Whether you drink bottled water, tap water, or filtered water, what makes the water you drink a “healthy water”?Many people realize that the quality of their drinking water is not ideal. Maybe it’s the taste or odor. Perhaps it’s the various chemicals in the water (some are added on purpose and some are from pollution). Some people think that the dissolved minerals in the water are good and others think they’re bad. The end result is confusion.
Introduction: Healthy Water
Research on drinking water is highly fragmented and opinionated. Studies on water and heart disease ignore the findings on drinking water and cancer and vice versa.Healthy Water brings this diverse and confusing research into a coherent focus. Read what makes drinking water both safe and healthy.
Healthy Water is not about water pollution, but it’s a good idea to be educated about the extent of this problem. Reports from two leading environmental organizations (the National Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group) claim that 53 million Americans roughly 1 in 5 are drinking polluted water.
Water: The Essential Nutrient
Most of us have been told we need to drink a minimum of 6 of 8 glasses of water a day. But if you were to record how much you drink, you’ll be amazed how little it actually is. Try it .Many of our healthy problems are the result of dehydration. We have lost touch with our body's demand for water and have instead substituted food or other drinks for water. Ironically many of the liquids we choose, such as alcohol, juice, soft drinks, coffee, and tea actually dehydrate the body thus adding to the problem.
Heart Disease: Soft Water vs. Hard Water
In numerous published studies on the relationship between drinking water and cardiovascular mortality, two beneficial factors continue to stand out water hardness and total dissolved solids (TDS). Both are associated with lower mortality from heart disease.
Hardness refers to the amount of calcium and magnesium, or calcium carbonate in the water. The more calcium carbonate, the harder the water; lower amounts mean softer water. TDS is a measurement of all the minerals in the water, not just calcium or magnesium. The ideal level of water hardness around 170 mg/l resulted in lower levels of heart disease.
Sodium and Hypertension
Some studies have reported that higher levels of sodium in drinking water result in higher blood pressure (hypertension). However, most studies do not support this finding. There is no conclusive evidence showing a correlation between high levels of sodium in drinking water and higher mortality rates from hypertension.
This may be due to water supplies that are high in sodium are also high in the beneficial factors of hardness and total dissolved solids. If we want to lower our sodium intake, we should look to our diets of all the sodium consumed is in the food we eat.
Cancer: Hardness, TDS, and pH
It’s estimated 60% to 80% of all cancers are environmental in origin. Several studies have demonstrated the presence of chemical carcinogens in surface, ground water, and municipal treated drinking water. However, often overlooked are the beneficial properties in drinking water that can help protect us from cancer – namely total dissolved solids (TDS), hardness, and pH. Drinking water with higher amounts of TDS and hardness results in lower heart disease and cancer mortality rates.
Fluoridation is a highly emotional and controversial issue in which it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. The bottom line: Is it effective? Is it safe? After a 40-day fluoridation trial in
Fluoride toxicity has been linked to genetic damage in plants and animals, birth defects in humans, plus a series of allergic reactions ranging from fatigue, headaches, urinary tract irritations, diarrhea and many other problems. Dr. Dean Burk, former researcher with the National Cancer Institute, claims "one tenth of all cancer deaths in this country can be shown to be linked to fluoridation of public drinking water." Worldwide there is very little fluoridation. Countries that start usually end up stopping it.
Chlorination: Heart Disease and Cancer
Is the chlorine in our drinking water acting as a catalyst triggering tumor development both in atherosclerosis (heart disease) and cancer? In the late 1960s Joseph Price, MD, wrote a fascinating, yet largely ignored book entitled, "Coronaries, Cholesterol, and Chlorine."
His experiments clearly demonstrate that "the basic cause of atherosclerosis and heart attacks and most common forms of strokes is chlorine. The chlorine contained in drinking water." Can chlorine be linked to cancer too? Chlorine combines with natural organic matter creating cancer-causing trihalomethanes (THMs).
De-Mineralized Water: Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Distillers
De-mineralized water contains little or no minerals. This is the type of water you get if you use a distiller, reverse osmosis (RO), or de-ionization. Creating a "healthy water" means removing the harmful agents while retaining beneficial minerals. According to Dr. John Sorenson, a leading authority on mineral metabolism, "Minerals in drinking water are more easily and better absorbed than minerals from food."
