Another Thread About Water:

Factual Questions
1

I have heard from a book that if you drink 2 pints of water a day, that is 4,500 gallons of water over the course of 70 years. According to this book, this said water, assuming it is not distilled, will include 200-300 pounds of rock (Calcium carbonate/lime, magnesium, the stuff that collects on the inside of your pots and pans supposedly) that will go through your body in that amount of time. Is this much true?

Here’s a seperate cite that talks about this:
http://www.bragg.com/health_info/ea_water2.html

Now, I know your body is set up to handle this through the excretory system. But, how much of this “rock” actually never makes it out of the body, but deposits in the kidneys and arteries and other nooks and crannies?

Now, think about it. Even if just 1 or 2 pounds of this rock gets stuck somewhere, couldn’t that cause some problems?

Most of what is in this book is bs and I am not really losing any sleep over this (I tend to immediately dismiss any conspiracy theories), but it would be nice to have a scientific explanation for this point. Thanks.

2

Yes, a certain amount of it does get “stuck” in the arteries and kidneys. In the arteries, calcium is a component of what’s called “plaque” which is what’s responsible for heart disease. In the kidneys, it’s called “kidney stones”.

As for “how much of it gets stuck”, well, obviously people don’t go around with enormous measurable weights of minerals in their kidneys and arteries. The vast majority of it is excreted by people with normally functioning bodies.

Also, it’s important to note that your body actually requires minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, and yes, even that evil substance sodium. All these minerals are what enable your body’s cells to communicate with each other. If you have a mineral-deficient diet, like if you’re drinking only distilled water, and you never eat table salt, and you don’t drink milk or eat a balanced diet, then you’re at risk for heart failure, as the electrical connections in your muscles will simply be unable to fire without those crucial mineral ions. It’s a biochemistry thing.

So the Distilled Water folks tend to demonize things like table salt and the minerals found in hard water, but the fact is that generally speaking your body is well able to cope with an excess of minerals.

They’re just trying to sell you some distilled water. :wink:

3

Well, in the first place, the guy can’t even do basic math.

365.25 days/yr [allowing for leap years] x 70 years x 2 pt/day / 8 pt/gal= 6391.875 gal/lifetime (not 4500)

Secondly, that 26391 liters of water. “Normal saline” a medical solution which approximates the osmolality of water) contains 9g of salt per liter or 237.52 kg of salt for the amount of water calculated above. You need water that is more dilute than your blood and cellular fluids, or you aren’t really getting any ‘extra’ to replace the water that you lose in your breath, urine, sweat etc. Sure, your kidneys can reclaim a fair amount of water, leaving you with concentrated urine, but ideally you wouldn’t make them work that hard (concentrating urine is very energy-intensive)

Of course, he’s not only talking about salt. I’m using it as a visible, available stand-in for all dissolved matter. We’ll get back to his outrageous claims about salt intake in a few paragraphs

Anyone who works with normal saline knows it leaves a visible salt stain if it dries in any quantity. You Can try it yourself even have to dissolve the salt, just measure out 9 g of salt (1/3 oz or 2 teaspoons). Now evaporate a quart (roughly a liter) of tap water either by leaving a tray out or by boiling it on a stove. Do you see any appreciable deposit? No. Certainly not 2 tsp, no matter how hard your water is!

So where does he get that 200-300lb figure?

200lbs/26391 L = .121 oz/L
300lbs/26391 L = .182 oz/L

Go ahead - try it. Evaporate a liter (1.057 quarts) of tap water. Do you get almost 1/8 oz (3.43g) of sediment. Nope. Do you get even 1% of that? Nope. Even 0.1% of his claimed levels of dissolved matter would not meet EPA standards for public water supplies.

The calcium that is deposited in your body comes from your bones! An imbalance in calcium can have dramatic effects (muscle spasms, cardiac arrhythmias, seizures) because calcium is an important ion in regulating everything from muscle contraction to the firing of nerve cells. Your bones aren’t dead, they are constantly remodeling, taking up excess calcium and releasing it if it is needed.

This guy’s figures aren’t just wrong, they are completely made up.

Take this one. “A Japanese farmer who lives to age 60 eats approximately 2 ounces of salt every day and filters up to 2,737.5 pounds or 1.36 tons of salt through his kidneys in his lifetime!” Well, according to the Japanese Heart Journal, Japanese farmers take in less than half that amount (27g) and they get it from the traditional diet which includes lots of miso (salty seaweed soup), pickles and - surprise- soy sauce. In fact, they’d almost have to take it in liquid form. Imagine eating a full shaker of salt each day (most salt shakers I see won’t even hold 2 oz of salt - Weigh some out and see how much it is)

Does your tap water taste like soy sauce? I didn’t think so. But we’ve all known people who heap salt by the spoonful on their food. They are the ones we should worry about, not the daredevils who drink tap water. Furthermore, current medical studies indicate that just because cutting down on salt helps people who already have high blood pressure, doesn’t mean that salt will cause in in people who don’t have it.

(But it may help indirectly predispose some people in the long run, so keeping an eye on your salt is still a good idea. Besides, if you’re used to less salt, you’ll find that you don’t need nearly as much to get the same taste as somebody who heaps it on.]

Drinking distilled water is fine, but there’s no need to. He exaggerates his numbers and misstates the physiology, and his arguments are still pretty weak. Just remember: man, and all life on Earth since the one-celled microbes, drank ordinary undistilled water, so it’s a pretty good bet we’re adapted to it.

4

Cool.

What the world needs is more people who actually like doing math. :smiley: