Skin

Everyone has skin. Whatever colour it is, or how smooth or wrinkled it is, we take it for granted. But God gave us skin for a reason. God created Adam and Even with skin, like all humans today still have. But He also used skin (probably animal skin) to make the first clothes for the first humans.

"Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them." (Genesis 3:21).

The Bible also has many examples of people using an animal skin as a container for wine or other liquids, before glass bottles became commonplace.

Our human skin covers an area of about 1.5-2.0 m² and comprises 15 to 20% of a person’s body weight. The skin is the body’s largest organ. This protective covering acts as a barrier against pollution, radiation, the elements, harmful microorganisms, and physical trauma.

But that’s not all it does: skin locks in the body’s moisture, which keeps inner organs and muscles from drying out. To ensure that the body doesn’t develop vitamin D-deficiency diseases such as rickets, the skin manufactures vitamin D from sunlight. Skin also helps regulate body temperature by sweating to cool things off and conserving heat when the air grows chilly. And, thanks to its many nerve endings, skin is responsible for our sense of touch, which allows us to sense pain, pressure, temperature, and pleasure.

Skin guards against heat loss in an ingenious way: by constricting its blood vessels. This conserves heat-giving energy, which is needed by the vital inner organs.

Skin is composed of three layers. The top layer is called the epidermis. It measures less than 1 millimetre in thickness everywhere except on the palms and soles (where it is thicker) and the eyelids and inner elbows (where it is thinner). It is in the epidermis that new skin cells are created and melanin - ­the pigment that gives your skin its unique color - is produced.

The dermis is skin’s middle layer. It lies under the epidermis and is where skin’s collagen and elastin fibers are located. These fibres give structure to the skin. However, they lose their resilience as we age, causing skin to grow slack and creased. Blood vessels, oil or sebum glands, nerve fibers, hair follicles, and muscle cells are also found in the dermis. Skin’s bottom layer is the subcutis. It acts as a reservoir for water and fat cells, and serves as a cushion between the upper layers of skin and the body’s bones and muscles.

(Some information taken from http://www.skincarecity.com/blog/7/what-is-skin/

More on Water

As I considered the costs of buying a water distiller, I thought it good to do more research on the subject and look at other means of cleaning water from the tap. There are ceramic water filters available, which are designed in a way that removes a lot of the bad stuff from water.

I currently have a small water filter jug with cartridges, made by Brita. This is effective in removing some things, but exactly how much I do not know. The ceramic filters seem to remove more, but, they fit into gravity filters that are larger than my current Brita filter. But they are cheaper than buying a water distiller. Also, a water distiller requires power and thus costs money to use, whereas a gravity filter uses just the force of gravity to do its work, and a well-designed filter (called, strangely enough, a filter candle, not the type of candle you light though). The ceramic filter contains micropores and also small particles of silver. The silver is anti-bacterial. The smallest gravity filter I saw has a capacity of 10 litres, which is quite a lot more than the 2 litres that I think the Brita filter jug holds. The water distiller comes with a container that holds 4 litres.

More research is required and I need to weigh up the pros and cons of each choice: 1. stick with current Brita water filter, 2. buy a water distiller, 3. buy a gravity filter with ceramic filter candles.

I know that fruit and vegetables contain distilled water, so consuming more of those, fresh and raw or lightly steamed, will also provide me with the distilled water that is so good at cleansing the body. I recently acquired a juicer (to make juice from fruits and vegetables, I got it free from a credit card after collecting enough points) and I plan to use that soon to make fresh natural juices.

This is not an ideal world, and some things that are good and beneficial are hard to get or expensive. Also each product makes claims on what it can remove and what it does not remove, and putting together all the information there does not seem to be one single product that entirely removes all the bad stuff from water.

But the best thing, the love and blessings of God, comes free. So I keep praying to God for healing and good health. I am concerned about my health and being healthy, and more so as I had an inguinal hernia last year, which was fixed by surgery. But surgery in itself does not heal the body. There must be an underlying cause of the hernia, and I need to find that and treat that, otherwise I could end up with another hernia. Cleansing the body and being healthy is a good step towards healing and avoiding hernias, and hence the interest in health, pure water, etc.

Water

Water is a precious and vital ingredient for life. Human beings are composed of approximately 70% water. It is important to drink water to cleanse the body, to replace lost water and for proper functioning of the body.

But is the water you are drinking good for you?

Few people make the effort to ensure that the water they drink is pure, free from inorganic minerals, chemical poisons and other harmful contaminants. Most are willing to drink whatever impurities are in the water they get from the tap, despite the increasing pollution of our water supplies from industry, agricultural chemicals, lead pipes, fluoride, chlorine, etc.

Drinking pure water is one of the easiest and most important steps we can take to improve our health.

Along with oxygen, water is one of the two most important elements on Earth in sustaining life. Everything your body does needs water. Water is the primary ingredient in all bodily fluids, including blood and saliva. The average body of about 70 kg contains about 5 litres of blood, and 76 litres of water.

Water helps us digest food, maintain proper body temperature (the average human body temperature is 37°C), helps us breathe by giving lungs moisture and helps the 100 trillion cells in the body function properly. When our cells lack water they get dry and more vulnerable to attack by viruses.

Water allows nutrients to be transported around the body, and to help eliminate waste products. Water constitues, regulates, flows through, cleanses and helps nourish every single part of your body. But the wrong kind of water — with inorganic minerals, chemicals and other contaminants — can pollute, clog up and turn to stone in every part of your body.

Whatever you eat or drink goes into your stomach and then into the small intestines (which are about 6 to 7 metres long). That which can be assimilated is transferred to the liver for distribution to the rest of the body, and that which cannot be used goes on to the large instestine (colon).

Liquids pass readily through the microscopic blood vessels in the wall of the small intestine, and anything contained within the liquid in colloidal form goes along too right into the liver. A colloid is something very small, a very small particle measuring from 8 to 20 pm (pm is the symbol for picometres, 1000 pm = 1 nanometre, 1000 nm = 1 micrometre, 1000 µm = 1 millmetre, 1000 mm = 1 metre). So there would be up to 5 million particles in 1 mm if laid out in a straight line.

These colloidal particles include inorganic minerals, the most common of which is calcium (lime). The liver separates these from the water and the minerals get deposited in the body, via the blood stream.

If you drink 1 litre of water per day, that would be over 25000 litres in 70 years. If the water was not distilled (i.e. not pure), those 25 kl (kl is the symbol for kilolitres) of water will include around 100 kilograms of rock — inorganic calcium (lime), magnesium and other mineral deposits — that the body cannot utilise. Most of these inorganic minerals will be collected by the body's water, blood and lymphatic systems to be eliminated through excretory channels. But some of this 100 kg of rock will stay in the body, causing joint stiffness, hardening of the arteries, kidney stones, gallstones and blockages of the arteries, microscopic capillaries and other passages in which liquids flow through the body.

The calcium carbonate in the water can be seen in things like the limescale that collects in a kettle. This will also coat our arteries and turn us into stone.

The only way to avoid these problems is to drink distilled water. Fruits and vegetables contain pure water, naturally distilled as they grow, and eating plenty of fruit and vegetables will provide us with the distilled water that can cleanse our bodies. Not only does distilled water not contain the inorganic minerals that we should seek to avoid ingesting, but it can also collect the minerals already in our bodies and remove them, flushing them from the system.

Another way to get distilled water is to buy a water distiller, or a device that purifies water through reverse osmosis. If you are interested in buying one of these, do a search on the Internet, there are plenty of websites selling them. I am considering buying one myself, to avoid the problems of the calcium carbonate in the water. Calcium carbonate is also a chief ingredient in producing cement. I prefer not to have a body that is filling up with cement. I am not going to recommend any particular make or model, or any website, you have to do your own research in that. But I will say that in general, what I looked at, in the UK market, cost around £150 to £250 for a standalone device for the home that produces 4 litres of water in about 4 hours. In the meantime the next best thing is a water filter, I have been using one of those for many years. The filter cartridge removes some of the rubbish from the water but it cannot remove everything. Despite using filtered water in my kettle, it still collects a small amount of limescale after a while, although not as much as when using unfiltered tap water.

Also, because of the problems caused by inorganic minerals in water, I do not drink bottled mineral water. It might be from a natural source, but is it safe? Also I think that the companies that sell bottled water are making huge profits out of something that has never been proved to be safer than filtered tap water. You should also be wary of drinking any water from any plastic bottle that has been exposed to sunlight, as the sunlight can cause the plastic to leech into the water.

Chlorine and Fluoride — Poisons Labelled as "Safe" Chemicals

Two chemicals regularly added to domestic water supplies are chlorine and fluoride. Chlorine is a poisonous gas, used in World War 1 to poison the bacteria in water. Ingesting too much chlorine will destroy the vitamins in your body. If the water from your tap smells strongly of chlorine, it is not safe to drink. Chlorine in water has also been linked to heart disease, senility, cancers of the bladder, liver, pancreas, colon and urinary tract.

Fluoride is one of the most potent poisons known to man. Yet some water supplies have it added, in an amount of perhaps 1.2 parts per million (i.e. in every litre there would be 1.2 microlitres of fluoride). In higher concentrations, fluoride is an effective rat killer and pesticide. But why is it added to water? In 1939 the aluminium industry in the USA wanted to find a way to dispose of a by-product of producing aluminium, which was fluoride. So they paid a biochemist to say that fluoride prevents tooth decay. And so governments are putting fluoride in our water, and many toothpaste manufacturers also put this poison into toothpaste. For many years I have used only toothpastes that do not contain any fluoride, I advise you to do the same. Tooth decay is not caused by a lack of fluoride, but by poor nutrition, especially the use of refined white sugar (e.g. eating lots of sweets).

Fluoride is a corrosive liquid, which, when transported, carries a warning on the containers stating that it is very dangerous if coming in contact with eyes, skin or any part of the body. It can burn the skin and even eat through 1-cm-thick steel plates in a few minutes.

Yet fluoride is added to the mains water supply. Incredible yet true.

Do you still want to drink normal tap water?

As I wrote above, I am considering buying a water distiller, as the awful chemicals as well as the harmful inorganic minerals like calcium make drinking tap water too dangerous in the long term.

Water is vital for life, so it really is best to drink water that is as pure and unpolluted as possible.


(Some of this information has been adapted from the book "God's Way to Ultimate Health" by Dr. George H. Malkmus, available from Amazon. I am just starting to read this book, dipping in to various parts that I am interested in. The book is a paperback, large size, almost A4 size.)

Welcome to the Shalowm Health Blog

First of all, why shalowm, what does it mean?

Being a student of God's Word, the Bible, I was interested in finding ways to be healthy in line with the Word of God. I therefore thought it appropriate to use a word meaning health that is used in the Bible, and I found in a Hebrew concordance for the Old Testament (found at Blue Letter Bible website):

Hebrew for H7965
שלום

Transliteration: shalowm

Pronunciation: shä·lome / shar-loam

Outline of Biblical Usage:

1. Completeness, soundness, welfare, peace

1. completeness (in number)
2. safety, soundness (in body)
   
3. welfare, health, prosperity
   
4. peace, quiet, tranquillity, contentment
   
5. peace, friendship
   
   1. of human relationships
      
   2. with God especially in covenant relationship
6. peace (from war)
   
7. peace (as adjective)

This meaning of the word shalowm fits in well with what I believe and want to achieve, a completeness of health, a contentment, peace, especially in relation to God and with others. I want to have a completely good healthy body.

But I do also know the Bible says: "For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." (1 Timothy 4:8, NKJV).

This verse is a good one to consider in regards to health; looking after your body will profit you, but only in this physical life. The time we are going to spend in the flesh is only a little time compared to that spent in an immortal spirit body for eternity. Godliness, on the other hand, is profitable both now in the flesh, and in the eternal life to come in the spirit.

Consider also: "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." (3 John 1:2, NKJV).

The New Living Translation puts it this way: "Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit."

God wants us to be in good health and to prosper in this physical life, He wants the best for us. Sometimes that may mean suffering for a while, in various ways, including health problems, but always it is for our benefit. Physical health is linked to spiritual health. The closer we are to God, the better our health will be. The example of Job shows us, though, that sometimes God allows us to suffer in order for us to learn something important. In the case of Job, he was self-righteous and could not see it. So God allowed Satan to attack him until Job was suffering severe health problems. But it was his severe spiritual problem that led to this. Read the book of Job in the Old Testament to get the full story.

We have a responsibility, as Christians, to do the best to keep in good health. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 (NKJV) reads: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are."

If you have the Holy Spirit within you, then your body is the temple of God. God does not have a physical building temple for us to worship Him in, as was the case in ancient Israel with the temple that King Solomon built. Today, God's people are given the Holy Spirit, which makes the person a temple of God. If you defile that temple, e.g. through neglect, poor hygiene, poor diet, ignoring God's dietary laws (see Leviticus 11 for a list of things God tells us we should not eat, for the sake of our health), or willful self-harm, then God will have to punish you for that.

So look after your body, keep healthy, and remember that God loves you, He wants you to be in good health. As I learn more about health and what God wants for us, I will continue in this blog, as well as adding more about what I already know and my own personal health experiences. Maybe it will be of benefit to someone who reads it. God bless you for reading this.