you made of?

Your brain and muscles are three-quarters water. Your blood and lungs are more than 80 percent water. Even your bones are one-quarter water. Anyway you look at it, you are mostly water! Yet most people take water for granted. Many health researchers and medical experts now believe that water-not just fluid-is essential to our health and well-being, and is one of the keys to slowing down the aging process and helping us lose excess body fat. Next to oxygen, water is unquestionably the most important nutrient for sustaining life.

According to Dr. Batmanghelidj, MD-best-selling author of Your Body's Many cries for Water-the following symptoms are your body's main indicators of dehydration:

* Feeling tired when it is not the result of strenuous work (in its extreme form, chronic fatigue)

* Excessive hunger and cravings

* Feeling flushed

* Feeling irritable and easily angered

* Feeling anxious without a justified cause

* Feeling depressed

Intensive exercise can cause a person to lose 5 to 8 pounds of fluid through perspiration, evaporation, and exhalation. Studies show that for every pound of fluid lost, there is a significant drop in the efficiency with which the body produces energy. Most energy is produced in tiny little power plants within our cells called mitochondria.

Our cells are completely dependent upon mitochondria to sustain life by generating energy. The fact remains that water is imperative in the creation of energy. In fact, ATP has to be broken down by water in order to generate energy.

So, as you can see, a low water environment means inadequate energy production.

Water may also be an important way to control hunger pangs. In other words, when you feel hungry, you may actually be thirsty. Thus, by keeping yourself properly hydrated, you can avoid false cravings for food.

Water can actually be made "wetter" by lowering the surface tension of water molecules, which dramatically increases your water's ability to hydrate your body at a cellular level. If minerals added to water can be ionized efficiently, they can be made available to your body. (This means the mineral oxides are released in the water to form hydroxide ions (OH-), which increases the pH of the water.)