Distilled Water

Sheik

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Drinking distilled water is one way to avoid the fluoride in tap water. However, Mercola and others say that drinking distilled water brings early death. Other sources seem to be saying that there's no problem as long as you're getting enough magnesium and calcium.

Has Peat spoken about drinking distilled water? I'm not finding anything.

I'm just looking for clean water to make my coffee and OJ.
 

mujuro

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I believe there is a proposal out there of a "hard water paradox", where drinking more-pure tap water does not necessarily mean better health. The natural buffers and minerals are important. I have a reverse osmosis system that has a "re-mineralizer" which adds in trace amounts of Ca, Mg, Na, Cu, etc.
 

Brian

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Distilled water is fine. It would only be a problem if you were drinking gallons per day and eating a low mineral diet. Just think about it: the amount of dissolved minerals in even a very mineral dense water is very small.

Water doesn't run through your body as a single coherent entity. It just dilutes the soup a tiny amount that is already there.
 

bornamachine

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Distilled water and RO water should not be consumed. For example, everyone in my family including me, can not assimulate distillwled or ro water, if I drink it it basically goes right through me and I pee as much as goes in, dehydration follows and death would pursue, short story, some moons ago I tried the whole ro thing, 1 and half days into it I am tossing in my bed its 2am I am in the sahara... its 50 something degrees, I feel I am dying... cant sleep tossing not sweating.. finally, drink half cup tap water, thirst quenched and I am fast asleep. Besides that, for those who do drink it and can assimulate, know this, distilled water is very acidic and hungry from my understanding and can do more harm then good, and no its not "adding a bit to the pot" thats not how it works. Water is one if not the most interesting substance we know, its not all that simple.
 

tara

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bornamachine said:
https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97049/ distilled water is very acidic and hungry from my understanding and can do more harm then good
I don't think it is acidic. I do wonder if it may be 'hungry' in the sense that it is available to bind with other substances. Whether this is helpful or not might depend on what else is going on, solute-wise. Being 'hungry' may be what makes it available to do its job of picking up and carrying other stuff around the body? If it is saturated, it may not do this so easily?

When you were extremely thirsty on distilled water, did you try a pinch of salt, or calcium, or a little of some mineral-dense food? If you are sweating in the heat, you would need to be replacing electrolytes somehow. I don't know what was in your local tap water - can vary quite a lot from place to place.

I don't know about RO water, but I did drink ~2l distilled water/day for several months under the influence of RBTI. (Bought a bench top distiller.) I think the only reason I had occasional trouble with the water was when for logistical reasons I had trouble eating enough at the specified times, and I was sometimes accidentally undereating (and so inadequate overall calorie-density). Since then I've gone back to locaI tap water, which is relatively clean - no chlorine, flouride, etc, has a bit of calcium in it.

I'm not convinced yet that the distilled water was inherently harmful, as long as I was getting adequate nutrition in other ways. But I'm open to considering there may be more to learn in this area.

I would definitely consider distilled water preferable to chlorinated or otherwise poisoned water.
 
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CoolTweetPete

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There's also the question of tap water in a lot of areas being fluoridated, and the evidence that fluoride is a thyroid suppressant. Apparently fluoride was used for that effect in the early 20th century (although probably in larger amounts than found in tap water).
 

tara

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CoolTweetPete said:
https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97054/ There's also the question of tap water in a lot of areas being fluoridated, and the evidence that fluoride is a thyroid suppressant. Apparently fluoride was used for that effect in the early 20th century (although probably in larger amounts than found in tap water).
Yes, it's useful to know if your local supply is fluoridated or not. Mine is not currently, but if it were to become so some time in the future, I'd probably go back to using my distiller again.
 
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bornamachine

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Idk do some research on it, supposedly its very acidic without the calcium to buffer it out or whatever. Nothing changed I just drank ro water, im sure I was getting at least some minerals in the diet. I am under the impression that ro or distilled water should not be consumed, and if it is to be consumed only for a set anount of time. We get those jugs of 5 gallon "geyser" water at work sometimes, most of it is ro or distilled and ozonated to kill germs... alot of the guys are running to the bathroom all day, me? I dont drink that, I dont have that problem. Search ro or distilled water in mercola theres a good article with even better comments below.
 

natedawggh

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Sheik said:
https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96933/ Drinking distilled water is one way to avoid the fluoride in tap water. However, Mercola and others say that drinking distilled water brings early death. Other sources seem to be saying that there's no problem as long as you're getting enough magnesium and calcium.

Has Peat spoken about drinking distilled water? I'm not finding anything.

I'm just looking for clean water to make my coffee and OJ.

For the same reason Ray talks about excessive water being dangerous for a hypothyroid person, distilled water is dangerous. Water always moves toward a stronger (negative) electrical charge. If the water you drink doesn't have any electrolytes in it, it moves further and more quickly into the body, diluting the electrolytes in and around your cells, lowering the electrical charge, lowering metabolism, and increasing swelling.
 
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bornamachine

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Good explanation natedawg :hattip
 
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Sheik

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I asked Dr. Peat and this was his answer.
Distilled water is fine. The idea that distilled water is harmful probably derives from the fact that in areas where the water has a high mineral content, people have been healthier on average than in areas with naturally “soft” water, but that involves several factors, especially the fact that hard water doesn’t dissolve as much lead from the plumbing (such as soldered connections of copper pipes), and also that agricultural products in those areas are likely to have a higher trace mineral content. Generally, water is softer in areas with higher rainfall, and that means that people in those regions are more likely to have less sunlight, and a vitamin D deficiency affects mineral metabolism. In general, it’s best to drink water only when you’re thirsty.
 

Ideonaut

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Bernd Friedlander strongly recommended distilled water in the talk that was posted on the forum recently. He seems almost like another Peat in his approach--strongly science- and evidence-based--so I want to look into it. I have a Zerowater filter that is supposed to get out the fluoride but I don't like having the water sit in the plastic tank. I remember from the book Our Stolen Future that plastic test tubes can promote cancer cell growth--xeno-estrogens, I think.
 
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I only used distilled water for cooking and drinking. Distilled water is what real water is. It's what rain water is naturally. Rain is the only source of fresh water. The process of distillation removes everything and leaves you with pure water. The claim that it sucks minerals from the body is false. We're meant to get minerals from food, not water. The problem with collecting rain water today is it may collect particles of toxins on its way down depending on the quality of the air where you are. Distilling water is the most effective way to remove toxins from it.

I asked Dr. Peat and this was his answer.

Let's make that font bigger:

"Distilled water is fine. The idea that distilled water is harmful probably derives from the fact that in areas where the water has a high mineral content, people have been healthier on average than in areas with naturally “soft” water, but that involves several factors, especially the fact that hard water doesn’t dissolve as much lead from the plumbing (such as soldered connections of copper pipes), and also that agricultural products in those areas are likely to have a higher trace mineral content. Generally, water is softer in areas with higher rainfall, and that means that people in those regions are more likely to have less sunlight, and a vitamin D deficiency affects mineral metabolism. In general, it’s best to drink water only when you’re thirsty."-RP

.
 
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For the same reason Ray talks about excessive water being dangerous for a hypothyroid person, distilled water is dangerous. Water always moves toward a stronger (negative) electrical charge. If the water you drink doesn't have any electrolytes in it, it moves further and more quickly into the body, diluting the electrolytes in and around your cells, lowering the electrical charge, lowering metabolism, and increasing swelling.

False.
 

x-ray peat

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I have been wrestling with this one for a while and thought that distilled water was perfectly healthy. However i just ran across a fairly comprehensive chapter from the WHO that rails against the safety of distilled water or any low mineral water. I know Ray thinks distilled is fine but it seems that they present a lot of evidence that argues the contrary. I am curious what you all think after having a look at the evidence he lays out.

HEALTH RISKS FROM DRINKING DEMINERALISED WATER, Frantisek Kozisek National Institute of Public Health Czech Republic

The possible adverse consequences of low mineral content water consumption are discussed
in the following categories:
• Direct effects on the intestinal mucous membrane, metabolism and mineral homeostasis or other
body functions.
• Little or no intake of calcium and magnesium from low-mineral water.
• 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.


I have a counter-top distiller which I have been using for a while. I do notice that I pee quite a bit which the article goes into why. My plan going forward is to remineralize the distilled water with magnesium, calcium, salt, potassium, and boron to remove any remaining fluoride.
 

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Ulysses

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I have been wrestling with this one for a while and thought that distilled water was perfectly healthy. However i just ran across a fairly comprehensive chapter from the WHO that rails against the safety of distilled water or any low mineral water. I know Ray thinks distilled is fine but it seems that they present a lot of evidence that argues the contrary. I am curious what you all think after having a look at the evidence he lays out.

HEALTH RISKS FROM DRINKING DEMINERALISED WATER, Frantisek Kozisek National Institute of Public Health Czech Republic

The possible adverse consequences of low mineral content water consumption are discussed
in the following categories:
• Direct effects on the intestinal mucous membrane, metabolism and mineral homeostasis or other
body functions.
• Little or no intake of calcium and magnesium from low-mineral water.
• 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.


I have a counter-top distiller which I have been using for a while. I do notice that I pee quite a bit which the article goes into why. My plan going forward is to remineralize the distilled water with magnesium, calcium, salt, potassium, and boron to remove any remaining fluoride.
The mechanism by which distilled/low-mineral water is supposed to cause all this harm is actually a mechanical one: osmosis. So if you want to prevent these things from happening when you drink your distilled water, I wouldn't think it necessary to remineralize with all those different substances, because for osmosis, it's the total dissolved solid content of the water you need to be concerned with. Just add a little salt, the ratio is easy: 1 ppm = 1 mg/L, so if you use their thresholds for mineralization, which were 75 mg/L with rats and 100 mg/L with humans, all you have to do is add 100 mg of salt, or anything else, per liter of water that you drink.

As for water being a source of calcium and magnesium, that's really trivial; it's not hard to get enough of those minerals in your diet. When the WHO studies the correlation of something like water mineralization with the incidence of disease in global populations, they are, naturally, including a great number of people who are living in strife or poverty, and as a result are chronically malnourished. For those populations, the minerals in water might make a difference, but I can't see it affecting the health of a first-world citizen.

I'm not totally following their argument about how demineralized water causes nutrition loss in food. Their assumption seems to be that food will be strained from water after being cooked, and the water discarded. I personally almost never make recipes that call for this.

The point about distilled water leaching materials from its storage container does give me pause. I have a Zero Water pitcher filter, which is made of plastic, and now that I'm thinking about it, I suppose it is possible that plastic molecules are being pulled into the water while it sits in the pitcher, and that I'm ingesting them. They don't show up on my TDS meter, but of course, I'm sure that plastics can have hormonal effects on the body in concentrations far below 1 mg/L, which is the lowest reading on my meter.

Still, there is, without a doubt, tons of xenoestrogenic ***t in my tap water too. So...
 
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danishispsychic

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i only drink distilled water and get my minerals from food. sometimes i add my own minerals to it. it helps my joints a lot.
 

x-ray peat

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The mechanism by which distilled/low-mineral water is supposed to cause all this harm is actually a mechanical one: osmosis. So if you want to prevent these things from happening when you drink your distilled water, I wouldn't think it necessary to remineralize with all those different substances, because for osmosis, it's the total dissolved solid content of the water you need to be concerned with. Just add a little salt, the ratio is easy: 1 ppm = 1 mg/L, so if you use their thresholds for mineralization, which were 75 mg/L with rats and 100 mg/L with humans, all you have to do is add 100 mg of salt, or anything else, per liter of water that you drink.

As for water being a source of calcium and magnesium, that's really trivial; it's not hard to get enough of those minerals in your diet. When the WHO studies the correlation of something like water mineralization with the incidence of disease in global populations, they are, naturally, including a great number of people who are living in strife or poverty, and as a result are chronically malnourished. For those populations, the minerals in water might make a difference, but I can't see it affecting the health of a first-world citizen.

I'm not totally following their argument about how demineralized water causes nutrition loss in food. Their assumption seems to be that food will be strained from water after being cooked, and the water discarded. I personally almost never make recipes that call for this.

The point about distilled water leaching materials from its storage container does give me pause. I have a Zero Water pitcher filter, which is made of plastic, and now that I'm thinking about it, I suppose it is possible that plastic molecules are being pulled into the water while it sits in the pitcher, and that I'm ingesting them. They don't show up on my TDS meter, but of course, I'm sure that plastics can have hormonal effects on the body in concentrations far below 1 mg/L, which is the lowest reading on my meter.

Still, there is, without a doubt, tons of xenoestrogenic ***t in my tap water too. So...

I agree that changes to the osmotic balance in the body is is a major issue for distilled water but in reading through the paper they reference a number of studies that show that osmosis and TDS alone are not the only issues. It seems that there is something different about getting minerals from water than food alone and that’s why they recommend remineralizing with a variety of elements and not just one that boosts the TDS.

here are a couple of examples:
“Animals given zinc or magnesium dosed in their drinking water had a significantly higher concentration of these elements in the serum than animals given the same elements in much higher amounts with food and provided with low-mineral water to drink.”
And
"The importance of water calcium was also confirmed in a one-year study of rats on a fully adequate diet in terms of nutrients and salts and given desalinated water with added dissolved solids of 400 mg/L and either 5 mg/L, 25 mg/L, or 50 mg/L of calcium (3, 32). The animals given water dosed with 5 mg/L of calcium exhibited a reduction in thyroidal and other associated functions compared to the animals given the two higher doses of calcium. "

No doubt malnutrition of certain populations drinking desalinated water may play a role in some of the findings but they utilize many other studies on 1st world populations, 1st world volunteers and animal studies were this would not be a confounding variable.

I agree that the cooking issue would only be a problem with cooking methods such as boiling where you throw away the water. I wonder if this also effects steaming as the steam hitting the vegetables has a TDS of zero, condensing on it, and presumably stripping some nutrients as it falls back into the water.

I used to use a brita filter. Im not sure how good those filters are to begin with let alone the plastic pitcher they use.
 

x-ray peat

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i only drink distilled water and get my minerals from food. sometimes i add my own minerals to it. it helps my joints a lot.
How do you remineralize? I am starting to think that distilled water without the remineralization is a bad idea.
 

Ulysses

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I agree that changes to the osmotic balance in the body is is a major issue for distilled water but in reading through the paper they reference a number of studies that show that osmosis and TDS alone are not the only issues. It seems that there is something different about getting minerals from water than food alone and that’s why they recommend remineralizing with a variety of elements and not just one that boosts the TDS.

here are a couple of examples:
“Animals given zinc or magnesium dosed in their drinking water had a significantly higher concentration of these elements in the serum than animals given the same elements in much higher amounts with food and provided with low-mineral water to drink.”
And
"The importance of water calcium was also confirmed in a one-year study of rats on a fully adequate diet in terms of nutrients and salts and given desalinated water with added dissolved solids of 400 mg/L and either 5 mg/L, 25 mg/L, or 50 mg/L of calcium (3, 32). The animals given water dosed with 5 mg/L of calcium exhibited a reduction in thyroidal and other associated functions compared to the animals given the two higher doses of calcium. "

Another way of saying it is, with a Ray Peat style diet, you are getting plenty of aqueous calcium (milk) and aqueous magnesium (coffee). I would worry about the bio-availability of calcium if I were, say, vegan, and trying to get all of my daily allowance from beans, but I'm a milk drinker, and don't see any reason why the calcium in milk wouldn't be metabolized the same way as calcium in tap water.

To wit: Milk in context: allergies, ecology, and some myths

"When I traveled around Europe in 1968, I noticed that milk and cheese were hard to find in the Slavic countries, and that many people were fat. When I crossed from Russia into Finland, I noticed there were many stores selling a variety of cheeses, and the people were generally slender. When I lived in Mexico in the 1960s, good milk was hard to find in the cities and towns, and most women had fat hips and short legs. Twenty years later, when good milk was available in all the cites, there were many more slender women, and the young people on average had much longer legs. The changes I noticed there reminded me of the differences I had seen between Moscow and Helsinki, and I suspect that the differences in calcium intake were partly responsible for the changes of physique."

No doubt malnutrition of certain populations drinking desalinated water may play a role in some of the findings but they utilize many other studies on 1st world populations, 1st world volunteers and animal studies were this would not be a confounding variable.

Yes, another confounding variable is that they point out how low mineral water is corrosive and can leach toxic metals out of pipes, and then go on to quote this study where people drinking low water in Eastern European cities were at higher risk of disease, but this study didn't measure the amount of toxic metal in the water. It only looked at the amount of minerals present. A real oversight, if you ask me, because I have a very hard time believing that mid-century Soviet plumbing was designed to ensure the optimal health of the populace it served. Lutai's study was published in 1992, and circa 1992, at least, I'm not totally sure that the Ust-Ilim region of Russia qualified as "first-world."

I.e., lead is bioactive at concentrations in the parts-per-billion. Concentrations this low will not register on a TDS meter that reads in mg/L, so unless the researchers were measuring it directly, there wouldn't be any evidence of its presence in the water.
 
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