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Better Health Update #3 - Monte Kline, Clinical Nutritionist

Water & Your Health

What's the most important ingredient to good health? If you think it's good, natural food, you're wrong? If you think it's the right kind of vitamin supplements, you're wrong again. You can live without food for 30 or 40 days. What you can only live without for a couple of days is water. Water is therefore the supreme health ingredient. Our bodies are 70% water, and all that water is replaced every five to ten days! But what is the quality of the water you drink?
Drinking water that's full of poison would obviously not be very beneficial to your health. Thus, we must approach water from the point-of-view of both quality and quantity. For good health you must have enough water (quantity), but almost more important, you must have pure water (quality) for it to really benefit your health.

WATER QUALITY PROBLEMS

Several problems emerge when it comes to water quality. Here are some possible sources of contamination:

1. Air Pollution - So what does air pollution have to do with water pollution? Rain and snow fall through the atmosphere and pick up whatever contaminants are in the air. Once upon a time rain or snow water would have been pretty pure, but not today. Keep in mind that this is where all the fresh water ultimately comes from. So, even before anything else happens to water, its original source is polluted. It only gets worse from there on.

2. Agricultural Chemicals - Pesticides, herbicides and nitrates from synthetic fertilizers all eventually end up in the underground water supplies. While I'm big supporter of organic farming, and am an organic gardener myself, that can have it's drawbacks too. Cattle manure, that good organic fertilizer we like to use, also contaminates the water. This has become a significant issue particularly around feed lot operations.
The nitrates from synthetic fertilizers can form cancer-causing compounds called nitrosamines. High nitrate levels are very common in major agricultural areas such as the central valleys in California.

3. Industrial Chemical Wastes - Benzene, Trichloroethylene, and Trihalomethanes are but a few of the common industrial chemicals that can affect water.

4. Heavy Metals - The EPA says that 38 million Americans are drinking water that exceeds the 50 ppb maximum for lead. Other toxic metals like arsenic, excess copper, mercury and others can also affect the water. Lead and other heavy metals can come from water pipes, soldered joints on copper pipes, and brass fixtures.

5. Pathogenic Organisms - Here we're concerned with bacteria, viruses, protozoa, amoebae and the like. Of particular concern is the Cryptosporidium protozoan parasite. The largest recorded outbreak of a waterborne disease in U. S. history was caused by this organism in Milwaukie, Wisconsin in 1994. The statistics are incredible: 400,000 people ill, 41,000 treated for abdominal cramps and diarrhea, 4000 hospitalized, and 104 people dead! As is probably obvious, chlorine doesn't kill Cryptosporidium.

6. Chlorination - What? Chlorination as a source of water contamination? I thought that's what we did to water to make it healthy? Well, yes and no. Chlorine does kill harmful bacteria and viruses, but it also can combine with organic contaminants in the water (like sewage) to form chloroform and Trihalomethanes (THM's), both of which are potent carcinogens.

W. F. Von Deltinger, M.D. stated that injury to the mitral valve of the heart and cardiac insufficiency may result from severe exposure to chlorine. To further complicate this, Vitamin E,
often thought of as the "heart vitamin," is destroyed by chlorine exposure. This may be part of the reason for the link between heart disease and water chlorination.

7. Fluoridation - If I was on controversial ground on water chlorination, I'm really pushing the envelope on water fluoridation. Fluoridation of public drinking water supplies is an emotional issue to say the least. Never has so much energy been exerted attempting to persuade the public that something was good for them. Opposing fluoridation often gets one caricatured as a little old lady seeing communists behind every tree. The proponents of fluoridation are excellent propagandists, who understand the principle that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will eventually accept it as truth.
Sodium fluoride is an industrial waste product that is a by-product of aluminum manufacturing. Its primary usage, prior to water fluoridation, was as rat poison! Fluoride, like lead, is a cumulative poison. In chemistry it is used to poison enzymes. No less than 31 essential enzymes to bodily function are inhibited by fluorine, which may result in magnesium deficiency, according to the late Robert Olney, M.D. of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Dean Burke, Ph.D., the late head of the Cytochemistry Division at the National Cancer Institute and John Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D., former editor of Chemical Abstracts, found that fluoridated cities have an average cancer death rate 20% higher than non-fluoridated cities.
Fluoride proponents have cited various studies that supposedly prove that fluoridated reduces tooth decay. Not all scientists agree. It is known that excess fluoride, which is easily received from water and dental treatments, causes mottling of the teeth and is actually destructive. Philip Zanfagna, M.D. states in his book, Fluoridation and Truth Decay:

"Dental researchers recognize that dental decay is not due to a lack of fluoride in the diet or water, but rather to genetic differences, lack of calcium and poor diets, and to the excessive use of sugar."

Many more examples of water contamination could be cited. The point is simply this: I can almost guarantee your tap or even well water is contaminated. The question then becomes, "What is the best way to get pure water?"

WATER PURIFICATION METHODS

1. Boiling - Boiling water for long enough (20 minutes) does kill bacteria, viruses, and parasites like Cryptosporidium. However, this basically makes your water a graveyard for dead germs. Not particularly appetizing, is it? The other problem with boiling is that it concentrates the contaminants. Understand that you have boiled off some of the water, but kept all of the solid contaminants, simply creating even more toxic water relative to some pollutants.
2. Rain or Snow Water - As mentioned earlier, due to atmospheric pollution, water or snow falling to earth can become quite contaminated. Prior to the modern industrial age this might have been a good option, but not today.
3. Filtered Water - This ranges from inexpensive filters that attach to your faucet or that you pour water through to expensive solid carbon block filters that fit under the sink. Filters will reduce chlorine taste and odor. They are not that effective in eliminating arsenic, lead, nitrates, parasites, sodium, sulfates, bacteria, and viruses. In fact, the filter medium often makes a great breeding ground for germs. All filters are less effective the longer they're used, so you don't get a consistent purifcation. Replacement of the higher quality solid carbon block filters tends to be expensive.
4. Reverse Osmosis - This type of purifier, which fits under your sink, forces water under pressure through a semi-permeable membrane. Performance varies according to water pressure. Also, you waste six gallons of water for every one gallon of purified water you produce. The membranes are expensive to replace, and like filters, their effectiveness diminishes over time.
5. De-ionization -This method removes organic minerals well, but the resin beds used in the process can become breeding grounds for bacteria. Also, de-ionization does not remove pesticides, herbicides, and industrial solvents.

THE BEST PURIFICATION - DISTILLATION

Distillation refers to boiling the water into a vapor and then condensing that steam back into water, leaving the contaminants behind. For over 20 years I have drunk distilled water and recommended it to my clients. Distillation, combined with the post-carbon filtration featured on the WaterwiseTM distillers available at our clinics, significantly or completely removes algae, arsenic, bacteria, benzene, chloride, chlorine, fluoride, Cryptosporidium, lead, mercury, nitrates, odors, pesticides, rust, salt, sulfates, and viruses.
Distilled water is constant. Your distiller won't produce less pure water the longer you use it. It will maintain the same purity. I like to remind people that distillation is the method by which God has been purifying water since the Creation. Water from the rivers and oceans evaporates into clouds, is condensed, and falls back to earth as rain or snow.

DISTILLED WATER CONCERNS

Some people express concerns with distilled water, having heard some of the distilled water myths:

Myth #1 - Distillation removes essential minerals. Actually there are no "essential minerals" in water. We get our minerals from our food primarily. For example, it would take 676 glasses of Boston, Mass. tap water to get the R.D.A. of calcium, or 1848 glasses to get the R.D.A. of magnesium!

Myth#2 - Distilled water leaches essential minerals. Distilled water does a great job of flushing out discarded, unusable minerals from the body. But it is physiologically impossible for distilled water, or any other kind of water, to remove minerals from inside your cells.

Myth #3 - Distilled water doesn't remove organic
chemicals. Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOC's) are chemicals that boil at a temperature lower than water, and therefore could be condensed in the water vapor from a distiller. The distillers we use feature a volatile gas vent to get rid of these, plus post carbon filtration, which results in a 99% removal.

Distillation, particularly the economical way of owning your own distiller, can't be beat. Use distilled water for awhile, and you'll settle for no other.

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this publication is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose illness nor prescribe treatment. Rather, this material is designed to be used in cooperation with your nutritionally-oriented health professional to deal with your personal health problems. Should you use this information on your own, you are prescribing for yourself, which is your constitutional right, but neither the author nor publisher assume responsibility.