WATER RETENTION

Causes, remedies, drugs, dietary treatment


Causes of Water Retention The Waterfall Diet Downloads Other Treatments by Linda Lazarides Nutritional health expert Author of the Waterfall Diet	Water retention is a major but largely unreognised health problem today. Some of its distressing symptoms include overweight, puffiness, bloating, breast tenderness in women, as well as painful, swollen knees or other joints. It is hard to tell whether you have water retention, since your body can hold a lot of excess water, which just makes you look fat. Generally speaking, if you have two or more of the following symptoms then there is a strong chance that you have water retention. You can confirm this by following a specialist diet for a few weeks which can help you pinpoint more clearly whether you have water retention, and can also help you reduce it. Questionnaire Have you followed endless low-calorie, low-carb, low-fat or low-GI diets, and found that you cannot get below a certain weight even after several months? Press the tip of a blunt pencil firmly into your thumb-pad. Does the dent remain deep for more than a second or two? Can you make a dent if you press the tip of your finger into the inside of your shin-bone? Do you get any swelling in your legs and ankles? Is your shoe size increasing? Have your fingers swollen so much that your rings will no longer fit? Is your tummy bloated and swollen? If you are a woman, do you ever suffer from breast tenderness? Does your weight ever go up and down by several pounds within the course of a single day?
	How Water Retention Starts
	There are two main types of water retention. With heart or kidney problems there is too much water in the blood. With other types of water retention, there is too much water in the tissues and sometimes not enough in the blood. This type has two main causes: If you are not eating the right kinds of foods, your body's tiny blood vessels (capillaries) can become leaky. This allows fluid to leak into your body's tissues, where it can accumulate. Many factors can cause abnormal changes to the pressure in your body's capillaries. This can make it difficult for water to return from your tissues back into your blood. Tissue water retention is very hard to diagnose because almost all your body's tissues still look normal even if they are retaining up to 20 pounds of water. This fluid just makes you look fat. This diagram shows the spaces between the cells in your body's tissues. When fluid leaks from your capillaries and cannot return, these spaces gradually expand as they fill with water. This makes your skin feel puffy, whereas fat without water retention just hangs in folds from your body, creating "love handles". Drinking less liquid can aggravate water retention. Do not reduce your fluid intake except on your doctor's advice. The changes in your body which lead to water retention are often related to eating habits. But it is not as simple as eating a good or a bad diet. Some people produce too much histamine when they eat certain foods. Histamine can be a major cause of water retention by making your blood vessels too leaky. Some foods can slow down your kidneys and their ability to excrete water, while other foods can actually help your kidneys. Anaemia (anemia), protein deficiency and vitamin or mineral deficiencies are known causes of water retention. People who have been on a very low-calorie diet for a long time are at risk of nutritional deficiencies. Many people who are overweight due to water retention have been eating 1,000 calories per day or less for months or years. At this level of calories it is hard to get enough food to sustain the average person's need for protein, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. If you think you have water retention, you are recommended to follow the Waterfall Diet. This diet is especially designed to help your body release water retention by addressing the reasons why you have it. Women's premenstrual hormonal changes can also cause water retention. At this time of your cycle you are making extra hormones. As your body's need for certain nutrients is higher at this time, mild premenstrual nutritional deficiencies are more likely to occur. The resulting water retention can account for various unpleasant symptoms, such as breast tenderness and tummy bloating. Caution: If you have gross swelling in your ankles or legs, you may have a heart or kidney problem, and should consult your doctor immediately.
	Is There a Cure for Water Retention?
	Severe ankle swelling is a more obvious sign of water retention, which in this case is known as oedema or edema, is easily diagnosed by a doctor and usually treated with diuretics. Tissue water retention, where you just have a little bit of water all over your body, is very hard to diagnose, and may have led you to follow a low-calorie diet. People with tissue water retention cannot work out why they do not lose weight with a normal fat-loss diet. They try one diet after the next but nothing seems to work for very long. There is always a "plateau" where your weight stays and will not budge. The best treatment for tissue water retention is the Waterfall Diet. It removes most of the known foods and other factors which can trigger water retention in your tissues, and the water is released as urine - hence the term "Waterfall Diet". If you have tissue water retention, be prepared for a full bladder and lots of trips to the bathroom for a week or two. But isn't it worth it if your clothes start to hang loose within days? This diet can also serve as a test to help you pinpoint whether or not you have water retention. If you follow the instructions carefully but find that you are not losing any water weight, then (provided your doctor also agrees with this) you can rest assured that you probably do not have water retention.
	What About Diuretics?
	For oedema / edema where there is too much water in your blood, diuretics may be prescribed by a doctor. Diuretics stimulate your kidneys to work harder and are very important for water retention that is linked with heart or kidney problems. For water retention where there is too much water in your tissues and not enough in your blood, diuretics will still try to extract water from your blood. This is harmful, so your body will hold on to water in order to prevent becoming dehydrated. The result is to aggravate your water retention problem. This caution applies to both pharmaceutical and natural herbal diuretics.
	Where Can I Find the Instructions for the Waterfall Diet?
	These (and testimonials to the effectiveness of the diet) can be found in the book entitled The Waterfall Diet. Linda Lazarides is also author of six other titles including "Principles of Nutritional Therapy" and "Treat Yourself with Nutritional Therapy". She is founder of the British Association for Nutritional Therapy and has successfully treated hundreds of people referred to her by doctors.
	Copyright © Linda Lazarides, , London WC1N 3XX, United Kingdom. Tel +44 (0)7092 237239. Unauthorized reproduction is not permitted for any part of this website.
Health-Diets.Net Home \| Water Retention Home \| Water Retention Causes \| Waterfall Diet \| Downloads \| Other Treatments \| Success Stories \| Feedback \| Contents \| How to Use the Book \| Extract \| Info for Medical Professionals \| Reviews