Could it have been some form of environmentally induced amphibian neoteny, akin to that which occurs with Axolotls and other salamanders?
This is bullshit. Many people throughout history have collected and drunk rainwater, which is naturally distilled. All of the tap water we drink has mineral concentrations lower than our body, which is all that is required for osmosis and diffusion to operate. There is no magic effect of being ultra pure. Besides, once you drink it, it is mixed with saliva and stomach contents.
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Yes, it will take electrolytes from your precious bodily fluids. It will even take a few parts per billion more than reverse-osmosis drinking water will â the stuff Iâve been drinking for the past twenty years.
Yup. Around 3000 mg of potassium and around 2400 mg of potassium. Which you ainât getting from your drinking water.
(Touchy subject: I leak potassium and have to supplement it over and above a normal diet. Of necessity I have to know the electrolyte content of my diet.)
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Say what? Itâs loaded with meat, which is a huge source of potassium [1]. As you would expect, no?
[1] 74 mg/ounce
Itâs bizarre how many people in this thread are taking a recommendation against lab-grade, expensively ultra-purified Science Water as a slur against their favorite mass-market distilled drinking water.
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EDITED FOR CLARITY!
The property of water that actually is being described is tonicity. The medical danger comes from changes to red blood cells swelling and shrinking through dehydration or water toxicity combined with the effects of tonicity. Basically, the idea is that when we drink water with impurities, itâs in better balance with the water already in our systems (weâre 70% water, and our blood plasma is mainly water in a closed system), so itâs easier for our systems to adjust to harsh changes. If the water we drink is changed, it can be the deciding factor that kills us.
Pure water, added in too large a quantity to our systems wonât just mess up our electrolytes (as already discussed). If water is too pure, it will be considered âhypotonicâ and will seek balance in the closed system. The way it will find that balance is through changing the size of red blood cells (which contain no water, just hemoglobin and either oxygen or carbon dioxide). These cells can actually burst from osmotic pressure when a system is too far out of balance. This isnât common, but it is real medical condition having to do with the properties of H2O.
Red blood cells in a hypertonic solution.
Red blood cells in a hypotonic solution.
EDIT: This bit is for people who donât like to follow links: The reason water with impurities is in better balance with water in our systems is that the water in our systems already has impurities (electrolytes are impurities). Water in a closed system likes to be âbalancedâ. So, picking a random percentage, imagine that your blood plasma was 90% water. Drinking water that was purer that 90% water would mean that some of the water (and some does absorbed as quickly as you drink it - it passes right into your system) would start pulling away the balance from your plasma, and the red blood cells resting in your plasma would start to swell. If you instead drank something that was filled with too many impurities, it would have the opposite effect. So, drinking 35% pure water would shrivel up the little doughnuts.
Sorry I didnât write this edit earlier. It;s been a busy day, and I just didnât realize it was that badly worded. (Iâm totally wiped out!) I also noticed, and fixed, the broken link.
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Did you reply to me by mistake?
Ok. Thank you for posting this. I just realized something.
General Ripper came up with his theory after depleting himself during the physical process of love, a process which excretes a large quantity of mineral nutrients. Maybe he was actually on to something. He decided to try to replenish his âessenceâ through sexual abstinence (a good idea) and through drinking the purest water he could find, rainwater (bad idea). He was depleted already, maybe from sexual overactivity, then went farther down that road drinking only rainwater and pure grain alcohol. No wonder he went mad. His brain was leached of the mineral it needed in order to function properly.
So not only is drinking rainwater and pure water bad for you. It could cause the apocalypse.
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Really? You think itâs bizarre to compare the health effects of drinking water that has had its minerals removed via distillation with the health effects of water that has had its minerals removed to a higher degree with a device in a lab? The title of the article is sensationally âUltra-pure water can kill youâ so of course this is related.
Whatâs frustrating is simply that itâs common knowledge that drinking demineralized water will kill you slowly by leaching your precious electrolytes and yet thereâs no evidence of that.
The Wikipedia talk page for distilled water addresses the hypotonicity issue that catgrin mentions and a bunch more. The upshot is that there simply isnât enough thatâs different between tap water and distilled water to have the kinds of negative health effects people claim.
But if he had not done so, we would be robbed of such an excellent movie.
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Maybe subconsciously that was why he was depleting himself. So that he would be able to continue within the narrative.
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True, but tap water also leaches less of it out of you than pure water will, because it already contains other solutes.
Grab electrolytes from your blood? To do that, it has to be in your blood, which means both water and electrolytes are still there. Most of us would call this âdilutionâ and rely on our kidneys to deal with it.
Unless, of course, you overconsume it. Thatâs called âwater intoxicationâ notably by marathoners. But again, that is dilution, not thievery, and dilution at a rate faster than the kidneys can expel it. Waterâs LD50 is 90 g/kg, which is less toxic than pretty much anything else.
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homeopathically speaking, ultrapure water is the strongest medicine in the world.
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Evidence, please. Just because your intuition tells you something doesnât mean itâs true.
Dilution is true. Iâm afraid you canât argue it away. Itâs physics.
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While so many deniers of metaphysics march off like lambs to the slaughter, I concur.
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Sure, if the human body were a copper pipe. I suppose youâre an âonly calories matterâ crusader as well and eat 1600 calories of cake frosting a day.
Itâs just not that simple and until someone actually does a credible study, all the âitâs physicsâ handwaving means nothing. There is no evidence that distilled water âleaches minerals from the bodyâ any more than tap water does.
