# Can I acclimate myself to unpure water? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 22, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481 "2006-03-22T21:12:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481/1 "2006-03-22T21:12:30Z")
Say I was going to be in Mexico or the mountains for quite some time and didn’t want to worry about purifying water. Is there a way I could eventually get my body acclimated to the water so that I didn’t get sick from it? As I understand it, many times the sickness from water is because the bacteria is different than what your body is used to–not necessarily because it’s bad bacteria. So would it be possible to get my body to accept this new bacteria? ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481/2 "2006-03-22T21:35:14Z")
I doubt that the water where you live now is 100% pure. One anecdotal example: my sister lived in Calcutta in India for a couple of years. She didn’t want to face the prospect of having to drink bottled water for the whole period. Soon after her arrival therefore she just started drinking the local water. Yes, she got sick, had diarrhoea etc. But she was fine after about a week and continued to drink the local water thereafter with no problems. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481/3 "2006-03-22T21:39:53Z")
Don’t do it unless you’ve taken medical advice! I’m not a doctor and this is purely anecdotal, but I used to drink a glass of the local tap water when I went to a third world country, get sick, and get used to it. Then I went to Delhi and stayed with a British diplomat. When I arrived at his house, I told him I was going to do this, and he handed me a health advisory that said, in paraphrase, “ **There is no acquirable immunity to most serious water-borne diseases** ”. The same guy, a month after I left, accidentally glugged a mouthful of water in his shower and got giardiasis, dysentery, and something else nasty. He was in hospital for 8 weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481/4 "2006-03-22T21:45:27Z")
It’s my understanding it’s not necessarily as simple as changing brands of gut bugs. There is a whole process involving a pumping up of the immune system and all that. Mr. America drinks from the Ganges, he dies. Ghandi drinks from a North American mountain stream, he quenches his thirst. The above is open to correction. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481/5 "2006-03-22T21:54:19Z")
It depends entirely what is in the water to make you sick .In many parts of Mexico you are probablly playing Russian roulette because the bugs are genuine water-borne pathogens. As jjimm points out you don’t really acquire immunity to the more serious water-borne diseases like cholera or dysentry. Some people will acquire a level of resistance due to being permanently infceted, but you definitely don’t want that since you are likely to be infective as well, so you pose a continuous risk to others. Other people will remain infected and suffer recurring bouts, others will be cured either naturally or thorugh medicine and then be just as susceptible to subsecuent re-infections. In “the mountains” you probably could acquire immunity because the bugs are most likely to be normal aquatic microbes that you just haven’t been exposed to before. But that’s a strong generalisation and it depends on how many people have taken a dump usptream of you and exactly what species of animals use the area. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481/6 "2006-03-23T04:35:09Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > … you don’t really acquire immunity to the more serious water-borne diseases like cholera or dysentry. Some people will acquire a level of resistance due to being permanently infceted, but you definitely don’t want that since you are likely to be infective as well, so you pose a continuous risk to others. Other people will remain infected and suffer recurring bouts, others will be cured either naturally or thorugh medicine and then be just as susceptible to subsecuent re-infections. So is that what people in Mexico live with? Most people have a level of resistance but can still infect other people? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481/7 "2006-03-23T04:57:32Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > So is that what people in Mexico live with? Most people have a level of resistance but can still infect other people? Yeah sure, some people will be sub-clinical carriers. Mostly people just get used to it the way that get used to influenza. Mexico, like most of the developing world, simply suffers from [periodic outbreaks](http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/15643.html) of water borne diseases. The water supply becomes contaminated, people get sick and many die, the source of infection goes away and then in a few years time everybody gets sick all over again. People in these parts of the world, and people in the developed world 100 years ago, simply treat water brone diseases the way we treat influenza. It’s inevitable that there will be regular outbreaks and nobody expects that previous infection will render them immune. So for the same reason that no sane person will risk infleunza infection in the hopes of devloping a resistance no sane person should be trying to develop a tolerance to water borne infections. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-acclimate-myself-to-unpure-water/349481/8 "2006-03-23T05:34:14Z")
> [@Inigo Montoya](#): > > Ghandi drinks from a North American mountain stream, he quenches his thirst. Uh, no. Water from a North American mountain stream is quite capable of sickening you, at least some of the time. Even if it is clear, cold, and glacier-fed. [A cite about water-borne disease in British Columbia, Canada](http://www.bchealthguide.org/healthfiles/hfile49a.stm#E46E502): > [@](#): > > Outbreaks of water-borne disease happen from time to time, not only in British Columbia but across Canada and throughout North America. > > There are usually one or two recognized water-borne disease outbreaks in British Columbia every year. Since 1985 there have been 18 confirmed outbreaks of water-borne disease in the province. > > Currently about 240 boil-water advisories are in effect in B.C. These are mainly smaller systems with unsatisfactory disinfection processes in place, serving about 15,000 people in total. [And one from the Southern Sierra Boy Scout Council](http://www.southernsierrabsa.org/adventure/giardia.html): > [@](#): > > It used to be that when you took a hike in the woods you could stick your face in the flow of any stream and drink to your hearts content. Those days are gone. Today microscopic single-celled parasites known as Giardia and Cryptosporidia infect streams, lakes, and wells throughout the United States and inflict diarrhea on hundreds of thousands of people each year. Giardia is the best known of these culprits, which are actually organisms known as protozoa, but Cryptosporidia is widespread as well. Both cause horrible diarrhea, with dehydration, and sometimes intense stomach pain. Even death may result in people with immune systems weakened by HIV, chemotherapy treatments, or organ transplants.