Do you / how do you remineralize the water? I've heard it leaches minerals from your body if you don't (that's why drinking distilled water long term is also not recommended).
I keep seeing this urban legend about distilled water consumption being bad for you and really wonder when it will be corrected.
The city regularly publishes tests breaking it all down:
http://www.seattle.gov/utilities/your-services/water/water-q...
Is it really possible that lower TDS makes better water and better water makes better beer and coffee?
I guess that could make it a double-blind test.
I wonder how significant the number of participants is over what length of time and how it compares to the numbers and species in the laboratory rodent work.
Potentially beneficial minerals in the water can be easily substituted with a food supplement tablets if one feels food intake is inadequate.
Minimizing PFOS to practically 0 on top of god knows what other pollution could be in it still sounds like a great idea. I wouldn't care about this if I was 60+, but we are far from it and our kid(s) deserve a bit less pollution in their most fragile stage of life. Heck, all kids do.
I have no idea what's up with the article, but I personally wouldn't take it at face value given those statetments.
Reference: https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientscha...
I agree, it's more like a legend for the underdeveloped world, especially the more rural parts which suffer from all kinds of deficiencies.
Of course I'm going to take it "with a grain of salt" when one of the authors' introductory bullet points is
Distilled water has poor taste characteristics.
Which I have long known to be patently false, regardless of the hundreds of sources of demineralized water I have enjoyed or been responsible for. In a properly functioning system, poor taste has never been a characteristic ever.
Although I'll admit you have to know how to run a still.
Theoretically each "insoluble" mineral like mercury or lead is regarded that way because they commonly form various compounds which various chemists throughout history have tried to dissolve in otherwise mineral-free water.
These compounds are considered insoluble since you can put in a gram to a liter of DI water, stir it all you want, filter out what didn't dissolve and get back a whole gram.
Or you can put in a millgram and get back a whole milligram.
That's not the kind of everyday behavior you're going to get from compounds of Sodium, Potassium, Calcium & Magnesium. These life-giving minerals are very soluble by comparison to the life-compromising minerals like mercury & lead.
Many milligrams up to many grams of these good mineral compounds like potassium can easily dissolve in a liter of mineral-free water.
But nobody would drink mineral water that strong, it would taste worse than sea water.
However in fact when there is no mineral shortage there is also no significant difference in the amount of the good minerals that will dissolve in most average tap water versus DI water.
Therefore unless your primary source of beneficial minerals is from water alone, the difference between drinking mineral-free water versus tap water or even stronger popular mineral waters will not be mathematically measurable in a meaningful way.
Your total mineral intake relative to outflow is what determines your position on a spectrum of dynamic equilibrium for each mineral, regardless of whether the minerals come from water or food. This is not a complex concept, you wouldn't do a marathon any better on tap water than DI water when you really need something like Gatorade at least.
You really can never let the life-giving minerals become depleted down to your last milligrams or you would be dead. And no mineral water alone is enough to replace the normal amount you need coming through your system. That's why Gatorade was invented for those extreme times.
So almost everybody has always gotten most of their essential everyday minerals from their food, and unless the water has some beneficial minerals that the food does not, it makes no difference if it was replaced with DI water instead.
Water-soluble vitamins are not much diferent and need to be constantly replaced to maintain a good level, that's why Vitamin Water was invented in later decades as the food got bleaker, and you're not likely to get tap water with vitamins anytime soon.
Maybe I shouldn't give anybody any harebrained ideas for a startup.
OTOH with toxic minerals which you might want to flush out of your system, things like mercury or lead are actually saturating the water when you try to dissolve a milligram so they're not truly insoluble, you just can't measure the infintesimally miniscule amount that actually did dissolve before the water became saturated and will take up no more of that particular mineral.
But these are harmful minerals where micrograms are undesirable, and known to accumulate in living things, which can somewhat be attributed to their near-insolubility so if there's any hope of preventing or reducing any long-term accumulation it would have to be somewhat dependent on excreting more than is imbibed over the long term instead. No quick answer could ever be expected.
Because picograms add up to nanograms, and nanograms add up to micrograms and before long it's like Flint MI if your're not careful.
Mostly the rest of the time it's basically unmeasurable until something like that rears its ugly head.
Now when water has been subjected to a highly effective distillation or demineralization process which theoretically removes all minerals by orders of magnitude, and it turns out true in practice for those minerals which are measurable, you can have some confidence that the process will also affect some toxic minerals that might be present in unmeasurable amounts, and reduce them to even further levels of unmeasurability.
There's equations for all of this.
When the concentration of any barely soluble compound actually equals zero it's difficult to quantify the increase in solvent strength compared to nonzero, but I can live with it.
So I'll drink to that.
Minerals and water are actively regulated by your body; it can deal with pure water just fine.
> It has been adequately demonstrated that consuming water of low mineral content has a negative effect on homeostasis mechanisms, compromising the mineral and water metabolism in the body. An increase in urine output (i.e., increased diuresis) is associated with an increase in excretion of major intra- and extracellularions from the body fluids, their negative balance, and changes in body water levels and functional activity of some body water management-dependent hormones.Experiments in animals, primarily rats, for up to one-year periods have repeatedly shown that the intake of distilled water or water with TDS ≤ 75 mg/L leads to: 1.) increased water intake, diuresis, extracellular fluid volume, and serum concentrations of sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl) ions and their increased elimination from the body, resulting in an overall negative balance.., and 2.) lower volumes of red cells and some other hematocrit changes (3)
And how bad is something like coffee for comparison?
But, I'm not sure of several things.
First, are these effects solely because the lack of minerals? If you drink water with a non-empty stomach, would that still be a problem? Or is it that pure water has some "magical" property that I hadn't thought of?
Second, anecdotally, I find distilled water to taste better. I've drunk tap water, boiled water, and distilled water side by side, and I prefer distilled.
Third, the longer term changes, can they be remedied if you take supplements or mineral-rich diet?
For example I have this model: https://aquaphor.com/en-us/reverse-osmosis/ro-101
And you presumably consume food with mineral. I mean, drinking water doesn’t typically contain potassium but you don’t see people having potassium leeched out of their body.
I cannot search on mobile.
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V. CONCLUSIONS Drinking water should contain minimum levels of certain essential minerals (and other components such as carbonates). Unfortunately, over the two past decades, little research attention has been given to the beneficial or protective effects of drinking water substances. The main focus has been on the toxicological properties of contaminants. Nevertheless, some studies have attempted to define the minimum content of essential elements or TDS in drinking water, and some countries have included requirements or guidelines for selected substances in their drinking water regulations. The issue is relevant not only where drinking water is obtained by desalination (if not adequately re-mineralised) but also where home treatment or central water treatment reduces the content of important minerals and low-mineral bottled water is consumed. Drinking water manufactured by desalination is stabilized with some minerals, but this is usually not the case for water demineralised as a result of household treatment. Even when stabilized, the final composition of some waters may not be adequate in terms of providing health benefits. Although desalinated waters are supplemented mainly with calcium (lime) or other carbonates, they may be deficient in magnesium and other microelements such as fluorides and potassium. Furthermore, the quantity of calcium that is supplemented is based on technical considerations (i.e., reducing the aggressiveness) rather than on health concerns. Possibly none of the commonly used ways of re-mineralization could be considered optimum, since the water does not contain all of its beneficial components. Current methods of stabilization are primarily intended to decrease the corrosive effects of demineralised water. Demineralised water that has not been remineralized, or low-mineral content water – in the light of the absence or substantial lack of essential minerals in it – is not considered ideal drinking water, and therefore, its regular consumption may not be providing adequate levels of some beneficial nutrients. This chapter provides a rationale for this conclusion. The evidence in terms of experimental effects and findings in human volunteers related to highly demineralised water is mostly found in older studies, some of which may not meet current methodological criteria. However, these findings and conclusions should not be dismissed. Some of these studies were unique, and the intervention studies, although undirected, would hardly be scientifically, financially, or ethically feasible to the same extent today. The methods, however, are not so questionable as to necessarily invalidate their results. The older animal and clinical studies on health risks from drinking demineralised or low-mineral water yielded consistent results both with each other, and recent research has tended to be supportive. Sufficient evidence is now available to confirm the health consequences from drinking water deficient in calcium or magnesium. Many studies show that higher water magnesium is related to decreased risks for CVD and especially for sudden death from CVD. This relationship has been independently described in epidemiological studies with different study designs, performed in different areas, different populations, and at different times. The consistent epidemiological observations are supported by the data from autopsy, clinical, and animal studies. Biological plausibility for a protective effect of magnesium is substantial, but the specificity is less evident due to the multifactorial aetiology of CVD. In addition to an increased risk of sudden death, it has been suggested that intake of water low in magnesium may be associated with a higher risk of motor neuronal disease, pregnancy disorders (so-called preeclampsia), sudden death in infants, and some types of cancer. Recent studies suggest that the intake of soft water, i.e. water low in calcium, is associated with a higher risk of fracture in children, certain neurodegenerative 158
diseases, pre-term birth and low weight at birth and some types of cancer. Furthermore, the possible role of water calcium in the development of CVD cannot be excluded. International and national authorities responsible for drinking water quality should consider guidelines for desalination water treatment, specifying the minimum content of the relevant elements such as calcium and magnesium and TDS. If additional research is required to establish guidelines, authorities should promote targeted research in this field to elaborate the health benefits. If guidelines are established for substances that should be in deminerialised water, authorities should ensure that the guidelines also apply to uses of certain home treatment devices and bottled waters
Any time you drink water that contains lower concentrations of these than your body, you will lose some, as the concentrations equalize. Same thing, just more pronounced. If you drink very large amounts of water in a short time, that can be a serious health hazard, it can lead to hyponatraemia [1]. Distilled water works exactly the same here, but it is more hypotonic, so the required amount to get into problematic areas is probably lower.
Short version: Don't drink huge amounts of water (think upwards of 5l) in a short amount of time without replenishing electrolytes, it could kill you. Applies to both "normal" and distilled water, but probably to a slightly lower amount of distilled water.
https://www.ktre.com/story/5955984/was-it-homicide-water-dri...
(For the chemistry here, pure water will absorb CO2, making H2CO3, then splitting into two H+ and a CO3(2-) ions. Since this process release H+ ions, truly pure water becomes acidic on exposure to air.
>truly pure water becomes acidic on exposure to air.
Correct, the carbonate is about impossible to avoid by distillation alone, you need to follow it with point-of-dispensing deionization to get a good blank. Though sometimes the older tradition of freshly boiling distilled stock might still be OK to get rid of CO2.
I just don't like stock any more, micro-organisms can change pH more than air and be more insidious.
But contact with the ever increasing concentration of CO2 in the air is not going to soon rival the amount of CO2 simply pressured into solution for mineral-free seltzer water. Way more carbonate ion in soluton as well as dissolved CO2 gas. Great to drink straight and not nearly as acidic as orange juice. Can nicely moderate the acidity of orange juice to end up with a refreshing lower-calorie orange soda too.
pH is very important but the huge difference is in buffer value where the titratable acidity of the carbonic acid in DI water is insignificant compared to the seltzer.
IOW when you take a sip of pure distilled water with no more carbonate than you get from the atmosphere and no other ions either, the pH of that sip takes on almost the exact pH your mouth had beforehand.
OTOH when you take a sip of seltzer which is simply pure carbonated water, that sip can make very prominent changes to the pH of your mouth (depending on how different your mouth was at the time).
I prefer to do both, repeatedly.
But not club soda which as the name implies has sodium like seltzer does not.
You can get even more carbonate buffer reserve into the water when you dissolve concentrated minerals like sodium bicarbonate and get true soda water instead of just dissolving CO2 gas under pressure, but for me there's too much sodium coming from too many directions already so I want my carbonation to come without sodium and not be a true "soda".