Water, ideal for longevity – Health expert
Experts rose from a symposium on longevity in Ibadan on Wednesday stressing the medical importance of water as the best medicine in the world, capable of preventing and curing many diseases in human bodies.
In a submission at the seminar, Professor Lekan Oyedeji said that, “Water is the best medicine in the world. Every 17kg body weight needs 1 litre of water. Drinking sufficient water is capable of preventing malaria because it takes seven days for the mosquito bite to give malaria, after which hatching continues. The water will render the egg useless.”
The symposium entitled: “Ageing and Longevity”, which was organised by the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII), in honour of Oba Odulana, now a centenarian.
While stressing the usefulness of water, Professor Oyedeji explained that “blood is thick and so needs water to dilute it to enable it flow freely.”
“There may not be life in the veins and other parts of the body if the blood is not diluted,” he remarked.
Oyedeji also noted that as the heart pumps blood into the various parts of the body, if the blood is not diluted, it will be difficult for the heart to pump it if it is left thick. If it is diluted, the heart will not have too much work to do.
“It will not allow high blood pressure and diabetes will be far from one’s body”, the expert said, recalling the case of a woman who had 300 per cent sugar level in her blood, but when told to drink sufficient water for six weeks, the diabetes ailment dropped to 120. “Water does not remove good things from the body but flushes out bad things from the body,” he stressed.
Speaking against the background of perceived secrets behind the longevity of the Olubadan, who is now 100, the professor suggested the following as ingredients of long life: “Do not attempt to hate people; forgive and forget and never hold back anything which people have done against you. Eat vegetables, fruits and do not eat more than ten morsels of food. Soup, vegetable is the best because carbohydrate is not too good,” he said.
Oyedeji also told the audience, which comprised predominantly of old people and pensioners, that being overweight and too much of fat in the body is inimical to health.
He therefore counselled that carbohydrate should be avoided for three months to reduce weight.
He also recommended thus: “Do not drink water when eating. Drink water thirty minutes before food so that you would not need water when eating, enzyme that processes food does not like water to effectively function. Drink water two and a half hours after food. Before you brush in the morning, drink water because 75 per cent of human body is water, and so we need to maintain it so that we can fulfil the plan of God for us”, Oyedeji stressed.