Are you going to be stoned?

We are in the middle of an extremely hot season.  This is something we can expect every year and has nothing to do with the so-called “global warming”.  (Since it has been “cooling” for the past decade, this is the reason the proponents now talk about “climate change”, and I am sure they enjoy the seminars, oysters and champagne.)

What brought this subject to mind was a motor racing meeting which was held during that extremely hot beginning of May last year.  My driving suit is a very expensive triple layer fireproof one, great for protecting me in a fire, but soaks up the sweat like you wouldn’t believe!  And sweat you certainly do driving a race car.  Air temperatures were between 37 and 40 degrees Celsius, but inside the race car temperatures between 60-70 degrees Celsius are recorded in the cockpit!

The result of excess sweating is dehydration, and dehydration encourages the formation of stones in the kidney and ureters (the tubes running from the kidneys to the bladder).  These stones, sometimes quite small, can produce so much pain it can bring grown men to their knees.

Your urinary system is actually a remarkable collection of organs, beginning with the kidney, the “super filter”.  The kidney filters the blood and allows the important stuff like blood cells and nutrients to continue waltzing around your circulation, but taking out the nasties, and at the same time helping balance the acidity/alkalinity of the body.  Clever little organs, the kidneys!

To keep your kidneys in top shape does not require special kidney exercises, you will be pleased to know.  In fact, there is nothing you can do ‘physically’ to make the kidneys perform better, but fortunately there are some things you can do to keep them in top condition.

The most important is to drink plenty of water every day.  And by ‘water’, I mean the plain and simple H2O style water, not the stuff that has been mixed with hops, distilled with grain or left to age in oak casks.  Making the kidneys exercise to filter and regulate the circulating blood volume, is simply carried out by drinking several liters of water every day.  Yes, it is that easy.  On your desk at work keep a glass of cold water beside you and empty it every 30 minutes.  In that way, you will not become dehydrated.

Getting back to the race car, to avoid dehydration, we drink water before and after and in between every race.  This is simply to prevent kidney stones, a very, very painful condition.  Ask anyone who has had one!