Optimal Water

As you know, your body is made up of about 60% water. Your level of hydration is highest at birth and progressively decreases with age but most of that loss is in the first ten years. Being overweight also decreases the percentage of water in your body. Everyone will agree that hydration is critical to having a healthy body. Keeping hydrated is one of the biomarkers of youth.

But does it matter what water you drink in order to hydrate? Should you buy bottled water? Or is the water from the tap just as good? Does it really matter that bottled water is stored in plastic? Should you have a filter? If so, which is the best and which offers the best value for money? What about alkaline water and water ionizers – are they are scam or is there real science behind them?

This BluePrint will answer all of these questions so you and your family can enjoy the best hydration for the best health possible today.

Is Tap Water Safe?

In most third-world and many second-world countries clean water is a rare and precious commodity. Many people drink water that is contaminated with bacteria that make them sick or with minerals such as arsenic or fluoride that cause long-term disease. In Australia we are blessed with very safe water straight out of the tap. But does this mean that we can’t do any better?

There are residues in the tap water in our country that are known to cause cancer. Residues that are known to cause loss of brain function (don’t want that!) And there are ‘emerging pollutants’ that simply don’t exist in third-world countries that are becoming a concern for us. Many of these are not currently tested for at all.

There is no doubt we can do better than tap water for our families.

Before discussing what the best water is, let’s examine more closely the problems with tap water. I won’t give an exhaustive report on tap water contaminants because addressing just the major ones will be convincing enough that it can be improved upon.

Tri-halogenated methane (THMs)

Chlorine is added in the processing of water to kill off any bugs that might be present in it. However, it is not the chlorine residue that is harmful to humans at the levels that remain, but the organic compounds that form from it. Tri-halogenated methanes are the most toxic of these disinfection by-products. THMs are formed by the action of chlorine on organic matter. The primary one of concern in our tap water is chloroform.

Research has shown that the amounts present in our water supply are sufficient to cause an increase in the rate of death due to bladder cancer. The rate is increased by up to two times which is a large difference¹. According to the Center for Disease Control in Canada, “there is an urgent need to resolve this”².

The level of THMs considered acceptable in Australia is 0.25 ppm (parts per million)³. In the US and Canada, the maximum acceptable amount is 0.08 ppm⁴. Apparently Australians are tougher than Americans and Canadians – we can take 4 times more THMs... and yet the Canadian government still sees “an urgent need to resolve” the problems caused by their levels of THMs.

THMs are easily removed from water by a simple carbon filter. For this reason alone, I believe a water filter to be a valuable investment for your family.

Aluminium

Aluminium is used in the processing of water as a flocculant. When water has suspended sediment, mixing in a flocculant clumps the sediment together making it fall to the bottom for easy removal. It is a standard technique for clarifying water the world around.

Unfortunately, not all of the aluminium gets removed before it reaches your tap and aluminium is known to cause loss of brain function at the levels that we commonly drink. Some people maintain that this connection remains unproven but it is not so. I remember my father replacing our aluminium pans with stainless steel when I was a kid. He said they caused Alzheimer’s Disease. He was right.

In 2009 in New South Wales, researchers at the Australian Institute for Biomedical Research studied the effects of aluminium in the water of rats. There were three groups of rats given 0, 2 and 20 ppm aluminium in their drinking water for their entire life from birth to death. The rats were put in a maze to test their spatial memory. This is a standard test of memory function in rats. The rats were tested in the maze weekly from middle-age until old-age. Of the rats with no aluminium in the water, 100% of them continued to solve the maze just as well in old age as in middle age. Of the rats given 2 ppm aluminium, 20% showed significantly reduced ability to find their way as they aged. Of the rats given 20 ppm aluminium, fully 70% lost their ability to find their way as they aged⁵.

This is a marked and real decline in cognitive function.

Other studies on people have shown that it is not only rats but people also have cognitive decline with aluminium in the drinking water⁶.

What is the limit of aluminium permitted in Australian tap water? There isn’t one³. There is an ‘Aesthetic Guideline Value’ of 0.2 ppm and the water suppliers generally aim to keep the levels below 0.1 ppm but there is no actual limit. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to remove aluminium. It is only removed by an expensive to buy and maintain reverse osmosis water filter.

My recommendation is to call your local council and speak to the lab that does the water testing for your area. Ask for the last 6 months of aluminium testing results for the reservoir that serves your home. If it is consistently less than 0.1 ppm the effect of the aluminium is small enough to ignore. If it regularly goes over 0.1, you had better invest in a reverse osmosis water filter or use rainwater.

Rainwater is free of aluminium so this is not a concern if you get your water from your roof.

Lead

Lead is a heavy metal that damages nerve connections and causes blood, heart and brain disorders. Children are especially susceptible to its effects. It has been shown repeatedly to cause permanent reduction of cognitive capacity resulting in learning disabilities even in extremely small doses. It also causes infertility in men and miscarriage in women.

When you think lead, you probably think of old paint and toys and pottery from China. These are all very real problems. But so is lead in our drinking water. Lead pipes were used in old houses so if yours was built in the 1930’s or before, you’d best check. But the bigger problem is that lead is still used in solder used by plumbers and DIYers. In fact the very word ‘plumber’ comes from the Latin word for lead, ‘plumbum’. The Australian Standard directing plumbers to use lead-free solder was only established in 1989 and manufacturers of lead solder are still not obligated to label their product as unsuitable for use on drinking water pipes. On top of this, in Australia, brass used in taps is allowed to contain up to 4.5% lead as an alloying element. This is only a standard, not a law so imported products are never tested for their lead content.  Compliance with this standard is entirely voluntary. Studies in Perth in 1993 of cold water from the kitchen tap showed 5% of homes had lead levels above acceptable limits. (http://www.lead.org.au/lanv8n1/l8v1-11.html)

Given this, I guess it should be no surprise that a 1996 blood lead survey of Sydney children found that 25% of 1-5 year olds are lead poisoned. (http://www.lead.org.au/fs/fst13.html )

So the water that your supplier delivers to your street is maintained to stringent standards for lead content, but a lot of lead is often added along the path from the street to your glass. If you drink water from a rain water tank, you should also be concerned about lead. One quarter of tank-water samples tested in Victoria contained more than the acceptable level of lead. (http://www.lead.org.au/fs/fst13.html )

The only real solution is a point-of-use filter that specifically removes lead. I cannot emphasise enough how important this is. Again, they are inexpensive and very worthwhile if you care about your brain, your heart and your children.

Other Contaminants

I think that the big three above are more than enough reason to be certain that a water filter is a good idea. Still, there are a few other contaminants that deserve mention.

Pharmaceutical drugs are now appearing in the water supply. Apparently, people who use them excrete them and some even flush excess drugs down the toilet. They find their way through the groundwater back into our drinking supply. Tests have shown up to 40 different pharmaceutical drugs detected in some city water supplies. But it gets worse. There is currently no requirement for even testing for the presence of these drugs in the water supply by the suppliers in Australia. Canada, New Zealand, the US and the UK are the same^{7, 8, 9, 3}.

Arsenic and cadmium are other heavy metals known to be toxic that are found in our water¹⁰. Nitrate is a known carcinogen present at levels that cause rectal cancer. Bisphenol A used in plastics manufacture is an endocrine disrupter (more on that later) and is not even tested for.

Fluoride is a serious problem in many water supplies especially in India where there is a lot of current research on how to get it out of the water. In Australia, some water suppliers are actually adding it to the water to try to compensate for substandard dental services in poorer communities. The levels supposed to be added to Brisbane water is 0.8 ppm with an upper limit of 1.5 ppm. Over 1.5 ppm causes damage to teeth and bones (dental fluorosis) so if you are athletic or have athletic children or just know how important hydration is and drink just double the average, you are at risk¹¹. Dental and medical authorities worldwide state that babies should have no fluoridated water but the fluoride is even present in breast milk as well as, of course, when you make up bottled milk. I would have a water filter just to remove this one contaminant.

Bottled Water

Bottled water is a great marketing success of the last 20 years. It is a product that didn’t even exist 25 years ago. But for daily use, bottled water is very expensive. It is expensive for the water itself – Australian bottled water costs about $3.00 a litre. Italian about $9 a litre. Tap water costs just $1.20 per tonne! Bottled water is more expensive that petrol and more expensive than softdrinks (even though they are made from the same water).

But it is not only the cost of the water that is a concern. 200 ml of oil is needed to make the plastic of one 600 ml water bottle. Then there is the cost of packaging, shipping, storing, refrigerating and recycling (35%) or burying in landfill (55%), all of which consume precious resources. (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/08/18/1186857841959.html)

But is it better for you? I can find no evidence that bottled water is better than tap water. In fact some 40% of all bottled water brands are sourced from the municipal supply!

But there is evidence that the PET plastic that the bottles are made from is a serious endocrine disruptor. Researchers Martin Wagner and Jorg Oehlmann of the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany in 2007 found evidence of estrogenic compounds leaching out of the plastic packaging into the water. They took 20 brands of mineral water sold in Germany – nine bottled in glass, nine bottled in plastic and two bottled in paperboard boxes coated with an inner plastic film. They then tested for the presence of estrogen-like compounds and found levels of up to the equivalent of 72.6 ng/L of natural estradiol. In an adult woman the levels of estradiol are less than 50 ng/L for most of her cycle so this is not a small amount.

To confirm the effect of these estrogen-like compounds, the researchers then grew the New Zealand Mud Snail, Potamopyrgus Antipodarum, in each of the different bottled waters. This snail is a common model used to test the activity of estrogen-like compounds. When they are present, the snails breed at a faster rate.

The snails bred faster in all the water from plastic bottles and plastic-lined cardboard. They bred normally in the water from the glass bottles¹².

Excess estrogen in men causes infertility and loss of masculinity. Excess estrogen in women causes a higher risk of breast cancer and other diseases of the female organs.

So is bottled water a healthy alternative? I’d say not. Drink it on rare occasions – not as your primary water source.

Your best option – filter your water at Point-Of-Use

All of the problems of tap water can be solved by a point-of-use water filter. Whole-of-house filters will not protect you against lead in your tap fittings or in-house pipes. Then, to carry your water, use glass or stainless steel bottles.

The question of course is: what water filter is best?

There are so many different water filters on the market ranging in price from $50 to $4000 dollars just for a domestic device. Is it really that the more expensive filters are best? To a degree that is true but you can get most of the benefits from a low-to-mid range filter.

Important things you need to know about water

Let me give you a little background on water and filters first.

Following are the 8 most desirable traits that you want from your water. I have arranged them in order of priority, but really, you want them all :

1. No THMs. They cause cancer.
2. No lead. You must filter lead effectively.
3. Low aluminium. High levels cause loss of brain function over time.
4. No organic material. You just don’t know what you might be getting (like someone else’s discarded drugs).
5. Reduced fluoride. If you drink a lot of water (or there is another accident at the treatment plant...) it can be dangerous.
6. Keep the healthy minerals: potassium, calcium, magnesium. Optionally, you can put them back later if you have to filter them out.
7. Alkaline pH. You know from the pH BluePrint that alkaline is good. A good water filter will leave the water quite alkaline.
8. Low (negative) ORP (Oxidation / Reduction Potential). More and more studies are showing that low ORP water has antioxidant health benefits. Most of this research has been done in Korea and Japan and so is not widely understood in the West. ORP is becoming a household word in those countries.

Based on these 8 desirable traits, there are three kinds of water filter that I recommend you consider.

Option 1 – Good: Dual Carbon Filter with KDF

A good dual carbon filter has an activated carbon pre-filter to get sediments, THMs and organic material (including) microbes. The second filter has more activated carbon and an ion-exchange or KDF filter to remove heavy metals.

This kind of filter will do a good job on Desirable Traits 1 through 6 at a modest cost so long as the levels of aluminium in your source water is not too high.

I recommend the Aquasana filter. You can put it on your countertop and attach it to the kitchen sink; or you can mount it under the sink with a tap. It’s quite easy to install yourself. You will pay about $160 and need to replace the filters about once every 6-9 months at a cost of around $60. You can buy the Aquasana filter here and you can buy replacement filters for it here.

Option 2 – Better: Dual Carbon Filter with Alkaline Water Polisher

This filter arrangement will give you all 8 of the Desirable Traits – again so long as the levels of aluminium in your source water is not too high.

First you have the dual carbon filter, but then it is followed with a special ‘water polishing’ filter to add alkaline minerals and lower the ORP. The best one I know is made by a Korean company called Biocera. You can either add the polisher to a filter you already have, or you can get the complete filter system. We have them both in stock, at the links in this paragraph. Expect to pay about $130 and $800 respectively.

Option 3 – Best: Water Ionizer

The water ionizer will also give you all 8 of the desirable traits listed above. You also get a higher pH and lower ORP – both desirable traits.

On top of that, 50 years of research in Japan and Korea shows the fresh, ionized water has strong anti-oxidant properties. Many people have had remarkable life-changing health improvements from simply drinking this type of water. It’s one of the easiest things you can do to improve your health without really changing a thing. All you have to do is drink different water to what you normally drink (and probably drink more of it too).

It works by following a double carbon filter with a pair of electrolytic half-cells that split the water into oxidized (acid) and reduced (alkaline) parts.

The reduced water has high pH and low ORP – better than those of the alkaline water polisher. There is also a substantial amount of dissolved hydrogen in the fresh, reduced water which some researchers have suggested accounts for much of the health benefits seen.

The oxidized water is a powerful disinfectant. There is a lot of research currently examining the use of oxidised water for cleaning in commercial kitchens as it is quite non-toxic to the skin and yet kills bacteria on contact. Used topically, this water has been shown to accelerate wound and ulcer healing.

There are many alkaline water ionizers on the market today. I have sourced the very best for you at great prices. Take a look at them: Jupiter Venus, Jupiter Alphion, Alkaway Kangen and Jupiter Delphi (an undersink unit). Expect to invest between $1200 and $2500 for a good water ionizer.

What about Reverse Osmosis?

If you have a water filter already, you may have a reverse osmosis system and be wondering why I have not recommended this kind of filter.

Reverse Osmosis (RO) filters are very, very thorough filters that remove almost everything from the water. They remove all toxic minerals and all beneficial minerals also. All that is left behind is oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Here is the problem. Carbon dioxide is actually concentrated in the filtered water. It dissociates into carbonic acid making the RO water quite acid, often with a pH of less than 6. As you know from the pH BluePrint, extra acid load in your body is buffered by minerals – especially calcium. As all the calcium has been removed from the water, this has to be found in your food... or taken from your bones. The combination of acid pH and low mineral content is particularly undesirable.

You can compensate by adding an alkaline water polisher after the RO filter. I have done this myself for many years before moving on to a water ionizer and it gives great water. But if you use a good double carbon filter, I don’t see any benefit to having the RO. They are expensive to buy and to maintain and I can see no additional benefit.

The exception of course is if you have high levels of aluminium in your tap water. Then the RO with alkaline water polisher is your filter of choice. The other reason you may choose RO is if someone in your family is severely allergic to fluoride and you want to be certain to remove it all.

Water Bottles

To avoid endocrine disruptors, I recommend using bottles made of steel, glass or ceramic. I have sourced the best for you here. I would especially avoid water from plastic bottles that have been left in the sun.

How much water should you drink?

This really depends on what you are doing, how much you are sweating and how well your body is regulating your water. Drinking tea and coffee upsets your body’s sensors for hydration making you feel not thirsty when you should be. If you drink either of these, you can’t depend on your thirst to tell you when you need to drink. Drink considerably more than you think you want to. Otherwise, just drink as you are thirsty.

I would suggest not less than 1 litre per day for an adult.

In Closing

Many people find that simply improving their water can make a great difference to their health. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you ensure you and your children are using a point-of-use water filter. At the very least, get Option 1 above and keep your water free of known contaminants. As soon as you can, get Option 2 or 3. And let your friends and extended family know how much your health has improved.

Yours in Optimal Health,

Richard Sawyer.

Key Message

• Tap water in Australia is much better than that in second and third world countries – but you can do better.
• Bottled water is damaging to the environment, expensive and has health risks of its own.
• Your own filtered water is by far the best – you just need to choose the right filter for you.

Making It Real

1. Call your local council and find out how much aluminium is in your water supply (not a problem if you are on tank water.)
2. Choose the right filter for you and your family.
3. Enjoy even better health!

References

1. Chang C, Ho S, Wang L, Yang C. Bladder cancer in Taiwan: relationship to trihalomethane concentrations present in drinking-water supplies. Journal of toxicology and environmental health. Part A. 2007;70(20):1752-7. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17885932.

2. Wigle DT. Safe drinking water: a public health challenge. Chronic diseases in Canada. 1998;19(3):103-7. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9820833.

3. Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. 2004.

4. National Primary Drinking Water Regulations.

5. Walton JR. Functional impairment in aged rats chronically exposed to human range dietary aluminum equivalents. Neurotoxicology. 2009;30(2):182-93. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19109991.

6. Rondeau V, Jacqmin-Gadda H, Commenges D, Helmer C, Dartigues J. Aluminum and silica in drinking water and the risk of Alzheimer's disease or cognitive decline: findings from 15-year follow-up of the PAQUID cohort. American journal of epidemiology. 2009;169(4):489-96. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19064650.

7. Study Finds Traces of Drugs in Drinking Water in 24 Major U.S. Regions. Fox News.

8. Salter J. British drinking water may be tainted with prescription drugs. Telegraph.

9. Prozac found in drinking water. BBC News.

10. Smith AH, Hopenhayn-Rich C, Bates MN, et al. Cancer risks from arsenic in drinking water. Environmental health perspectives. 1992;97:259-67. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1396465.

11. Mohapatra M, Anand S, Mishra BK, Giles DE, Singh P. Review of fluoride removal from drinking water. Journal of environmental management. 2009;91(1):67-77. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19775804.

12. Wagner M, Oehlmann J. Endocrine disruptors in bottled mineral water: total estrogenic burden and migration from plastic bottles. Environmental science and pollution research international. 2009;16(3):278-86. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19274472.