This article is my reading note, adapted from the book Drink for Nutrition: Demystifying Drinking Water, Minerals and Health. The author of this book is Professor Shu Weiqun from the Army Medical University, who has long been engaged in research on the hygiene and nutrition of drinking water.
1/ Natural water, as it flows through soil and rocks, picks up varying amounts of dissolved minerals, which gives water unique properties such as hardness, alkalinity, and salinity. The natural differences in water quality lead to variations in human life characteristics, which is what we commonly refer to as "the local environment shapes the local people".
Although there are cases of naturally soft water sources, before the 21st century, there was no large-scale consumption of low-mineral water by humans.
2/ Since entering the industrial age, global water pollution and scarcity have become increasingly severe, which has also driven the continuous development of various water treatment technologies.
In the earlier stage, people used traditional methods (such as coagulation, sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection) to purify water, these methods did not alter the natural properties of water.
In the current stage, various "advanced water treatment technologies" have been continuously developed. While effectively removing pollutants, they also remove the natural minerals in raw water, thus changing the natural properties of water. Among these technologies, some have varying degrees of, or even complete, deprivation effects on mineral ions in water.
3/ The comprehensive level of minerals in water can be expressed by Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). Also known as mineralization degree, TDS mainly reflects the content of inorganic salts dissolved in water, including calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, carbonates, chlorides, and sulfates.
Generally speaking, water with a TDS level below 100mg/L is called low-mineral water; water with a TDS level below 10mg/L is called demineralized water; and water with a TDS level close to 0mg/L is called zero-mineral water.
Currently, most drinking water available is either demineralized water or even zero-mineral water.
4/ Reverse Osmosis (RO) is a technology that uses a semi-permeable membrane with a pore size smaller than 0.1 nanometers to filter impurities from water under pressure. The water obtained through this technology contains neither pollutants nor minerals.
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated in its official document in 2004 that for water from which minerals have been completely or almost completely removed, there is sufficient research evidence indicating that such water is not suitable for human consumption before being remineralized.
5/ Currently, in some cities around the world facing water scarcity, reverse osmosis technology is used to treat seawater and brackish groundwater to provide drinking water for residents. However, the purified water is overly pure, and long-term consumption may increase the risk of illness.
Hardness components in water, especially magnesium, have a preventive effect on cardiovascular diseases; fluorine is crucial for the development of children's teeth and bones. These health-benefiting components are no longer present after reverse osmosis treatment.
Although many enterprises have recognized the corrosive hazard of reverse osmosis water and add lime to the water to adjust the pH, lime can only increase the calcium content of water and cannot raise the level of other mineral ions.
6/ Water is not just water; it is also a crucial way for the human body to obtain essential elements, especially magnesium (which is beneficial for heart health) and bicarbonate (which helps maintain the body's acid-base balance).
The German Society for Nutrition reminds the public not to drink only distilled water, especially when their diet is relatively monotonous.
7/ Minerals in water play a vital role in maintaining human health and preventing the corrosion of water supply pipelines.
In water treated by reverse osmosis processes today, the content of health-beneficial ions such as calcium, magnesium, and bicarbonate is significantly reduced. Moreover, after flowing through pipelines, the content of metals like copper, nickel, lead, and iron tends to increase.
Long-term consumption of reverse osmosis water can increase the body’s acid load, and also raise the risk of developing diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, diabetes, and tumors.
8/ Direct health risks of demineralized drinking water.
China: Residents on islands who drink desalinated seawater have a relatively high prevalence of coronary heart disease.
Israel: Drinking desalinated seawater increases the risk of all-cause mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction.
India: Reverse osmosis drinking water increases the risk of vitamin B12 deficiency.
Research by the author’s team: Purified direct drinking water on campus is not conducive to children’s cardiovascular health.
Research by the author’s team: Purified water is detrimental to children’s bone health.
9/ Lead is a toxic substance strictly restricted in drinking water across all countries, and most national water quality standards require that lead content does not exceed 0.01mg/L. Data from Glasgow shows that this soft-water city faces a significant issue of lead dissolution in water.
Research by the Crawford research group indicates that areas with soft water have higher bone lead levels. This means that even lead concentrations that are not harmful in hard water may pose health risks in soft water.
10/ Lead is a toxic metal widely present in environmental pollution. It can poison multiple systems including the nervous, hematopoietic, digestive, and reproductive systems, and infants and young children are particularly sensitive to it.
In the digestive tract, the absorption of toxic metals competes with ions such as calcium, magnesium, and iron for the use of divalent cation transporters. Therefore, long-term consumption of purified water may increase the absorption of external lead. At the same time, purified water can also reduce the body’s nutritional level, affect its detoxification and excretion capabilities, and amplify the harm of external toxic substances.
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