Learning and Sharing

8. DRINK to YOUR HEALTH 

Most of us stay away from the water---at least when it comes to drinking enough. It seems strange that we do, as 75 percent of our bodies are made up of this simple stuff.  What does it matter if we don’t drink enough? And when we do drink, what kind of water should---and shouldn’t---be in those bottles and cups?

 Like fiber, water isn’t a nutrient, but an agent of bodily processes.  Every one of our systems is designed to do every one of our body’s functions using water at every stage of their work. Digestion, absorption of nutrients, circulation and excretion, each one is water intense. We simply must have water for our bodies to work as they should. 

When we don’t drink enough, these systems stumble along. Our cells hunger for adequate oxygen, vitamins and nutrients, and our kidneys and liver struggle to filter toxins and fats from our blood.  We try not to notice that untended fat, gathering on our thighs and backside...but what we can’t see are those untended toxins within.    

So what’s enough?

According to American Dietetic Association spokesperson Elisa Zied, not necessarily the expected eight glasses a day.  “What we really need to be concerned about is not so much our water intake in particular, but our total fluid intake,” Zied said. “We get fluid from water; we get it from other beverages, coffee and tea, juice, milk, all kinds of beverages. We also get water in a lot of the foods we eat, especially fruits and vegetables.”

So how much does she recommend?  Five or six cups of water a day as a good rule of thumb for women (seven to eight for men)---as long as other liquid is coming in from “high-water” foods like fruits and vegetables, vegetable soups and cooked grains, and from beverages like milk, a little  fruit juice, coffee and tea.  Heavy work, exercise or illness creates greater water needs.  And what about caffeine?  Does it increase water needs?  Most recent studies say no. For habitual coffee, tea or soda drinkers, the body adapts and doesn't lose as much water as previously thought.     

Tips for drinking enough?  Start earlier in the day, first thing in the morning, and drink water that isn’t ice-cold.  If water’s taste is an issue, consider adding lemon slices, a drop of orange flavor or mint leaves. Toting a water bottle can help, but consider safety there too.  

So now that we know how much, does it matter where our water comes from?  Are designer brands really better than the tap stuff we’ve come to shun?  Maybe. Maybe not.   [Top]

Nowadays they’re everywhere, in ways that would have seemed strange just a few years ago--- those bottles of water we’ve all come to love.  We’ve been sold on the notion that they’re what we need, but can we be certain it’s so?

America’s fascination with bottled water has exploded into a $5-billion annual industry, fueled by ads that assure us our bottled water is pure and pristine---and way, way healthier than that stuff that comes out of the tap. Consumer polls show it’s safety concerns that drive most of us to drink Dasani and AquaFina.  But what exactly are we getting when we opt for those bottles?

The Food and Drug Administration oversees content and packaging of America’s bottled water, yet in many cases has imposed standards far inferior to those for what flows from big city taps.  Fortunately for California, our state government has put tighter standards* in place. Still, neither the FDA nor California sets shelf-life limits for sale or use, or says anything about water’s storage. The International Bottled Water Association does. It recommends that we: “store bottled water at room temperature (or cooler) out of direct sunlight and away from solvents and chemicals such as gasoline, paint thinners and dry cleaning chemicals.”

Interesting warning, isn’t it?  Kind of makes you wonder why.

According to a four-year study of U.S. bottled water done by the National Resources Defense Council, part of the answer is probably “phthalates---cancer-causing chemicals that leach from plastic, including plastic bottles.”  In its “snapshot” testing of more than 1,000 bottles and 103 brands of bottled water by three independent labs, the NRDC found water that contained twice the level of phthalates allowed in tap water. Yet the bottled water industry has no standard for this carcinogen, because some in the industry were successful in exempting bottled water from regulations regarding this chemical.

So let’s recap. Tap water is regulated for cancer-causing substances that can leech into water from plastic. But bottled water---stored in plastic---isn’t.   [Top]

The NRDC study, the most comprehensive, independent, publicly available testing of bottled water done to date in the United States, found other problems with bottled water as well, from microbes caused by sewage to carcinogens created by chlorine to amounts of arsenic “at a level of potential health concern.”  Much of what was tested turned out just fine, but “approximately one third of the tested waters (34 of 103 waters, or 33 percent) violated an enforceable state standard or exceeded microbiological-purity guidelines, or both, in at least one sample.” 

*Bottled water sold in California which is labeled by the manufacturer as "disinfected water," "filtered water," "sparkling water," "carbonated water," "seltzer water," "soda water," "tonic water,” or just "water" is not requited to meet the state’s bottled water standards for contaminants.

Other academic and government bottled-water surveys generally agree with the NRDC report, which concludes that, while most water in the United States (both bottled and tap) is safe, “there is no assurance that bottled water is any safer than tap water.”  Despite this, bottled water’s “perception of purity” continues to be carefully marketed, with labels almost always featuring glistening glaciers or mountain streams, even though government and industry leaders estimate between 25 and 40 percent of bottled water sold in the United States comes from a city’s or town’s tap water...sometimes further treated, sometimes not.  

Buying the hype, the American public---including a significant percentage of those of lower income---continues to spend from 240 to over 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than they typically would for what comes from the tap.  Meanwhile, the manufacture and shipping of billions of bottles creates energy and petroleum consumption, overflows landfills and leads to release of environmental toxins that further pollute the environment (and the water we all need to drink). To read the full NSRD report, see: http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp.    [Top]

So how about that tap?   

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that 90 percent of water systems in the country exceed its standards, although those of a few surprising cities (Atlanta, San Francisco and Albuquerque) don’t quite make the mark. “America has one of the best water systems in the world,” says Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the non-profit American Water Works Association.  Water utility companies regularly monitor for more than 103 substances, and are subject to compliance on 80 of the most harmful, including heavy metals, disease-causing microbes and synthetic industrial material. While some trace contaminants remain, as long as they fall within EPA standards, “they pose no significant health threats,” according to the NRDC. 

Richard Maas, water quality expert and co-director of the Environmental Quality Institute at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, says there are five categories of harmful contaminants that homeowners should look out for: lead, arsenic, chlorine, microbial pathogens and industrial and agricultural pollutants.  The use of chlorination to destroy disease-causing bacteria is considered one of the greatest public-health advancements of the 20^th century. But chlorination is a double-edged sword. Eighty percent of Americans live in communities where water is treated with chlorine, which, when it bonds with organic material (even decaying leaves) can create chemicals  called trihalomethanes that are strongly linked to miscarriages and digestive cancers.  For this reason, more and more communities are switching from chlorine to chloramine. (How to tell if your town’s made the change?  It’s chloramine if water straight from the tap kills aquarium fish.)  If not, see: http://www.infowars.com/articles/science/water_safety_down_the_drain.htm Orange County made the switch a few years back.  Fluoridation also first came local in 2003.    

Many health experts advise that all water used for both drinking and cooking be filtered, and the solid carbon block type (installed under the sink) is thought to remove most important substances.  Spring water (like that often delivered to homes) is a good alternative for drinking, although its plastic storage bottles have the same issues as the half-liter size.  Buying distilled water may be important for some cancer patients, as the copper common in most water (but removed from distilled) is thought to aid tumors in building the blood vessels required for growth.  Toting water?  Consider a refillable glass-lined Thermos or a Nalgene #2 high-density polyethlene bottle.     [Top]