W.H.O. PROOF THAT R.O. WATER IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH UNLESS IT IS REMINERALIZED
I can’t begin to tell you how much pleasure it gives me to write this article. I will never forget being severely chastised a few years ago by a senior executive of a company that sells thousands of RO systems per year for “not knowing what I’m talking about” and that my challenge to him and the industry about RO water being unhealthy was “preposterous”. At the time of the meeting I was not equipped to fend off his accusations because I hadn’t put in the research that I have now. Despite being torn to shreds by the marketing executive at the meeting, I never believed the RO industry claim that it didn’t matter if their systems removed everything from the source water because the human body couldn’t absorb inorganic molecules anyway. After all, most of the supplements that are available on the market are inorganic, which means that either the RO industry was protecting its “ass-ets” or the entire supplement industry was a scam. The RO industry has been disseminating inaccurate (that’s about as politically correct as I can get) information for years. Doctors and other health care professionals have unwittingly been endorsing the “RO water is the best drinking water” message for years which makes the myth worse because we trust these people with our health. Proof that RO water is unhealthy I could write about the dozens of interviews I have conducted with water industry experts and biochemists, or about the hundreds of scientific articles I have reviewed but nobody would take the time to read it. In order to keep things brief, I offer two sources of evidence that unequivocally reveal the fact that the water produced by RO systems is bad for your health if you drink the water over the long term. The American government’s online health website www.pubmed.gov is an arm of the National Institutes of Health. The site offers a collection of: more than 22 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books I spent several long days poring over numerous studies related to the ability of the human body to absorb inorganic elements such as Calcium and Magnesium. I managed to find 14 scientific studies on the site that provide irrefutable evidence that the human body can and does absorb inorganic matter such as Calcium and Magnesium. The bottom line of what I learned from reviewing the studies is that your body will absorb anywhere from 6% to 30% of its daily requirement of essential elements from tap water. In a world where our soil is virtually devoid of nutrients from too many crops and not enough recovery time, and where diets are anything but healthy, it is very important to your long term health that you ingest calcium and magnesium from drinking water. The second website that drives a dagger into the RO industry myth that its pure water is healthy, comes from the World Health Organization (W.H.O.). The WHO provides us with a Position Paper titled “The Health risks from drinking demineralized water” which was written by F. Kozisek. You can tell by the title where the article is headed. Click Here for a link to the article. Here are some of the highlights from the article: The final report, published as an internal working document (WHO 1980), concluded that “not only does completely demineralized water (distillate) have unsatisfactory organoleptic properties, but it also has a definite adverse influence on the animal and human organism.” The potential for adverse health effects from long term consumption of demineralized water is of interest not only in countries lacking adequate fresh water but also in countries where some types of home water treatment systems are widely used or where some types of bottled water are consumed. The WHO provided recommendations in 2004 as to what they believe should be included in drinking water and in what concentrations: * For magnesium, a minimum of 10 mg/l (Novikov et al. 1983; Rubenowitz et al. 2000) and an optimum of about 20-30 mg/l (Durlach et al. 1989; Kozisek 1992); * For calcium, a minimum of 20 mg/l (Novikov et al. 1983) and an optimum of about 50 (40-80) mg/l (Rakhmanin et al. 1990; Kozisek 1992); * For total water hardness, the sum of calcium and magnesium should be 2 to 4 mmol/l (Plitman et al. 1989; Lutai 1992; Muzalevskaya et al. 1993; Golubev and Zimin 1994). At these concentrations, minimum or no adverse health effects were observed. The maximum protective or beneficial health effects of drinking water appeared to occur at the estimated desirable or optimum concentrations. The recommended magnesium levels were based on cardiovascular system effects, while changes in calcium metabolism and ossification were used as a basis for the recommended calcium levels Summary of the research: Scientific testing and the best “unbiased” brains in the world have repeatedly demonstrated that long term consumption of demineralized (RO) water is bad for your health. What should you do if you are drinking demineralized “RO” water? You don’t need to disconnect your RO system and throw it away (unless it is operating ineffectively which often happens if the system is not properly maintained). RO systems do a great job of removing impurities/contaminants from the water and that is a good thing. The problem with RO systems is that they don’t discriminate between good stuff and bad stuff as they remove everything. What you need to do is remineralize the water once it has passed through the RO membrane. Adding back Magnesium and Calcium in the proper concentrations fixes the problem. The RO industry is just waking up to the reality that long term consumption of demineralized water is bad for your health. Even the Coke company has bottled RO water that says ‘Remineralized Reverse Osmoses Water’ right on the bottle. Do they know something we don’t? The sellers of RO equipment are now racing around trying to find a solution to making their water healthy. From what I can see from the initial offerings, the industry has not done its homework because they are offering Corosex and Calcite solutions. While Corosex and Calcite will remineralize water, they were never designed to work in with the aggressive acidic water produced by RO systems. As a result, Calcite and Corosex filters can dump more minerals into the water than your kidneys can digest and result in the formation of kidney stones. Calcite and Corosex filters are obviously not the right solution for remineralizing aggressive acidic water produced by RO machines. What is the solution? I have been helping a number of companies over the years to improve their products. My focus for the past couple of years has been on remineralizing filters which can be added to reverse osmosis systems. Intuitively, one would expect the media of filters to be similar and they are, but there are also differences. The big difference is the pH of the source water. The acidic water produced by RO systems is much more aggressive than tap water which is typically somewhat alkaline. (This is why a reputable water company selling whole house RO systems will install a pH adjuster to to avoid corrosion in all the home water pipes.) Most companies that sell RO systems that remineralize the water use either calcite or Corosex as pH neutralizers. This is not the best way to increase the pH as the calcium builds up in the kidneys and create kidney stones. There is an RO system built by CWF that has a cartridge added to make the water 10 times less acidic without any side effects. The Calcium in our 6 stage Alkalizer cartridge (Premium Blend) is formulated with a proprietary blend of media. The Natural alkalizer/ionizer, mineralizer, and oxidation cartridge simply gives back minerals If you already have your own RO system, all you need to do is add our mineralizing filter to make your RO water healthy. Check out https://canadianwaterfilter.com/product/six-stage-natural-alkalizer-ionizer-mineralizer-and-oxidation-cartridge. My next goal is to reach out to the giant filter manufacturing companies and get them on board with adopting the new safe and effective way to increase the pH in RO water. When that happens, everyone will be able to take advantage of lower prices as the economies of scale kick in. Shipping media in large quantities by sea from all over the world is a lot more cost effective than shipping small quantities by air.
IMPORTANT NOTE I loose many sales on a regular basis by talking people out of buying an RO system. I would ONLY advice someone to buy our Remineralizing RO system if they are on a well and use a salt softener. Otherwise it is complete overkill. Our purifiers with the multi-stage washable ceramics will remove everything from water that I want to remove (chemicals, heavy metals and bacteria) but it allows the free flow of all natural minerals in the water keeping it pH perfect.
Some other benefits over this one cartridge vs the six on an RO system is; Very compact (2 square inches of space vs half the area under your sink) Safer for leaks (two lead free brass compression bolts and ice-maker flex hoses vs 16 plastic Quick Connect bolts that all will leak in time as the o-rings inside calcify) One cartridge to replace vs six (each RO cartridge should be flushed separately to avoid clogging the next cartridge inline. This job can take over an hour and once done, often there are leaks) Cost efficient (the cost of one cartridge over the cost of six, will save you an enormous amount of money over the years) Unlimited water (constant flow of water vs what is stored in your holding tank. Often a family can run out of water as it takes hours to fill the tank)
Click HERE to read more on the hazard of acidic RO or Distilled water and why Doctor Marcola quotes that he is firmly convinced that distilled and RO water is harmful to your health. I have many Naturopathic Doctors as clients, and they recommend Distilled or RO water for a two week detox, but not to drink this acid water beyond that. Bottom line, the pH of your water should neither be too high or too low. Ideally, it should be around the pH of your body. Click HERE for more info on the benefits of alkaline water. |
