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Scott GarberAuthor
The definitive book on water and the human body — from the interstellar ice that predates the sun to the reason your four o'clock headache keeps coming back. Ten chapters. Evidence graded honestly. Nothing sold to you at the end.
“You are not a creature that needs water. You are a body of water that has learned to walk around.” Scott Garber, chapter one
Scott Garber, author of My Body Is a River. More about Scott
Mile 01 A note from Scott
I wrote this book because the most important substance in human health had somehow become the least examined. Everyone I know has been told to drink more water. Almost nobody has been told why, or how much, or what is actually in it.
In that gap, an industry moved in. Alkaline machines, hydrogen bottles, electrolyte powders, a filter for every anxiety. The advice got louder as it got emptier, and the physiology underneath it — older and simpler than anything being sold — got harder to hear.
So I went back to the sources, and I graded what I found. Where the research is strong, I say so. Where it is thin, I say that too, even when the thin part is the popular part.
Where the science is genuinely contested, as it is with fluoride, you get both sides and the names of the people arguing. And where a claim has no mechanism at all, you get told that plainly, because your time is worth more than a polite maybe.
I am not selling a filter, a supplement, or a protocol. The book ends by asking you to read a report your utility already publishes for free. If that sounds like a strange way to end a book about water, it is exactly the point.
Scott GarberAuthor
Mile 02 From the book
Scott's argument, in his own sentences. Every one of these is in the book.
Clean drinking water is the most successful public health intervention in human history, and it is so successful that it has become invisible. You turn a handle. Something arrives that would have been priceless to every human being who lived before about 1910.Chapter 1 — The History of Water
We are the animal that traded fur for the ability to keep going.Chapter 2 — The History of Sweating
Thirst is a late signal by design. The body rations before it asks.Chapter 3 — How Drinking Water Works
In almost every premium water, the active ingredient is water.Chapter 7 — Alkaline and Other Treated Water
A filter is a targeted instrument. Buying one without a test result is buying a key without knowing the lock.Chapter 9 — Water Filtration Systems
10
chapters, each one standing alone
12,700
words — about a ninety-minute read
6
NSF/ANSI filtration standards explained plainly
0
products, supplements or affiliates sold
Mile 03 The argument
So the advice collapses into slogans. Eight glasses a day — a number with no clear scientific origin. Alkaline water for your pH, which your kidneys defend whether you help or not. A four-thousand-dollar ionizer sold against a problem that does not exist.
Meanwhile the real questions go unanswered. How much do you actually need? What does a treatment plant already do to your tap water, and what does a filter add on top? When do electrolytes matter, and when are you just buying salt? Can you drink too much — and what happens if you do?
Water is the most important thing in human health, and the least examined.
My Body Is a River answers those questions in order, grading the evidence honestly as it goes. Where the research is strong, it says so. Where it's thin, expensive, and sold in a tall matte bottle, it says that too.
Mile 04 The course of the book
Ten chapters, read straight through or opened at the part that's bothering you.
The History of Water
Where it came from, and how every civilization we've built was an argument about it
The History of Sweating
The strangest thing about the human body, and the reason we outran everything
How Drinking Water Works
Mouth to cell in about twenty minutes, and why thirst arrives late by design
Common Dehydration Illnesses
From the four o'clock headache to the emergency room — and the opposite danger nobody warns you about
Potential Issues with Certain Waters
Lead, PFAS, nitrate, microbes, microplastics: what's worth worrying about and what isn't
Natural Tap Water Versus Filtered
What a treatment plant already did for you, and how to read the report your utility already publishes
Alkaline and Other Treated Water
Ionizers, hydrogen, structured water — graded one at a time instead of lumped together
Electrolytes
The salts that make water usable, and the difference between needing them and buying them
Water Filtration Systems
Carbon, reverse osmosis, UV, ion exchange — matching the machine to the problem you actually have
Longevity and Water Drinking
What thirty years of follow-up data suggest, and the habits that survive contact with a Tuesday
Mile 05 From chapter one
Life did not invent a way to live on land. Life invented a way to carry the ocean inland. Every cell in you is a sealed pocket of salty water, and the fluid between your cells is chemically closer to seawater than to anything you will drink today.
You are not a creature that needs water. You are a body of water that has learned to walk around, and the walking part is the recent, fragile innovation.
Clean drinking water is the most successful public health intervention in human history, and it is so successful that it has become invisible. You turn a handle. Something arrives that would have been priceless to every human being who lived before about 1910. You then pay four dollars for a bottle of something similar because the bottle has a nice font on it.
Mile 06 Method
Every claim in the book carries its evidence grade on its face. This is the scale, with the example from the text that earned each grade.
Fluid intake to prevent kidney stones. Randomized trials support it, so the book recommends it without hedging.
Hydration and healthy aging. Thirty years of follow-up data point one way, but they are observational, and the book says so.
Fluoride at the level used in American tap water. A federal court ruling, a toxicology review, and dental researchers who disagree with both. You get all three.
Hydrogen water. Small studies, short follow-up, interesting mechanism. Not established, whatever the bottle says.
Structured water. There is nothing to test, so there is nothing to grade. The book says no.
Most books in this category present every claim at the same volume. Scott's does the opposite: the grade sits next to the claim, so you can tell a randomized trial from a press release.
Nearly every hydration book pushes in one direction. This one includes exercise-associated hyponatremia, which has killed marathon runners and military recruits, and which looks almost exactly like dehydration from the inside.
No supplement line, no affiliate filter, no branded electrolyte. The recurring conclusion is that the active ingredient in almost every premium water is water, and that your utility already publishes the report you need.
Scott writes about drinking water, hydration and the industry that has grown up around them — source first, mechanism second, marketing claim last.
Mile 07 The author
Author of My Body Is a River
Scott Garber writes about water the way an engineer reads a specification: source first, mechanism second, marketing claim last. My Body Is a River is the result — a book that walks the entire path from a molecular cloud in deep space to the glass on your desk, and refuses to skip the parts that are inconvenient for anyone selling something.
His method is unusual in a category dominated by protocols and certainty. Every claim in the book carries its evidence grade on its face. Kidney stone prevention is stated strongly because randomized trials support it. Hydrogen water is described as early-stage because that is what the literature actually shows. Structured water is dismissed because there is no mechanism. Fluoride at the level used in American tap water is presented as genuinely contested, with the federal court ruling and the toxicology review and the dental researchers who disagree with both.
That discipline is what makes him useful on the subjects below — and it is why the book ends by telling you to read your own utility's water quality report rather than to buy anything.
Scott's five questions for any water claim
Subjects the book covers
Mile 08 Working with Scott
For press, events, and organizations putting water in front of an audience.
Scott takes interviews on drinking water safety, filtration, hydration myths, and the research linking hydration to healthy aging. He is comfortable on air with specifics — contaminant limits, certification standards, what a given study does and does not show.
Press kit, high-resolution photography, and a one-page fact sheet available on request.
Talks for conferences, corporate wellness programs, athletic organizations, public health departments, and utilities. Formats range from a forty-minute keynote to a working session on reading a water quality report and choosing filtration that matches it.
Bulk book orders for attendees can be arranged alongside any booking.
Mile 09 Get the book
Ebook
Instant download
$14
Hardcover
Print edition
$26
Audiobook
Read by the author
$18
Thirty-day refund, no questions asked. Bulk orders of 25 or more for teams, clinics, clubs and classrooms — enquire about bulk pricing.
Mile 10 Questions
Scott Garber is the author of My Body Is a River. He writes about water source-first: what the evidence says, how strong it is, and who is selling the alternative. More about Scott, or read his note on why he wrote the book.
About 12,000 words across ten chapters, plus front matter and a one-page reference appendix. Roughly a ninety-minute read, or one flight.
No. There is no protocol, no cleanse, no 30-day challenge, and nothing to buy at the end. It is closer to a well-sourced explainer than to a wellness program.
It will tell you how to find out. Chapter 9 matches each filtration technology to the contaminant it actually removes, explains what the NSF/ANSI certification numbers mean, and makes the case that the test result should come before the purchase. No specific brands are recommended or affiliated.
Chapter 8, in detail — including the physiology behind oral rehydration solution, a recipe you can make at home, and an honest table of when added electrolytes help and when they're just sodium you didn't need.
It is written for a general audience, but chapters 3, 4 and 8 are frequently used as patient- and athlete-facing explainers. Bulk pricing is available for practices, teams and programs.
No. It is general information. Kidney disease, heart failure, liver disease, and several common medications change fluid recommendations substantially, and the book says so repeatedly. Your target is a conversation with your doctor.
Mile 11 From Scott's desk
On drinking water research, filtration, and the claims worth ignoring. No more than monthly.
Scott GarberWrites the notes himself
“One email when something in the research actually changes, one when a claim gets loud enough to deserve a grade, and nothing in between.”
The delta
So is a body. Two to three liters pass through you every day, and none of it is stored for long. Hydration is not an achievement you complete — it's a rate you maintain.