Why Not Distilled Water?
YES To REVERSE OSMOSIS PURIFIED WATER & Why It’s NO To Distilled Water
Wayne Gendel’s/Forever Healthy Water’s Comments:
When Arnold Ehret, Paul Bragg, Herbert Shelton and Norman Walker wrote about distilled water many years ago back in the early to mid 1900’s, there was no other method of purifying water as there is today. So it was wise advice for its time. However….
Dr. Gabriel Cousens, Dr. Mercola and Dr. Zoltan Rona are highly respected Doctors that have done some research on distilled water.
- 1. My thoughts are that distilled is done by a machine that is not how nature distills water. The direct sunlight, air, oxygen, hydrogen and natural carbon cycle given off by trees is far removed from a man made machine that boils water. A solar distiller is another story and hopefully one day soon we can test solar distilled water vs. medical grade reverse osmosis.|Solar distilling is just not as practical or affordable for the average apartment or home owner.
- 2. In reference to Chet Day referring to Hunza water containing many minerals and being healthy. There are many factors in living a long healthy life. The Hunza’s live in a much more pristine environment than most of the world. They have very low stress levels and they eat fresh ripe foods containing higher minerals levels than the majority of our supermarket based foods. These are other very important factors allowing the Hunza’s to live a longer healthier life than most of the world. One other major point about Hunza water is that it is very high in natural hydrogen, which is the most powerful natural anti oxidant for the human body.
- 3. Finally distilled water being boiled cannot be re-charge, re-energized to the same degree as reverse osmosis purified water. Tests show the ORP (oxygen reduction potential) the amount of electrons and anti-oxidant ability of a given substance, distilled water is minimally affected by FIR (far infa red), magnets, vortexing compared to reverse osmosis purified water.
DISTILLED - WHY NOT TO DRINK vs. REVERSE OSMOSIS (R.O.)
- 1. Dr. Gabriel Cousens, a living foods advocate who writes on page 509 of his book “Conscious Eating,” “distilled water is dead, unstructured water so foreign to the body that one actually gets a temporary high white blood cell count in response to drinking it.”
2. Is acidic water
3. Cooked/Boiled – no energy. Dr. Zoltan Rona gave 1,500 patients distilled water and 1,500 reverse osmosis (r.o.) water. Both waters were re-mineralized. All the patients on the r.o. showed higher levels of minerals through hair, urine and saliva testing
4. No minerals – should be re-mineralized, re-energized
5. Does not remove pharmaceuticals
6. Only partially removes fluoride and asbestos
7. Can concentrate some chemicals
8. Uses large amounts of electricity, takes 3-4 hours to produce 1 gallon, not eco friendly
9. Distilling is COOKED! so it is not a raw/living food/liquid! Dead energy!
10. Does not remove ‘chloramine’
a. Linked article
b. Linked article
11. Distilled (cooked) Water – ORP (Oxygen Reduction Potential) cannot be boosted as in R.O. based water purification
12. Many Doctors recommendation is distilled is a secondary choice of purification to r.o.
- – Double Purified, Living, Energized, Magnetized, Restructured, pH Balanced Water! – Removes 99%+ of anything and everything in the water including pharmaceuticals – Multiple stages of restructuring the water including magnets (removes toxic memory), FIR (far infa red), vortexing and more
+ Below are a few articles by doctors against distilled water.
Why It’s NO To Distilled Water
By Chet Day
Paul Bragg. Norman Walker. Herbert Shelton.
I bet you recognize the names of the above three “big gun writers” of the modern natural health and raw food movement. Each of these men advocated a predominantly uncooked vegetarian diet (though Walker allowed cheese and Bragg allowed occasional meat or fish), and each also advocated distilled water as the only kind of water to drink.
It’s amazing to me how blindly most health seekers follow the advice of the above three gurus as well as the advice of modern health writers who use Bragg, Walker, and Shelton as their main sources of truth.
Indeed, if you spend more than about ten minutes reading many modern natural health writers, you’ll quickly learn that all serious health seekers should shun any kind of water other than distilled water. Why? Because Paul Bragg, Norman Walker, and Herbert Shelton said so.
Well, I bought into this commonly-accepted “truth” back in 1993 when I started my health journey, and I continued to buy into it for more than five years before I started to question its validity. I started to question the value of drinking distilled water for the long-term when I finally opened my eyes enough to realize I was relying on information that was, in most cases, more than 50 years old.
Let me say here that I still consider distilled water the water of choice when detoxing or working to heal a serious health challenge. To quote Dr. Zoltan Rona, who feels the same way:
“Distillation is the process in which water is boiled, evaporated and the vapor condensed. Distilled water is free of dissolved minerals and, because of this, has the special property of being able to actively absorb toxic substances from the body and eliminate them. Studies validate the benefits of drinking distilled water when one is seeking to cleanse or detoxify the system for short periods of time (a few weeks at a time). Fasting using distilled water can be dangerous because of the rapid loss of electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride) and trace minerals like magnesium, deficiencies of which can cause heart beat irregularities and high blood pressure. Cooking foods in distilled water pulls the minerals out of them and lowers their nutrient value.”
See Dr. Zoltan Rona’s article below
Early Death Comes from Drinking Distilled Water
by Zoltan P. Rona, MD, MSc
During nearly 19 years of clinical practice I have had the opportunity to observe the health effects of drinking different types of water. Most of you would agree that drinking unfiltered tap water could be hazardous to your health because of things like parasites, chlorine, fluoride and dioxins.
Many health fanatics, however, are often surprised to hear me say that drinking distilled water on a regular, daily basis is potentially dangerous.
Paavo Airola wrote about the dangers of distilled water in the 1970’s when it first became a fad with the health food crowd.
Distillation is the process in which water is boiled, evaporated and the vapour condensed. Distilled water is free of dissolved minerals and, because of this, has the special property of being able to actively absorb toxic substances from the body and eliminate them. Studies validate the benefits of drinking distilled water when one is seeking to cleanse or detoxify the system for short periods of time (a few weeks at a time). Fasting using distilled water can be dangerous because of the rapid loss of electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride) and trace minerals like magnesium, deficiencies of which can cause heart beat irregularities and high blood pressure. Cooking foods in distilled water pulls the minerals out of them and lowers their nutrient value.
Distilled water is an active absorber and when it comes into contact with air, it absorbs carbon dioxide, making it acidic. The more distilled water a person drinks, the higher the body acidity becomes. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Distilled water, being essentially mineral-free, is very aggressive, in that it tends to dissolve substances with which it is in contact. Notably, carbon dioxide from the air is rapidly absorbed, making the water acidic and even more aggressive. Many metals are dissolved by distilled water.”
The most toxic commercial beverages that people consume (i.e. cola beverages and other soft drinks) are made from distilled water. Studies have consistently shown that heavy consumers of soft drinks (with or without sugar) spill huge amounts of calcium, magnesium and other trace minerals into the urine. The more mineral loss, the greater the risk for osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and a long list of degenerative diseases generally associated with premature aging.
A growing number of health care practitioners and scientists from around the world have been advocating the theory that aging and disease is the direct result of the accumulation of acid waste products in the body.
There is a great deal of scientific documentation that supports such a theory. A poor diet may be partially to blame for the waste accumulation. Meats, sugar, white flour products, fried foods, soft drinks, processed foods, alcohol, dairy products and other junk foods cause the body to become more acidic. Stress, whether mental or physical can lead to acid deposits in the body.
There is a correlation between the consumption of soft water (distilled water is extremely soft) and the incidence of cardiovascular disease. Cells, tissues and organs do not like to be dipped in acid and will do anything to buffer this acidity including the removal of minerals from the skeleton and the manufacture of bicarbonate in the blood.
The longer one drinks distilled water, the more likely the development of mineral deficiencies and an acid state. I have done well over 3000 mineral evaluations using a combination of blood, urine and hair tests in my practice. Almost without exception, people who consume distilled water exclusively, eventually develop multiple mineral deficiencies.
Those who supplement their distilled water intake with trace minerals are not as deficient but still not as adequately nourished in minerals as their non-distilled water drinking counterparts even after several years of mineral supplementation.
The ideal water for the human body should be slightly alkaline and this requires the presence of minerals like calcium and magnesium.
Distilled water tends to be acidic and can only be recommended as a way of drawing poisons out of the body. Once this is accomplished, the continued drinking of distilled water is a bad idea.
Water filtered through reverse osmosis tends to be neutral and is acceptable for regular use provided minerals are supplemented.
Water filtered through a solid charcoal filter is slightly alkaline. Ozonation of this charcoal filtered water is ideal for daily drinking. Longevity is associated with the regular consumption of hard water (high in minerals). Disease and early death is more likely to be seen with the long term drinking of distilled water. Avoid it except in special circumstances.
About the Author
Dr. Zoltan Rona is a leading proponent of natural, harmless, health-building alternatives to conventional medical care. He has a general practice where he has provided preventive medical counselling for over 20 years and is a past president of the Canadian Holistic Medical Association.
His books The Joy of Health: A Doctor’s Cuide To Nutrition, Alternative Medicine, Fertility Control: The Natural Approach, Return to the Joy of Health, and Childhood Illness and the Allergy Connection, have been well received, as have his countless articles on natural health topics. Dr. Rona is also a consultant to the Motherisk Program of the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children Department of Pharmacology and is known for his many public lectures and media appearances.
References
- 1. Airola, P. 1974. How To Get Well. Phoenix, AZ: Health Plus Publishers.
- 2. Baroody, Dr. Theodore A. Jr. Alkalinize or Die. California: Portal Books, 1995.
- 3. Haas, Elson M. Staying Healthy with Nutrition. The Complete Guide to Diet & Nutritional Medicine. Berkeley, California: Celestial Arts, 1992; p. 22.
- 4. Rona, Zoltan P. and Martin, Jeanne Marie. Return to the Joy of Health, Vancouver: Alive Books, 1995.
- 5. Rona, Zoltan P. Childhood Illness and The Allergy Connection. Rocklin, California: Prima Books, 1996.
I opened my eyes because about two years ago I started hearing from long-term distilled water drinkers who had been consuming only distilled water and who had developed troubles with their hair either thinning or falling out in clumps. I’ve subsequently learned that hair loss is a condition often associated with various mineral deficiencies.
Since I’d been advised by a serious natural health student whose opinions I value very much that distilled water might well contribute to such problems, I started telling people with hair problems that they might try going back to filtered water or bottled water to see if doing so wouldn’t help resolve the symptoms. Interestingly enough, many reported that their hair loss problems improved when they stopped drinking distilled water.
Digging deeper, I started reading more carefully the advice of natural health experts who weren’t necessarily coming out of the raw food and Natural Hygiene schools of health, and I couldn’t find a single one of them who recommended distilled water as the water of choice.
Yes, all of these experts advocated drinking lots of water — at least eight full glasses of water every day — and all of them said a good filtered or bottled water was just fine. For example, I know Lorraine Day, MD, (no relation) doesn’t advocate distilled water and neither does the Iranian medical doctor F. Batmanghelidj, who wrote what I consider the bible on water, “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water.”
Dr. Gabriel Cousens, a living foods advocate who writes on page 509 of his book ‘Conscious Eating,’ “distilled water is dead, unstructured water so foreign to the body that one actually gets a temporary high white blood cell count in response to drinking it.”
Additionally, my understanding of medical doctor Zoltan Rona’s article is that long-term distilled water consumption may well contribute to high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems. Dr. Rona writes, “The longer one drinks distilled water, the more likely the development of mineral deficiencies and an acid state. I have done well over 3,000 mineral evaluations using a combination of blood, urine, and hair tests in my practice. Almost without exception, people who consume distilled water exclusively, eventually develop multiple mineral deficiencies.”
Given what these health-oriented MDs have concluded about distilled water, doesn’t it make sense to further research the topic rather than relying on opinions formed more than 50 years ago?
If you prefer to ignore what these health-oriented medical doctors have discovered in their active practices, then let’s take a look at the brutally deceptive “organic and inorganic mineral” argument that so many natural health writers use to justify distilled water drinking. (They also mistakenly use the same argument to erroneously conclude that all supplements and all cooked foods are bad.)
Unfortunately, their oversimplification of the organic and inorganic mineral theory and, indeed, their general lack of understanding about college level chemistry and physical laws, calls into deep question the validity of many of their conclusions about health and diet.
The health writers who like distilled water better than a ripe nectarine usually write a lot about the Hunzans, the folks in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley who allegedly live healthfully well into their 90’s and beyond. Interestingly enough, these same writers don’t mention the point that the Hunzans drink glacial water so full of minerals it’s almost milky in appearance.
If you’d like up-to-date facts about organic and inorganic minerals instead of over-simplifications and erroneous conclusions, visit:
Another point involves alkalinity and acidity. Natural health writers generally agree that the body maintains best health when it maintains a pH leaning to the alkaline side rather than the acidic side, and yet distilled water quickly turns highly acidic, about 5.8 in an open air container.
Does it still make sense to you to drink eight glasses a day of distilled water that can potentially help to over-acidify the body?
I’d been putting off writing this article for over a year because I didn’t feel that I had all the facts. I still feel the same way, but I also feel confident enough with what I have learned to present my current viewpoint to help others make a more informed decision before investing a lot of money in an expensive distiller that may well contribute to health problems in the long run.
You will note, of course, that the most vociferous advocates of distilled water are also those who sell high-profit margin distillers. They are also the ones who continue to quote Paul Bragg and Norman Walker as the sources of their extensive research.
In closing, I do know tap water isn’t good because of all the chemicals and pollutants and Lord knows what else in it, but I don’t have all the answers as to the best water for human health, so please don’t consider this article definitive.
I trust this article raises some questions in your mind that you can now research in more detail on your own so you can then come to an informed conclusion about what type of water is best for you and your family. I opened my eyes because about two years ago I started hearing from long-term distilled water drinkers who had been consuming only distilled water and who had developed troubles with their hair either thinning or falling out in clumps. I’ve subsequently learned that hair loss is a condition often associated with various mineral deficiencies.
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
Chet Day does an excellent job of addressing this issue that many natural medicine clinicians and far more clients are seriously confused about. Distilled water is NOT good for you and should be avoided. It is amazing how the myth of earlier health promoters can persist for generations without serious re-analysis of the truth of what they said.
I would STRONGLY recommend purchasing “Your Body’s Many Cries For Water“. It is the best book I know of that documents the usefulness of water. Dr. Batmanghelidj is a physician and does an excellent job. If you are a health care professional this book should be in your library.