Distilled Water A Big No-no

[BRUMI1968]

Tuesday, March 30

By Gunn Sikk

Do you drink distilled water in hopes of improving your health?

For those of you not familiar with distillation, it’s a process by which water is boiled, evaporated, and then the vapour is condensed to form a water that is free of any dissolved minerals. As a result it is believed to have the special property of being able to pull foreign substances and toxic materials out of the body and eliminate them.

If you routinely perform this classic ritual of drinking distilled water, I have two words for you: Stop it.

Here are the facts. Distilled water is dead, unstructured water so foreign to the body that one actually gets a temporary high white blood cell count after drinking it. The longer you drink distilled water, the greater the risk you run of developing multiple mineral deficiencies as well as placing your body into an acidic state.

If you drink distilled water exclusively, you definitely increase your risk of high blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities and muscle cramping. In fact, if you’re an athlete, you should never drink distilled water because it can quickly rob you of your valuable electrolytes: calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium.

Another common occurrence that long-term drinkers of distilled water can experience is thinning hair or the hair actually falling out altogether. Now that’s not too cool because we know from nutrition that thinning hair is a result of mineral deficiencies. Interestingly enough, this display reverses as soon as these people stop drinking the distilled water.

I’m giving you the real scoop here. There’s no reason to drink this water. It’s amazing how health writers that put forth this idea over fifty years ago persist without even applying simple college-level chemistry.

Like the water itself, distilled water is a dead issue.

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[eKatherine]

Tuesday, March 30

By Gunn Sikk

Do you drink distilled water in hopes of improving your health?

For those of you not familiar with distillation, it’s a process by which water is boiled, evaporated, and then the vapour is condensed to form a water that is free of any dissolved minerals. As a result it is believed to have the special property of being able to pull foreign substances and toxic materials out of the body and eliminate them.

If you routinely perform this classic ritual of drinking distilled water, I have two words for you: Stop it.

Here are the facts. Distilled water is dead, unstructured water so foreign to the body that one actually gets a temporary high white blood cell count after drinking it. The longer you drink distilled water, the greater the risk you run of developing multiple mineral deficiencies as well as placing your body into an acidic state.

If you drink distilled water exclusively, you definitely increase your risk of high blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities and muscle cramping. In fact, if you’re an athlete, you should never drink distilled water because it can quickly rob you of your valuable electrolytes: calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium.

Another common occurrence that long-term drinkers of distilled water can experience is thinning hair or the hair actually falling out altogether. Now that’s not too cool because we know from nutrition that thinning hair is a result of mineral deficiencies. Interestingly enough, this display reverses as soon as these people stop drinking the distilled water.

I’m giving you the real scoop here. There’s no reason to drink this water. It’s amazing how health writers that put forth this idea over fifty years ago persist without even applying simple college-level chemistry.

Like the water itself, distilled water is a dead issue.

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I read what you're saying now 40 years ago, so it was certainly known then. Unfortunately the logic is that pure is good, and purest is best. It's easy to believe that those trace minerals are impurities are out to get you.

[tarnalberry]

I'd drink the stuff - if I was trapped on an island in the middle of the ocean without it's own water source and had something to use to make a still for ocean water. Though, in my daily life, I try to avoid being marooned on desert islands in the middle of the ocean, and leave the distilled water for my iron.

[penguin]

I knew that, also. Did you know that ultrapure water (used in labs) will kill you? It's crazy, water is best for you when there are minerals in it.

[Nancym]

Realty check!

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First of all, let me review for the record what distilled water is — it’s water that has been turned into steam so its impurities are left behind. The steam is then condensed to make pure water. The process of distillation kills and removes virtually all bacteria, viruses, heavy metals, and other organic and inorganic contaminants. Once distilled, the water is as pure as water can reasonably be.

For reasons I don't understand, any number of myths — some quite extreme — have grown up over the years about distilled water. A quick Internet search today will take you to sites that put forth such views as "distilled water leads to early death." Nonsense. One claim holds that distillation removes all of water's beneficial minerals. While it’s true that distillation removes minerals as well as various contaminants from water, we don't know that the human body can readily absorb minerals from water. We get our minerals from food, not water. By one manufacturer’s estimate, you would have to drink 676 eight-ounce glasses of tap water in Boston to reach the RDA for calcium.

Your question as to whether distilled water leaches minerals out of the body reflects another persistent myth. While pure water helps to remove minerals from the body that cells have eliminated or not used, it does not "leach" out minerals that have become part of your body's cell structure. Neither does distilled water cause your teeth to deteriorate, a false claim made by a filter manufacturer looking to boost sales. As far as acidity goes, distilled water is close to a neutral pH and has no effect on the body’s acid/base balance.

I hope I've set your mind at ease. Distilled water not only isn't dangerous, it’s the purest form of water. It’s also the kind of water I drink.

Dr. Andrew Weil

You get most of your minerals from stuff you eat.

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Always a good idea to do some checks on the internet of myths before you spread them.

[mamaw]

I have a home distiller for about twenty years now. One needs to take a good vit & min when using distilled water. I drink it every day as well as my pets and other family members. We have alway taken supplements. My hubby used to get very sick when he drank city water with flouride....

My pets have all lived to be 18/19 years old so I don't think it injured them in any way. My vet said it probably made them live much longer.

mamaw

I think they say there may be about 2% of the world's water that is truly safe with no bugs,germs and pollution in it. That's scary to me so I'll continue with my distiller.........

[VydorScope]

I have a home distiller too, and I have never believe urban legends about it.

[2kids4me]

We recommend distilled water for pets with kidney or bladder disease, or a history of bladder stones (in combo with prescription diet for stones).

I have seen info posted on sites which amused me:[ According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Distilled water, being essentially mineral-free, is very aggressive, in that it tends to dissolve substances with which it is in contact. Notably, carbon dioxide from the air is rapidly absorbed, making the water acidic and even more aggressive. Many metals are dissolved by distilled water." ]

umm ok, then why do manufacturers of steam autoclaves insist on distilled water being used - the autoclave is almost all metal - as are the instruments. If this were true - then our autoclave would be eaten away.

Many sites claim that it makes our bodies acidic - our bodies are so finely balanced the the acid base balance is maintained by a complex set of events. If you become acidotic - it is a medical emergency and it is result of illness disrupting the natural mechanisms. No one can walk around being in an "acid state".

If anyone does anything in excess - drinking too much water (distilled or otherwise), eating too much sugar, omitting protein or omitting carbs can all cause metabolic problems.

We had one owner who fed lettuce to his iguana, so much lettuce that the poor creature had bone loss and was very thin... it doesnt mean that lettuce was killing the iguana - it means that the diet was improper and that's all.

Everything in moderation and balance, eat foods that are healthy for you, enjoy the junk food now and then and drink water.

[Lymetoo]

Hope Dr Weil is right, because I drink it all the time!

[Nancym]

Just a hint on how you can figure this sort of thing out yourself. Try typing in "distilled water myth" in google. Usually snopes.com has pretty good debunking on most established myths, although they didn't have anything about distilled water.

The Internet is rife with scams and people trying to sell you crud you don't need by making you afraid of something perfectly harmless.

[lindalee]

Dr. Mercola also had a write up today on his newletter not recommending Distilled water. I do like him better that Weil IMHO. www.mercola.com ...I have been trying to figure this out myself lately. What to do about this water issue as the skin is the largest organ of the body and I try to drink alot of it. I hope we can get to the bottom of this. I went to Costco today but did not buy water--Hope we can figure it out !!

[Nancym]

I know a lot of people like Mercola, but he's a bit of a quack IMHO. Every now and then he stumbles onto something I agree wtih but he's always selling stuff and trying to get people scared about everything.

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[jerseyangel]

I drink Poland Spring Water. It was recommended to me by a Kinesiologist--I can't drink filtered as most of the filters use coconut hulls. The other recommendation I'd have would be a reverse-osmosis filter.

[lindalee]

I drink Poland Spring Water. It was recommended to me by a Kinesiologist--I can't drink filtered as most of the filters use coconut hulls. The other recommendation I'd have would be a reverse-osmosis filter.

I looked for the Poland @ Costco today-didn't have it. I"ve heard good reviews on reverse-osmosis.

[mamaw]

Reverse osmosis is what I have.I have the big polar bear that makes 5 gallon in a day. I drink about 50 oz's daily.Penta water is good. When I buy at costco or sam's I buy Deer Park.

One thing to remember about making your own water is to NOT put it in plastic used jugs such as milk jugs. It should be kept in glass jugs. You should never reuse bottles (plastic) that are made to be thrown away. They release garbage into your clean water. Plus bacteria when you drink out of the bottle and refill it.My son used to do just that and he was getting flu like symptoms and once he stopped using the same plastic 20 oz. bottle --- he got no more flu-lke symptoms.

mamaw

[lindalee]

Reverse osmosis is what I have.I have the big polar bear that makes 5 gallon in a day. I drink about 50 oz's daily.Penta water is good. When I buy at costco or sam's I buy Deer Park.

One thing to remember about making your own water is to NOT put it in plastic used jugs such as milk jugs. It should be kept in glass jugs. You should never reuse bottles (plastic) that are made to be thrown away. They release garbage into your clean water. Plus bacteria when you drink out of the bottle and refill it.My son used to do just that and he was getting flu like symptoms and once he stopped using the same plastic 20 oz. bottle --- he got no more flu-lke symptoms.

mamaw

Thanks mamaw, I haven't heard of Penta Water. And thanks also for the reminder about the plastic. I have been doing that. It's just so handy when I'm on the road. Everyone's got those spring water containers and I have just been filling my ole' bottle up with that cold water. Hummm... LL

[gfp]

I'd drink the stuff - if I was trapped on an island in the middle of the ocean without it's own water source and had something to use to make a still for ocean water. Though, in my daily life, I try to avoid being marooned on desert islands in the middle of the ocean, and leave the distilled water for my iron.

No need : You just add back some sea water if this ever happens.

If you want to purify the water you can use iodides which can be extracted from most kelp/seaweed by burning them into a charcoal and placing the ash in the water which is then boiled and the soluble part run off.

In order to test you have enough iodine to purify water test with starch from a starch rich source (most tuber type roots) and it should go purple ...

[gfp]

I have a home distiller for about twenty years now. One needs to take a good vit & min when using distilled water. I drink it every day as well as my pets and other family members. We have alway taken supplements. My hubby used to get very sick when he drank city water with flouride....

My pets have all lived to be 18/19 years old so I don't think it injured them in any way. My vet said it probably made them live much longer.

mamaw

I think they say there may be about 2% of the world's water that is truly safe with no bugs,germs and pollution in it. That's scary to me so I'll continue with my distiller.........

This is a completely spurious arguament. There is not much air you can breath doesn't contains bacteria, yeasts or other things .... but so what the human body is designed to cope with bacteria, indeed the human body cannot live without bacteria.

Removing trace elements and then adding them back n suppliments seems somewhat illogical unless you are a suppliment and water distillation company! Sure take them out and then put them in tablets to be taken back but why?

Almost all impurities can be removed by boiling and then filtering, especially flourides and chlorides using simple carbon filters.

Drinking distilled water with a perfectly balanced diet is possible so long as you don't drink on an empty stomach etc. or are loosing minerals and trace elements through D but its just totally pointless.

When I lived in N. Africa I used to water my garden with distilled water from an AC until it killed everything whereupon I added some seawater to the distilled water. Bear in mind the "soil" was just sand .... which when distilled water was added lost its tiny amount of nutrients

anyone can try this at home with a succulent or cactus that grows on sand, if you give it normal tapwater it is fine but give it only distilled water and it dies as the nutrients are washed out.

"Distilled water has an inherent quality. Acting almost like a magnet, it picks up rejected, discarded, and unusable minerals and, assisted by the blood and the lymph, carries them to the lungs and kidneys for elimination from the body. The statement that distilled water leaches minerals from the body has no basis in fact. It doesn't leach out minerals that have become part of the cell structure. It can't and won't. It collects only minerals that have already been rejected or excreted by the cells...To suggest that distilled water takes up minerals from foods so that the body derives no benefit from them is absurd." - Harvey & Marilyn Diamond, Fit for Life II: Living Health

Again all selectively written ....

Firstly it can and does affect cell composition and inparticular the osmotic balance of the cells.

Its like taking a reverse isotonic ... to claim it doesn't would be to say you could drink seawater .... obviously you can't. Eating K rich foods like bananas affects your K:Na ratio, drinking seawater does the inverse. Try drinking a 1/2 pint of seawater and you will get headaches and elevated blood pressure which will subside if you take some K and Mg salts.

The body uses electrolytes pretty much all the time ... they don't balance out like food over a few days

My hubby used to get very sick when he drank city water with flouride....

Very probably but is it the flouride or the fact the city water is extensively chemically treated. As for Harvey & Marilyn Diamond I take everything they say with a pinch of salt (pun intended) ....

I would expect he would be fine on a good quality untreated mineral water or filtered water .... much cheaper and no need to add suppliments.

I think they say there may be about 2% of the world's water that is truly safe with no bugs,germs ......

There is ample evidence that countires with extensive diets of raw meat and fish live longer and have lower infact mortality than those that do. Spain, France, Italy etc. and Japan all have much better life expectancies and lower infant mortality rates than the US ... The same can be said of unpasturised cheeses etc.

I have seen quite a few pro-biotic threads advocating pro-biotics natually found in raw meat and animal rennet ... (from stomach lining) with the same principal ... remove it from the natural diet then add it back as tablets. It makes no real sense ....

This usually makes headlines with events like Katrina ... where people have been brought up eating sterile foods and water and are then exposed to a bit of bacteria that knocks them sideways (or kills them) or when travelling to other countires.

edits:

Also the site promoting distilled water is just plain lying....

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Home distillers take about 3 kilowatts to make 4 litres of distilled water. The average price of a kw in the UK is approximately 5.5p and therefore, for four litres of distilled water the cost is likely to be approximately 16.5p - or only just over 4p per litre!

Is 4p per litre too much to pay for pure distilled water made fresh in your home?

The alternatives are to buy bottled distilled water, or mineral water - both of which cost between 40p-£2.50 per litre and are not available on demand.

From the perspective of return on investment - it would take you approximately 99 days for your distiller to pay for itself:

3 litres of distilled water per day = 12.37p

3 litres of bottled mineral water per day = £2.04

Difference = £1.92

Price of a Fresh & Pure Distiller = £189.99

Days to pay for distiller based upon saving above= 99 days!

Mineral water delivered to the door from a supermarket only costs 5p a litre ....

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If you buy it by the 25l or 50l refillable dispenser its a lot less and much better for the environment.

Again the whole article is a misleading lie. If I can find water at 5p a litre including delivery from the first online supermarket they could have done so.

[BRUMI1968]

Realty check!

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You get most of your minerals from stuff you eat.

Open Original Shared Link

Always a good idea to do some checks on the internet of myths before you spread them.

I don't think I'm spreading "internet myths". Rather, I think you and I have chosen to put our faith in different medical opinions. Gunn Sikk is a respected nutritionist, and he is certainly not alone in believing that distilled water is detrimental to our health. Dr. Weil is also respected. It's our choice, not being scientists who have studied such things, to use our reason, our research, and our use own anecdotal experiences and to search out medical realities and medical authorites that make the most sense to us.

This board is about sharing ideas, not accusing people of spreading propoganda and myth when their opinions differ from ours.

[tarnalberry]

No need : You just add back some sea water if this ever happens.

If you want to purify the water you can use iodides which can be extracted from most kelp/seaweed by burning them into a charcoal and placing the ash in the water which is then boiled and the soluble part run off.

In order to test you have enough iodine to purify water test with starch from a starch rich source (most tuber type roots) and it should go purple ...

It's not biological or viral or parasitic infection I'm worried about here - it's easy to ingest too much salt from drinking salt water, and dehydrate yourself, though you're drinking lots of water. Iodine is pretty effective, but not universally so, not to mention that you've got some significant wait times and the substance it light-sensitive. What I'd really want is a UV-C purifier. I wanna get me one a those for the backpackin'.