Distilled Water = Early Death

"Next to oxygen, water is the most important substance in the body. The average adult body contains approximately 45 pints of water and excretes about 32 pints daily through perspiration, respiration, urine and defecation... Water makes up 92% of the blood in the body and nearly 98% of intestinal, gastric, saliva and pancreatic juices. Many people have a dehydrated appearance. Their skin looks parched, withered, dry and old. Look at the dry and withered hands of many people. Look at the wrinkles on their foreheads and around their eyes." From WATER-THE SHOCKING TRUTH by PAUL BRAGG

During nearly 19 years of clinical practice I have had the opportunity to observe the health effects of drinking different types of water. Most of you would agree that drinking unfiltered tap water could be hazardous to your health because of things like

    • parasites
    • chlorine
    • fluoride
    • dioxins

Many health fanatics, however, are often surprised to hear me say that drinking distilled water on a regular, daily basis is potentially dangerous.

Paavo Airola wrote about the dangers of distilled water in the 1970's when it first became a fad with the health food crowd.

Distillation is the process in which water is boiled, evaporated and the vapour condensed. Distilled water is free of dissolved minerals and, because of this, has the special property of being able to actively absorb toxic substances from the body and eliminate them. Studies validate the benefits of drinking distilled water when one is seeking to cleanse or detoxify the system for short periods of time (a few weeks at a time).

Fasting using distilled water can be dangerous because of the rapid loss of electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride) and trace minerals like magnesium, deficiencies of which can cause heart beat irregularities and high blood pressure. Cooking foods in distilled water pulls the minerals out of them and lowers their nutrient value.

Distilled water is an active absorber and when it comes into contact with air, it absorbs carbon dioxide, making it acidic. The more distilled water a person drinks, the higher the body acidity becomes.

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."

The most toxic commercial beverages that people consume (i.e. cola beverages and other soft drinks) are made from distilled water. Studies have consistently shown that heavy consumers of soft drinks (with or without sugar) spill huge amounts of calcium, magnesium and other trace minerals into the urine.

The more mineral loss, the greater the risk for osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and a long list of degenerative diseases generally associated with premature aging.

A growing number of health care practitioners and scientists from around the world have been advocating the theory that aging and disease is the direct result of the accumulation of acid waste products in the body.

There is a great deal of scientific documentation that supports such a theory. A poor diet may be partially to blame for the waste accumulation.

These and other junk foods can cause the body to become more acidic:
      • meats                   • soft drinks
      • sugar                    • processed foods
      • alcohol                 • white flour products
      • fried foods            • dairy products

Stress, whether mental or physical can lead to acid deposits in the body.

There is a correlation between the consumption of soft water (distilled water is extremely soft) and the incidence of cardiovascular disease. Cells, tissues and organs do not like to be dipped in acid and will do anything to buffer this acidity including the removal of minerals from the skeleton and the manufacture of bicarbonate in the blood.

The longer one drinks distilled water, the more likely the development of mineral deficiencies and an acid state.

Those who supplement their distilled water intake with trace minerals are not as deficient but still not as adequately nourished in minerals as their non-distilled water drinking counterparts even after several years of mineral supplementation.

The ideal water for the human body should be slightly alkaline and this requires the presence of minerals like
• calcium
• magnesium

Distilled water tends to be acidic and can only be recommended as a way of drawing poisons out of the body. Once this is accomplished, the continued drinking of distilled water is a bad idea.

Water filtered through reverse osmosis tends to be neutral and is acceptable for regular use provided minerals are supplemented.

Water filtered through a solid charcoal filter is slightly alkaline. Ozonation of this charcoal filtered water is ideal for daily drinking. Longevity is associated with the regular consumption of hard water (high in minerals). Disease and early death is more likely to be seen with the long term drinking of distilled water.

Avoid it except in special circumstances.

Zoltan P. Rona MD MSc
____________________
References

Airola, P. 1974. How To Get Well.
Phoenix, AZ: Health Plus Publishers.

Baroody, Dr. Theodore A. Jr. Alkalinize or Die. California:Portal Books, 1995.

Haas, Elson M. Staying Healthy with Nutrition. The Complete Guide to Diet & Nutritional Medicine. Berkeley, California:Celestial Arts, 1992; p. 22.

Rona, Zoltan P. and Martin, Jeanne Marie. Return to the Joy of Health, Vancouver: Alive Books, 1995.

Rona, Zoltan P. Childhood Illness and The Allergy Connection. Rocklin, California:Prima Books, 1996.

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To claim Pathogenic bacterial "removal" one must demonstrate: 99.99% reduction. To claim "purification" one must demonstrate: 99.99999% reduction. The Berkey Light has demonstrated: 99.9999999% reduction.

In fact, we tested the Berkey Light System with the maximum pathogenic contamination levels that can be produced in a laboratory. When contamination levels exceed one billion pathogens per liter of water (10,000 times the density of contamination used in the standard test protocol for bacteriological removal) they become too numerous to count (TNTC). Such contamination levels are referred to as "lawn growth". Under normal testing protocol; one pathogenic organism is tested at a time. However, we had the laboratory mix together a soup of three separate pathogenic lawn growth cultures. We then tested the system under this extreme contamination level and absolutely no pathogens were able to make it through the purification elements. We then had the laboratory incubate the water and nothing grew. We then had them view the effluent (filtered water) under an electron microscope and not even in-viable (dead) microbes were detectable. Nothing was present but pure H2O.

Distilled Water and RO Filtered Water

                                    by Sang Whang

                             Water is a strong solvent; therefore,
                              it carries many invisible
                              substances: minerals, oxygen,
                              nutrients, waste products, pollutants, etc. Pure water without any substance is as un-natural as a pocket of vacuum within a normal atmosphere. A pocket of vacuum will suck in any and everything around it until the pressure becomes equal to the surrounding.

Likewise, pure water will leach out any and every substance that it can dissolve from the substances that it comes into contact with, until its content is homogeneous with its surrounding or the water is saturated with substances so that it can no longer dissolve anymore substances.

Since the creation of this planet, rainwater has been washing down minerals from the mountains into the ocean. Ocean water has been saturated for a long time with specific minerals, yet rivers continue to carry down the minerals. The result is that at the bottom of the ocean there are tons of mineral deposits precipitated. If we knew how to recover the minerals from the bottom of the ocean, we would be very rich.

Distilled water and RO (reverse osmosis) filtered water contain no minerals, simulating close to pure water. This pure water should be neutral with a pH value of 7. However, it measures acid pH! The reason for this phenomenon is that pure water sucks in carbon dioxides from the atmosphere. Although it measures acid pH, there are no acid minerals in that water. If pure water is stored in plastic bottle, the water smells plastic.

For this reason, distilled water or RO filtered water should be stored in glass bottles or special plastic bottles that can block carbon dioxide penetration. Coca Cola was bottled originally in glass bottles only. Then came the plastic bottle and it lost the fizzles. Then better plastic bottles came out that didn't lose carbon dioxides; still plastic-bottled Coca Cola has to have expiration dates. Carbon dioxides penetrate through plastics, making pure water acidic.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the health food industry recommended that people eat certain types of healthy food and exclude other types of unhealthy food. Initially, people noticed a marked improvement of their health. However, staying with this healthy diet for several years, people suffered from nutritional deficiency syndrome, which the health food industry concluded as a sickness caused by pollutants in the drinking water. The health food industry began to sell distillers and RO filters to protect people. To me, this is a case of arriving at an erroneous conclusion because they totally misunderstood the facts.

In the 1950s distilled water was sold in drug stores with the label "Not for drinking!" Distilled water was used to fill car batteries and steam irons. Distilled water is not healthy because it will leach out valuable alkaline

minerals from our body. However, I realize that I cannot change some people's mind. I am often asked if it is OK to add AlkaLife? to distilled water. I wish people would not drink distilled water; however, if one must drink distilled water, it is better to add an pH booster product, like AlkaLife?.

The question is how many drops of AlkaLife? to add to distilled water. For a glass of ordinary drinking water, I recommend two drops and typically, the pH value increases from 7.5 to 10. However, two drops of AlkaLife? in distilled water does not bring the pH value up to an alkaline value. Sometimes, one may have to put more than 10 drops to make distilled water alkaline. This is caused by the presence of carbonic acid in "pure" water, so, how many drops should one put in? My answer is 2 drops.

In two drops of AlkaLife?, the number of hydroxyl ions (OH-) is 1 followed by 20 to 21 zeros, and they are mated with potassium and sodium. In the presence of carbonic acids (H2O + CO2 = H2CO3 = H+ + HCO3-) the hydroxyl ions combines with H+ ions (H+ + OH- = H2O) and potassium+ and sodium+ ions combine with HCO3- ions and become potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3) and sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) which are alkaline buffer. When CO2 are removed from these bicarbonates by the lungs, the original KOH and NaOH in AlkaLife? are restored. When we are dealing with carbon dioxides, the pH value can be confusing. What is important is the number of OH- ions in the water that will neutralize H+ ions in the body acid. For this reason I recommend 2 drops of AlkaLife? in a glass of distilled or RO filtered water and ignore the pH value.