Letter 11017

Human consumption of deionized water 

I've read several comments that tap water is safe, but I've worked in water toxicology and sewage treatment for many years and can state with tap water is only safe to a certain degree and under certain circumstances.

If your tap water is recycled sewage water, it will contain contaminants that sewage treatment cannot remove such as pharmaceutical drugs that come through urine among others. These contaminants are too costly to remover from public water supplies and are not tested for for regulation purposes.

Your tap water will likely be fairly safe relative to bacteria and heavy metals in most of the U.S.

Chlorine is not safe to drink or shower in. Most people absorb as much chlorine bathing as they do drinking tap water. Filtered tap water does not remove all chlorine.

Spring water from known, uncontaminated sources would probably be best, but bottled water is not tested as vigorously as city water even, so it's hard to know without doing your own extensive research and testing.

Which leads me back to deionized water. I use deionized water that I remineralize with minerals taken from an ancient sea bed. But who knows, it could contain too much lead! Or the extraction machines could contaminated it with VOCs...

Plastic bottled water contains dioxins -- another modern nightmare.

Bottom line is that it's tough to live, eat, sleep and poop in the same place and not get contaminated. We live in our own garbage dumps essentially.

I used to identify homes in Florida with wells built next to "cattle dipping" troughs that were filled with arsenic at one time. Families, especially kids, would get extremely ill and have no idea why because glass and weeds had grown over the dipping tanks by then. The ground permeability if Florida is very high.

If I could get safe spring water in glass bottles, that would be best I think. Fresh, clean, "living water" is best.

For now, I usually use remineralized deionized water and have had no problem health problems from this approach. Many minerals are essential to health, and it has been demonstrated that people who live in places with hard water (like the mountains) generally have lower incidence of heart disease. Much of the farm land, and therefore vegetables and animals, is depleted of key minerals and trace minerals that have unknown effects on health when consuming products from this soil.

If you can't afford to remineralized deionized water, I would NOT drink it. Even taking a mineral complex will not cover all the trace elements that are essential in very small quantities.

One more thing about tap water. The chlorine kills bacteria; the bad AND the good. That will lead to stomach problems because good stomach health depends on a BALANCE of "good" and "bad" bacteria. The best protection against illness is a strong supply of "good" digestive track microflora. They kill the "bad" ones. Antibiotics often kill the "good" and "bad," leaving a dangerous state where reinfection or illness can occur if the "good" bacteria are not replenished properly.

Steven Sauder
hobbyist - Spokane, Washington

I found this thread interesting because in my search I have not been able to find anything very convincing on either side of the argument about consumption of DI water. I am a chemist at a community college and drink our DI water daily, despite warnings that it will deplete my system of vital nutrients. I understand the theory behind the leaching of minerals from our bodies to replace what is lacking in the water, but biochemically it doesn't make sense to me. I would think that the chemical composition of the water would be altered almost immediately either due to the presence of chyme in our stomachs or, in the case of an empty stomach, due to the chemical nature of our digestive juices. I would be so interested to hear a nutritionist's or biochemist's take on this topic. Does anyone have a chemical explanation of the processes that occur upon ingestion of DI water? Thank you, Margherita

Margherita Smith
Education - Paso Robles, California

Ed. note: We also have another thread on the same topic, letter 15665.

They say DI water is good. Can some give light to this article
http://english.pravda.ru/science/health/24-10-2006/85185-water-0

Bhasker Sharma
student - Kolkata, WB, India

I must say it certainly interesting following this thread over the past few years. My understanding is that the risk with DI water is that it flows freely into cells, then pulls in nutrients so quickly through osmosis that the cell essentially bursts. In large amounts this could be a real problem, in small amounts it is probably no big deal. Moderation. Now that's my understanding of the risk...In reality, DI water may be altered very quickly in the digestive tract and blood that it simply doesn't have this effect on the cells.

I've just added this site to my favorites bin.

Brett Gardner
- Folsom, California

Thanks for your insight, Brett, as well as the kind words.

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Does DI water have a specific pH? Mine is reading 10.68 which seems a little high. We are using this in a science lab. What is an acceptable pH?

Bronwyn Duncan
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Is deionized water safe to inhale?

I am not even going to act like I know anything about this subject. I have not researched the subject much before posting my question but I run a medical equipment and supply company and I was just asked this question by a patient's family member. That, of course has brought me to the beginning of my research and thought while I was researching myself I could be waiting for answers from you folks who seem to be well educated in the subject. I thank you all for any information you could send my way.

Thanks,

Shari Kinyon
healthcare industry - Salt Lake City, Utah

Bronwyn,

DI water has a pH of 7.00 ±.05, as pure water, by definition, has a pH of 7. Since DI water is *almost* pure, it should be close to 7. A pH of 10 to 11 would be like hand soap or ammonia. So, either your DI water is contaminated or your pH meter is not calibrated properly (probably the latter). Any good pH meter should give a pH very near 7.00 when measuring DI water. Those meters have calibration fluids that you get from the manufacture for the purpose of calibrating them. You can also verify this with a simple litmus test to eliminate the water as the problem. So check those out. Another issue with some electrode pH meters is that chemically pure water, like DI, has no ions (hence its name), and thus produces no EMF across the electrode (they become insulated), so the meter can give unpredictable results.

I used to work in a medical laboratory and we would actually use our in house DI water to do quick (and "dirty") calibrations of our pH meters for our HPLC instruments.

Hope that answers your question, and sorry for the tangents.

To everyone else,

Back to the main thread. In the medical lab I worked in, we were also told not to drink the DI water. Mostly because of cost. It is very expensive to maintain a reliable tap source of DI water in a building. The other reason is the UNPREDICTABLE health issue that may be caused but drinking said water. This also eliminates them from liability if you do get sick 20 years down the road after drinking water that came from their system. From a chemistry standpoint, the leaching of minerals in the body is definitely plausible and has been observed in laboratory animals and human subjects. You must be very careful when drinking DI water if you choose to waste your money. You have to be sure that you are intaking those electrolytes through food or other means that would normally be in the water.

In response to a few people who have raised the question of "Even if the water does leach minerals they are still in your body right?" Not true. Name one excreted fluid from the human body that is pure water. None. All excreted fluids from the body contain electrolytes or salts (Urine, sweat, tears etc.) Unless you replace those excreted minerals, you can develop an electrolyte imbalance which can lead to all sorts of uncomfortable symptoms and even death.

That's said, why go through all the trouble? Just find the cleanest spring water you can and drink it. The bottom line is that there hasn't been enough research on human subject either way to confirm any sort of conclusion on this matter. We may have to wait awhile until "ordinary" water sources become scarce enough that wide spread desalination and demineralization of non-potable water occurs. Then, perhaps, more research will be done.

Eric Lane
- Los Angeles, California

Regarding pH of DI water, my understanding is that by definition it has no pH. This is because pH is effectively a measure of the extent to which the molecules of water are disassociated into ions. That only occurs in the presence of salt/base ions. DI water has had it's ions removed (QED) ergo, no actual measurement of pH is valid. An experiment using a very clean pH probe can show that DI water exposed to the atmosphere will be very erratic, then stabilize, and slowly drop, due to the formation of very low levels of carbonic acid, as atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed..hope this response from a biologist can be endorsed or corrected by a chemist?

Aaron Fielder
pharmaceuticals - Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

I am a mechanical engineer and by no means a biologist but we use both Deionized and distilled water in out facility I have witnessed the "Leaching" properties on DI water as opposed to distilled water in our systems. The DI water corrodes the hard piping (steel, copper, brass, stainless steel etc...) causing buildup in out closed loop system and raising the conductivity of our water system (which is critical to our process) and is recommended only to be ran in PVC piping. The distilled water seems to be harmless to the piping, though we have only been using it for a relatively short period of time (about two years). As far as being safe to drink the "industrial grade" we use is not suitable to drink because of contaminates left in the water in the deionizing process, however I am in the process of building a new home and one of the most prestigious upgrades is a whole home Reverse Osmosis system (A.K.A. Deionized Water).

Roland Rodriguez
- Houston Texas

I have recently started drinking de-ionized water. I stumbled across this site in my search for the facts about DI consumption. I have a couple of basic questions. If I take a mineral supplement with trace minerals also...will the DI absorb them from my stomach?
Are there not many things in my stomach that would re-ionize the water once it comes in contact with it?
The DI does seem to dry out my mouth quicker than bottled, purified water...and my TDS meter tells me I have 001 PPM.
I hope I might get an answer here. I have enjoyed the postings..but it has left me a bit confused.
Thank you.

Scott Metro
hobbyist - Pahrump, Nevada

Distilled water is any water water boiled and recondensed so that there is no component other than H2O. Double distillation produces the closest practical thing to "pure" water.

Deionized water has been processed to remove ions from solution in water. These ions are typically associated with mineral components in the water, so deionized water is essentially mineral-free. Deionization by itself does not remove any non-ionically dissolved components. This means that organic compounds (which are covalently bonded, not ionically bonded) and anything in suspension (like viruses and bacteria) are not removed by deionization alone. Most DI processes include means to remove these as well, so the end result is "pure" water for the purposes discussed here.

Educational note: pH is the representation of the concentration of hydrogen protons. It gets complex when related to "pure" water, but for practical purposes the pH of pure water is very nearly 7.00. It is not true that pure water has no pH. You do get funny readings when you try to measure it with common pH measuring devices, though. That's because the electrodes in the device rely on having some ions available to allow a small current to flow, which pure water lacks. This does not mean the water has no pH, just that typical measuring devices don't work well on pure water.

As far as the effects of drinking these, I doubt you'll ever find an exact answer. If you drink only pure water, you'd likely have problems with electrolytic balance, but the same is true if you intake too much water with minerals in it. I do not have a medical background, but I can't see how a glass or two will do harm. The mineral content "stripped" from your body would be small. You probably remove more cells from your body when you wash your hands or shower (remember that soap is a mild base, and cell proteins are made of amino acids, and what happens when they meet is not good for the cell). Also, as far as making coffee, you've so completely "contaminated" the pure water with the coffee that the question is moot - so drink up!

A note on "live", "clustered", "vitalized", etc. water. There is no legitimate science that supports any of this. Same thing with magnetic treatment of water. Go to www.chem1.com/CQ/ if you want to know more.

Alex Hyde
- Phoenix, Arizona

I know that this thread is about drinking straight DI but it seems as if most of the posts here are from people who like the idea of the pure water and already have a source of DI.
This goes back a long time. We use DI water in our testing process in large quantities. Our lab has two water systems. The DI water system is made from 316SS tubing. we quickly found that the water was dissolving the solder used to join the connections. We replaced the solder joints with stainless compression fittings. We later found that the lab faucets that we were using had a brass piece inside that was eaten away until the faucets leaked. The faucet company replaced them with stainless pieces and we haven't had any problems since.
Our well water has over 1200 uS DiST (very hard) and has a rotten egg smell that is really unpleasant. We use the well water for our process in its raw form as the impurities are immediately consumed. We use a softener and carbon filters to mitigate the smell in the office space but some still refuse to drink it. We were spending over $5000 per year on bottled water.
Being the experimenters that we are we tested ways to deactivate the DI water since the office use would only be a fraction of our total usage, and we pay a contract fee for our DI equipment. Here is what we found:
DI water will dissolve a Centrum tablet 10 times faster than water, almost as fast as a 10% sulfuric acid solution. One tablet will deactivate up to 10 gal of water but leaves a funny taste and particles that need to be filtered out. Calcium supplements don't dissolve very fast and make the water stink.
Table salt will deactivate the water but only in amounts high enough to taste. The water also has a detectable amount of sodium hydrochloride after being passed through a coffee maker.
Sodium bicarbonate deactivates the water but is difficult to meter into a pressurized system, and it creates a gas that must be removed. It changes the flavor but it's a good change.
Passing the water over copper and zinc deactivates the water but only with adequate contact time. We use wads of zinc and copper wire inside a stainless vessel. the "re ionizer" is a section of 2" SS pipe with stainless bell reducers on each end. We originally used a standard wound cotton filter cartridge with copper balls inside the cartridge and zinc pellets around the outside we couldn't keep the contact time high enough.
We use several hundred gallons of this water monthly for everything except flushing the toilets and watering flowers, and have found no ill effects. adding a small amount of Sodium Bicarbonate to the water makes it delicious. We keep a pump bottle next to the sink with a baking soda [link is to product info at Amazon] solution premixed.
Water doesn't like to be in a deionized state and seems to become stable at ~50 uS. "They" say you should consume 8 glasses of liquid per day but some of that comes from the food you eat. If you eat only dried things you will need to drink more water. Same idea. The DI is going to absorb something so you may as well put in what you want, or just consume more minerals (maybe take a children's multivitamin with each glass, lotta work).
All of our water is UV disinfected as it comes out of the ground, so that is not an issue.

Don Donovan
- Atlanta Area, Georgia

I was once told by my dog's veterinarian. That D.I. water would not help her kidney failure. I asked "why, it has less bad stuff in it" "to clog" her kidneys. He said yes it is more pure than tap water. He went on to say that D.I. water is so pure that it strips bad things from the body, almost like a magnet, and carries it to the kidneys where they, the bad things, collect it in higher amounts. He went on to say that if you send too much bad stuff to the kidneys they fail, where as if a smaller amount of bad stuff is throughout the body it poses less risk.

Keith childs
Painter - Seattle Washington

I was working on a chemical neutralization system and was using de-ionized water as a neutral buffer. It was a hot day and I did not want to go to the store so I drank some. I would up very ill and had to get intravenous drip to rehydrate myself. I drank approximately one gallon. I do not recommend it!

John McPherson
- Tucson, Arizona

Observation, The information presented seems to indicate:
1. D.I. water is good for drinking.
2. D.I. water is easily contaminated (bacteria, etc.)
3. D.I. water when exposed to anything, is no longer D.I. water.

Am I missing something?

Kenneth E. Robertson
instrument service - Ontario, California

Let's not forget that the level of De-Ionization will have different effects on electrolyte depletion in the human body.

In Semiconductor processing fabs the DI water, typically recirculated to maintain 18 Mohm, would cause depletion very quickly.

However, in testing applications and places where the water is carried in SS or other metals it would be less serious as the water begins to approach normal water levels of Ionization (up in to the micro siemens), as it picks up Ions from the piping and fixtures.

I guarantee, that if you had a drink from my recirculating 18 Meg Ohm DI system, you'd be a very sick person at the end of the day.

Mark Simpson
- Madison, Wisconsin

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information as to whether or not DI water is fit for human consumption. Some of this stems from the terms that are being thrown around by a couple of posters. RO (reverse osmosis) water is not the same as DI (deionized) water. These terms are not interchangeable. An RO system typically is less "pure" than DI water and in many instances RO filters are used as prefilters to a DI unit.

Mark Winkler
- St. Louis, Missouri

I am not an expert in the field, but I will part what little information I do have. I have had to research this a bit because I am building a lab for some clients and they have a DI system. DI water is categorized as having an electrical conductivity of 18.2 megohms (million ohms) whereas normal tap water is around 5,000 ohms and sea water is about 50 ohms. It is the amount of ionized substances (or salts) dissolved in the water which determines water's ability to conduct electricity; so the more salt in the water the less ohms of resistance. The reason I had to research all of this is because when you are moving water of this type thru pipes, you have to have special pipes to maintain the waters pureness. Normal PVC or metal pipes introduce impurities into the water and as soon as it drops below 18.2 megohms it is no longer considered DI water. DI water will absorb the carbon dioxide out of the air so the system has to be sealed and have special joints and fixtures.

To sum up, if you are making coffee or drinking what is called DI water, by the time it reaches your mouth it is no longer DI water.

So save some money and use distilled water.

Joe Seward
- Ogden, Utah

Most of the people reading this thread obviously didn't bother to read the pdf from the World Health Organization (a link to the report is in the first page of comments on this letter). So, I'd like to just sum up a few things from that report.

1) De-ionized versus distilled versus (name your production method here) is not really a relevant issue. The issue that matters is not the production technique, but the mineral and salt content at the time the water is consumed. There are specific minimum recommendations in the WHO report for certain minerals, but there is also a lack of evidence combined with suspicion that other minerals need to be there as well (see the recommendations section of the report, pages 13-18). However, the report is very clear that there is sufficient scientific evidence to warrant the conclusion that water that has too low of a mineral and salt content is not healthy. The health effects range from minor issues that only show up with chronic exposure to increase in things like cardiovascular disease to headaches and other symptoms that can onset suddenly given a single exposure to large quantities of demineralized/deionized water.

2) Water with insufficient minerals and salts does leach compounds from pipes (see page 12 of the report for three cases of infant lead poisoning after families switched to reverse osmosis based water purification in their homes without any subsequent means of replacing the lost mineral content in the water), but the process by which it reduces the electrolytes in the body is not by leaching. Download the pdf, go to page 7, and read the lines that start with "Low-mineral water acts on osmoreceptors of the gastrointestinal tract" and end with "decrease in ADH release and an enhanced diuresis", they explain the exact process in concise scientific terms. A quick summary though would be that there are a series of reactions in the body, where it senses the low sodium content of the water, releases stored sodium into the water to compensate, detects a change in interstitial fluid balance as a result of osmotic flow caused by this mineral imbalance, signals to the kidneys to increase sodium excretion, and while all the excess sodium is being excreted, you also excrete extra of the other compounds that were not added to the water by the intestines in the first step of this process, resulting in a net reduction of all the other essential minerals in the blood as the body works to excrete the extra sodium.

3) The report is based on large bodies of observational and specific experimental data. In other words, they saw problems in the real world, so they ran experiments to see what was up, and this is what they found. Amongst other things, they were able to conclude that low mineral/salt content water causes a) increased diuresis (almost by 20%, on average), body water volume, and serum sodium concentrations, b) decreased serum potassium concentration, and c) increased the elimination of sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium and magnesium ions from the body.

4) They also found that food is not an adequate substitute for minerals in your water. In particular, dietary intake of foods with more than sufficient quantities of minerals combined with mineral free water still resulted in overall mineral deficiencies. Cooking food in mineral free water can result in 60% loss of the calcium and magnesium from the food, and even higher losses of some other essential minerals (see pages 10-12 of the report for details).

So, that being said, I'd also like to address a couple things people have mentioned.

Regarding coffee/tea and demineralized/deionized water. As one person correctly pointed out, once you've made the coffee the water is no longer deionized. The process of making coffee or tea is a process of leaching elements out of the source material anyway. A more aggressive water would likely leach those elements even better than normal water. The problem isn't that. It's that you first have to put the water into the coffee maker or tea pot. While the water is highly aggressive, it will pull metal ions from the inside of the machine/pot. This happens before it reaches the coffee or tea, and the metal ions stay there and are absorbed by the body. So although it may do a great job extracting stuff from the coffee, you really don't want part of the iron or aluminum from the inside of the machine along with it.

Regarding people that commented they feel fine drinking demineralized/deionized water. Two things. First, your water may not be nearly as demineralized/deionized as the water in the WHO report. That's the point of using actual numbers and measurement instead of loosely applied terms that may not even be accurately describing the water you are drinking. Second, many/most people can drink highly demineralized/deionized water without feeling any negative effects. This isn't uncommon in things that cause chronic conditions in human beings. People don't notice the onset of Type II diabetes until about 70% or more of their insulin producing cells are already dead. So, that it doesn't cause immediate and pronounced negative effects is *NOT* proof that something is OK (smoking is probably the single biggest example of this...the harm caused by smoking is well established, but because no single cigarette causes immediate and obvious harm, many people ignore the slow and steady onset of chronic symptoms).

Finally, I make no statements as to the quality of any bottled water. The report quantifies what it considers to be demineralized/deionized water with numbers, not names. Any given water from any given manufacturer might or might not meet the minimum recommended levels of minerals and salts. I don't know which might or might not, and I'm not accusing any of them of not meeting the WHO minimum numbers. Furthermore, not all water filtration systems are the same. Just because your home system is a reverse osmosis system doesn't mean it produces the same water as the high end reverse osmosis system in a pharmaceutical laboratory. If you have any doubts about your water quality, I would suggest testing it, not judging your water quality by the type of your filtration system and the comments made in this thread.

Oh, and colas probably are worse for you, in many ways, than even the worst demineralized/deionized water. But that shouldn't stop you from trying to drink good water ;-)

Doug Ledford
- Apex, North Carolina

If DI water is so bad for you, why do they prescribe it in Japan to cure cancers and other diseases??

John B. Wison
- Temecula, California

On a related topic, I also work in a lab which has a DI water system. About 8 months ago I bought a fish which I keep on my desk in my lab. I always use DI water when I change his tank, at least once every 2 weeks. He is a very healthy and active Beta and there do not seem (seem being the active word!) to be any adverse effects of keeping him in DI water versus regular tap water. I am not trying to compare fish anatomy to human anatomy, especially considering that fish live their lives surrounded by water, but it is still interesting to think about..

Danielle Hatfield
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I stumbled on this thread the same way most everyone has - doing personal research on DI water consumption. I have been using a DI water purifier for my drinking water for over 9 years. My unit first runs the source water (private well)through a bed of resins and then through a UV light. My TDS is between 0 ppm and 2 ppm... when I am at 8 ppm I change my tank. I have had no ill effects and most say, I really don't drink any other water.

Looking through the posts, I do not see any factual evidence that would indicate drinking DI water is harmful. I do not see the logic in the argument that DI strips the body of nutrients. I guess, I can put the minerals in my body by consuming a handful of dirt...

I am anxious to hear any factual evidence that would indicate DI water is either beneficial or harmful.

Erwin Anderson-Smith
- Brighton, Michigan

I am forced to agree with Doug. Posters have obviously neglected to read the W.H.O. evaluation of demineralized water that was linked to early in this thread. To Mr. Anderson-Smith who requested "any factual evidence that would indicate DI water is either beneficial or harmful" I'll copy the following:

================================
Note: mg/l should equal ppm in this situation (I think)
--> pure water at standard temperature and pressure weighs one gram per cubic centimeter so:

1 mg 0.001 g 1000 * 0.001 g 1 g
------ = ------- = ----------------- = ---------------
1 liter 1000 cu cm 1000 * 1000 cu cm 1 million cu cm

1 g 1 cu cm 1 part
--------------- X --------- = ------------- = 1 ppm
1 million cu cm 1 gram million parts
================================

Anyway:

From: Health risks from drinking demineralised water, F. Kozisek, World Health Organization; Geneva, 2004

Experiments in animals, primarily rats, for up to one-year periods have repeatedly shown that the intake of distilled water or water with TDS < 75 mg/l leads to: 1) increased water intake, diuresis, extracellular fluid volume, and serum concentrations of sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl) ions and their increased elimination from the body, resulting in an overall negative balance if it is not adequately compensated from food, and 2) lower volumes of red cells and some other hematocrit changes (WHO 1980). Although recent studies (Rakhmanin et al. 1989) did not find mutagenic or gonadotoxic effects of distilled water, they did add new knowledge about decreased secretion of tri-iodothyronine and aldosterone, increased secretion of cortisol, morphological changes in the kidneys including a more pronounced atrophy of glomeruli, and swollen vascular endothelium limiting the blood flow. Reduced skeletal ossification was also found in rat fetuses whose dams were given distilled water in a one-year study. Apparently the reduced mineral intake from water was not compensated by their diets.

Results of experiments in human volunteers evaluated by researchers for the WHO report (1980) are in agreement with those reported in animal experiments. Low-mineral water markedly: 1) increased diuresis (almost by 20%, on average), body water volume, and serum sodium concentrations, 2) decreased serum potassium concentration, and 3) increased the elimination of sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium and magnesium ions from the body. The basic mechanism of the effects of water low in TDS (e.g. < 100 mg/l) on water and mineral homeostasis was suggested as follows (WHO 1980). Low-mineral water acts on osmoreceptors of the gastrointestinal tract, causing an increased flow of sodium ions into the intestinal lumen and slight reduction in osmotic pressure in the portal venous system with subsequent enhanced release of sodium into the blood as an adaptation response. This osmotic change in the blood plasma results in the redistribution of body water; that is, there is an increase in the total extracellular fluid volume and the transfer of water from erythrocytes and interstitial fluid into the plasma and between intracellular and interstitial fluids. In response to the changed plasma volume, baroreceptors and volume receptors in the bloodstream are activated, inducing a decrease in aldosterone release and thus an increase in sodium elimination. Reactivity of the volume receptors in the vessels may result in a decrease in ADH release and an enhanced diuresis. The German Society for Nutrition reached similar conclusions, warning the public against drinking distilled water (DgfE 1993). This warning was published in response to the German edition of The Shocking Truth About Water (Bragg and Bragg 1993), whose authors recommended drinking distilled water instead of "ordinary" drinking water. The Society in its position paper explains that water in the human body always contains electrolytes (e.g. potassium and sodium) at certain concentrations controlled by the body. Water resorption by the intestinal epithelium is also enabled by sodium transport. If distilled water is ingested, the intestine has to add electrolytes to this water first, taking them from the body reserves. Since the body never eliminates fluid in form of "pure" water but always together with salts, adequate intake of electrolytes must be ensured. Ingestion of distilled water leads to the dilution of the electrolytes dissolved in the body water. Inadequate body water redistribution between compartments may compromise the function of vital organs. Symptoms at the very beginning of this condition include tiredness, weakness and headache; more severe symptoms are muscular cramps and impaired heart rate.

=====================

The document also offers detailed analysis of health concerns in the following categories:

*Direct effects on the intestinal mucous membrane, metabolism and mineral homeostasis or other body functions.

*Practically zero calcium and magnesium intake.

*Low intake of other essential elements and microelements.

*Loss of calcium, magnesium and other essential elements in prepared food.

*Possible increased dietary intake of toxic metals leached from water pipe.

*Possible bacterial re-growth.

Again: www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutdemineralized.pdf

Aidan Sonoda
- Saint Louis, Missouri

I agree with the don't drink DI water opinion. Having first worked for a laser mfg. that uses DI water to cool the excitation lamps through a closed loop system that uses tap water or a chiller to cool the DI water, I learned that customers would occasionally use the supplied DI water for the laser to fill their chillers. In a matter of months the heat exchangers on the chillers began leaking because of the corrosive action of the DI water on the soldered heat exchangers, (the laser has stainless heat exchanger and plastic plumbing). There is reference to not using distilled or DI water in boilers and automotive cooling systems for the same reason.
Now I work for a plating shop that uses hundreds of gallons per day of DI water. Culligan comes 4-6 times per year to swap out the DI water column. All of their tanks are stainless or fiberglass and all the fittings are stainless or plastic.
Now think what happens when you use DI water in a coffee maker or an aluminum pot or in copper piping, soldered.
There are many places that do not have quality drinking water so I can understand looking for alternatives. As part of the Mass Water Resources Authority area, we have one of the best tap water supplies in the country.
I reject bottled, purified water because I believe our tap water is better. There has been much bad press lately about the legitimacy of bottled water, quality control, plastic bottles leaching harmful chemicals, and the enormous amount of energy it takes to produce and the enormous waste problems associated with the disposable bottles. There is also evidence now that purified water, lacking the usual potpourri of beneficial bacteria, and the continued abuse of anti biotics, is creating serious conditions caused by the proliferation of "bad" bacteria in the intestines.
Tap water contains the electrolytes, beneficial bacteria, pH buffers, fluoride (if that's still used for strong teeth), that we need, and is constantly monitored and maintained.
I'll take my water with some dirt and meat in it, Thank You.

Philip Canada
- Melrose, Massachusetts

"Unless I have passed to the other side and am totally unaware of it, DI water is about the best tasting thing on the planet. I am an avid athlete - yoga, pilates, half marathoner, weight lifter, etc - and have been drinking about a half gallon to a gallon of it for over six years now."

Water is tasteless, odorless, and colorless. If it's not, then it probably has junk in it that should not be there. I have drank a small amount of deionized water just to test this, and find it indeed tasteless.

Oscar Yeager
- Albany, New York

I've read all the posts both pro and con for deionized water. I have used deionized water for years in a coral reef tank. Corals are much much much more sensitive to pollutants than most animals. The water is purified using RO, Carbon and a DI cartridge. This water is considered unstable since it is not buffered. The next step is to put the buffers back in the water (alkalinity) and then add the salts to simulate sea water. I want to use this pure water for drinking, so what I would suggest is the purify the water to ensure all pollutants are removed and then remineralize it. You can do this with calcium and trace mineral cartridges. You can find the cartridges from various websites, the one I'll use can be found from the spectrapure website.

-Brent

Brent Wiedbusch
- Dublin, California

If DI water is known to leach minerals from and destroy metal pipes I would be very concerned about drinking large volumes and quantities over time. I would have to assume that it will also leach minerals from tooth enamel.

BUT, as with anything, moderation is the key.

Grant Cleveland
- Waterford, Michigan   opt  

May 15, 2009 I think the problem many are encountering is actually defining the system. The fact that dH2O leeches minerals from metal pipes doesn't really demonstrate its potential effect on the body. This really shows its ability as a solvent. Humans aren't made of metal. Water hydrates our cells and carries waste from the body. If I consumed just dH2O all day, my body would probably be depleted of many nutrients. When we add diet to this system, it becomes very different. The body takes in the needed nutrients and the excess is carried away. I doubt dH2O would have a significant effect on tooth enamel due to the presence of normal flora. Plus, Coca-Cola is much more effective in destroying tooth enamel. I drink them on a daily basis and I have very healthy teeth. Take Brent's application of dH2O in his coral reef tanks. He adds buffers back to the water to aquire an optimum environment for the coral, because coral depends on adequate levels of calcium carbonate created by these buffers for growth. This system is more easily defined and allows him to manipulate the environment. I just don't think dH2O would have any harmful effect considering its function in bodily processes. The system created by the body is just too vast to justify the significance of one effect(leeching minerals) Davis S - Baton Rouge, Louisiana August 28, 2009 The potential harm from drinking deionized water comes from osmotic pressure which will draw minerals and electrolytes from your blood back in to your intestines, for this to be a concern you would have to drink a large amount of DI water in a short duration. There are no long term side effects from drinking pure water. Osmotic pressure could be briefly explained as waters desire to have an equal distribution of salts and minerals even through a membrane that may divide two volumes of water such as plastic or an intestinal wall or organ tissue. Because of osmotic pressure we die of dehydration from drinking sea water (the relatively pure water in our blood is drawn in to our intestines) it's also why sea fish die in fresh water and vice versa. DI water makes great coffee ;) Des Fuller - Bakersfield, CA, USA    1     2

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