It’s only “sensational” if you read the headline, misinterpret it, and rage out without watching the video. Nothing in the headline, post, or video is about distilled drinking water.
At least one commenter was making claims about distilled water, but you didn’t seem to be responding to him.
The distinction you’re making between ultra-pure water and distilled water is not meaningful in this context. They’re both H2O and very little else.
The claim that was made in the video was that H2O consumed long-term was dangerous and that claim, repeated in this thread, is not supported by any evidence I’ve seen. It’s just taken as a given.
I’ve had ultra pure water, out of a machine that displayed the resistance in some tiny fractional part of an ohm.
It wasn’t horrible. It didn’t kill me. As I recall, it had a decent taste.,
Did you watch the video? It’s about water that has absolutely no detectable flavor but only texture, and feels offputtingly like a mouthful of viscous air. That doesn’t describe any kind of bottled water I’ve ever tasted.
Does your distilled water taste like that? If not, it’s not what we’re talking about.
Mothers routinely feed distilled water to newborns. Presumably a newborn would be the most vulnerable to this, having such a small amount of circulated blood. You don’t hear about newborns dying from this.
More and more, boingboing slouches towards huffpost.
Most likely explanation is iodine deficiency- tadpoles need this to produce thyroxine, which controls metamorphosis.
I suppose you’re an “only calories matter” crusader as well
Suppose whatever additional incorrect information that causes your boat to increase in buoyancy.
Until you read your 8th grade health textbook, you won’t see a credible study.
I hope you’re trollin. I’d hate for your level of ignorance to be a reality or anything but a willful choice.
That’s how you’re sounding friend.
I am breaking with tradition by not reading every single post. Just gonna call this notion crap.
Yep drinking ultrapure water will kill you - just like drinking ANY water will kill you - if that is ALL you consume.
I don’t care how much it may leach from your body - it all came from food anyway.
Stop eating that and you are courting big trouble.
The issue isn’t how the water tastes, but how safe it is. But yes, my distiller with a carbon filter produces water that tastes like very little. And yes, I watched the video.
You have no evidence and are resorting to a personal attack. Who’s the trolley?
Hi maxp. If you’re using a carbon filter, it sounds like you’re doing filtration, not distillation. Distillation is the process of boiling water on low heat (so only the water evaporates) and then collecting the steam as it cools. That’s the kind of water you use in engines and some fish tanks.
Double distilled water (a.k.a. “ddH2O”, “Bidest. water” or “DDW”) is the water used in some laboratories. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Distilled water is collected, cooled, then reheated and distilled again. This removes further impurities, and it’s pretty clean water!
Then there’s deionized water.
You can deionize water three ways: co-current, counter-current, and mixed bed. The other name for deionized water is “demineralized water” because that’s what the process does. This is some of the cleanest water you can get at a reasonable cost. That’s why a lot of labs now use this or first distill then deionize.
Water that “tastes like something” isn’t necessarily unsafe. In fact, what makes water taste like anything is the stuff in water, and a lot of that stuff is actually necessary for our bodies. It’s things like salt. Unfortunately, there are some bad contaminants in our water as well. A lot of those are able to be removed with just standard filtration. So, a tap filter or a fridge pitcher with a carbon filter should do the trick. Trying to remove everything really isn’t necessary (the same contaminants in water are in our foods), and drinking heavily purified water honestly isn’t good for you. I explained why not.
I have a water distiller with a carbon filter last stage.
I’ve read your edit and I understand the point you’re making. However, I have seen no evidence in real living humans that drinking demineralized water “isn’t good for you” any more than tap water. Here’s a relevant quote from the Wikipedia talk page I mentioned earlier:
… tap water (contains some minerals) is also hypotonic to almost every single fluid in the human body. Also, the GI system is well protected from such events. [The claim of adverse health effects] assumes that human cells are not protected by water channels, mucus, and powerful ion pumps that take care of the fact that we drink HYPO- and HYPER- tonic solutions ALL THE TIME!
Yea, but blood concentrations are so much higher than either soft tap water or 100% pure water that the difference between soft tap water and 100% pure water appears negligible. You need 1.011 Liters of Portland tap water to dilute your blood by the same amount at 1 Liter of absolutely pure water. That’s the problem for any ‘leeching’ argument.
Not even. That’s REALLY basic chemistry: the osmotic pressure of any solute is independent of the concentrations of other solutes. Just like atmospheric pH20 (humidity, essentially) doesn’t affect drying time for oil-based paint.
Phun Phact:
You can actually drink sea water!
Yes, because sea water has the same isotonicity as circulating blood, it’s perfectly safe, and in fact better for you than so-called “fresh” water.
Ultra-pure water can kill you. Sea water can nourish and sustain you.
Make it organic solvent based paints.
Drying of oil paints is not true drying, as loss of volatiles, as it is oxidation and crosslinking of the double bonds of the oils. Siccatives are added to those to catalyze the process.
I’ll respond with this talk “Comparison of the Mineral Content of Tap Water and Bottled Waters” from the NIH. Here’s the conclusion they reached:
“Drinking water sources available to North Americans may contain high levels of Ca2+, Mg2+, and Na+ and may provide clinically important portions of the recommended dietary intake of these minerals. Physicians should encourage patients to check the mineral content of their drinking water, whether tap or bottled, and choose water most appropriate for their needs.”
If you read the study, or just look at the tables, you’ll see that European mineral waters are much more mineral heavy than either American bottled waters or tap waters (they’re pretty similar to one another). All show a wide variety of mineral content. The problem we’re talking about isn’t “is there more or less” but rather “is there almost none?” and in laboratory-grade water, there is almost no mineral content. That’s an extremely hypotonic solution, and is a totally different beastie.
The claim that “the GI system is well protected from such events.” is why it takes a very large quantity or extreme situation, like extreme dehydration from activity or a major illness to bring on these effects to a noticeable degree. A healthy person does have defenses in place to help counteract the effects of water tonicity, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t affecting you any time you drink pure water. It’s just affecting you less. Also, the more pure water is, the more it will affect you.
Pure water does affect cells, that’s why in “intramuscular injection, a slightly hypotonic solution is preferred in order to increase the dissolution and absorption of the drug by absorbing water from the surrounding tissues.” Muscular cells contain water. So the effect of tonicity is useful rather than dangerous. The reason that altering our blood plasma balance is dangerous is that red blood cells don’t contain any water. They contain hemoglobin (a protein) and one of two gases (either O2 or CO2). It’s the change in pressure on those cells, needed to carry O2 to keep us alive that is the medical concern. Too much pure water will burst red blood cells, and too much water high in impurities will make them shrivel.
Red blood cells actually contain a lot of water, like other cells (perhaps except the fully keratinized epidermal ones). The water is required for the proteins to keep conformation and stay working. Without that, a hypertonic solution would not make them shrivel as they would have no water to lose.
My apologies. You are quite right, and I’m still tired from painting yesterday! I’m sorry I misspoke. Yes, they do have water. Also their water is in basically a separate closed system from the water in the plasma which has a lot of electrolytes. So if you add pure water, it gets pushed into the blood cells. If you add water with a lot of minerals, the purer water in the blood cells does get snatched (and they shrivel).
