DI or Distilled Water Re: detoxification of my body?

This site is probably the wrong place for questions about herbal detoxification, Jentry. I would normally advise you of that privately rather than posting your inquiry, but I did not want to deny our readers who are DI experts the pleasure of your compliment :-)

A. Jentry-

My college science professor said that we should never drink distilled or deionized water. Our body's cells are made up mostly of water but there is a mineral component. Osmosis (equilibrium) is at work here. Distilled or deionized water, which is 100% water, when ingested, will cause the cells that contact pure water to burst when they attempt to reach equilibrium and we will feel thirsty as a result. I have distilled water in my home for use in my steam iron because I don't want a mineral buildup to occur in my iron but minerals in our water are appropriate for us.

A. Drinking DI or distilled water has been well covered on this site over recent years. In my opinion, it is very unwise to drink such pure water as it can act as a solvent for the salts in your teeth and body organs. Have a look in the archives for a more detailed discussion. If you want to drink "pure" water, try filtered water.

Q. Very Interesting! I recall traveling thru parts of our country out west, where the brackish drinking water water made the use of reverse osmosis equipment a usual remedy. Apparently RO quality water is not unhealthy?

W. Carl Erickson
- Vernon, New York
2004

A. Usually RO water takes a long time to filter through the membrane, so these units must either be very big or have a huge storage tank. Once any water has been through an RO membrane, all the salts and other impurities will be removed, making the water an excellent solvent. If left standing, it will dissolve any air and make the water slightly acidic (carbon dioxide in water). Furthermore, RO water is well known for being a good medium for growing bacteria and other bugs. Good RO water should be kept recirculating and passed through a UV light to kill the bugs. However, if it has salts added to it or is piped to an end-user through metal pipes, it will very soon pick up ions from the pipework and become a less aggressive solvent. Personally I would not drink freshly prepared RO water unless I was really desperate.

Trevor Crichton
R&D practical scientist
Chesham, Bucks, UK
2004

Thanks for the additional info, Trevor. I was only aware that they used RO, from conversation with the store owner at a small "Mom & Pop" in West Texas. We did not get into the details, but they were very well satisfied with the RO unit, as I recall. Their experience was relatively short, at the time, however, so it would be interesting to hear from someone using RO water as their potable water supply for several years, if it was working out OK, healthwise.

W. Carl Erickson
- Vernon, New York
2004

A. The reason for drinking distilled water is detoxification, as described by many naturopaths. Generally it is not prescribed for regular daily consumption. Whoever said that drinking d.i. water is hazardous, is not a water quality tech, nor a doctor. Drinking d.i. or distilled water will not harm you or your cells at all. Perhaps if you were drinking theoretically pure water, (which is impossible to obtain), then maybe you will see some effects as described in the previous responses.

Otherwise, millions of people drink d.i. water every day in various levels of quality, none of which are "clean " enough to harm you unless they have a conductivity resistance of 10000000 (10 million) volts or more. I am not aware that water this clean is available anywhere, unless it is created in a specialized laboratory, and would be very expensive compared to drinking water.

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I would like to thank Mr Swayze for his informed input into this topic. I freely admit I am not a "water quality tech, nor a doctor", (at least not a medical doctor) but I do produce very pure water on a regular basis in quite large volumes. My minimum acceptable conductivity is 10(-6)S, or 1 million ohms per centimetre and I usually get better than that (say 10(-7)S). Personally, I would not consider drinking this water as it is such an excellent solvent that it will remove any salts from the mouth, teeth and tongue, I would consider it to be very harmful to my body to imbibe such a liquid, however, each to their own.... I would also be interested in Mr Swayze's qualifications on this subject.

Trevor Crichton
R&D practical scientist
Chesham, Bucks, UK
2004

A. This is an interesting thread. As a water quality professional who has been in the business for over 20 years, I can say that any information related to drinking DI water being harmful to health is incorrect. Looking at RO water, which does not remove all dissolved minerals, but most you have millions of people throughout the US who have RO systems with no ill effects. DI, if extremely thorough, will remove more minerals than RO. But those who claim this water is bad for you forget to consider there are cities, like Vancouver BC, where the water supply is generally lower in mineral content than most RO systems are capable of reaching, and there are no statistical reports of the citizens of Vancouver suffering from health effects of drinking water extremely low in dissolved minerals. A tablespoon of milk has more calcium than gallons of most mineralized water, so considering water a reliable or meaningful source of minerals forgets the huge variance in mineral content of drinking water throughout the world. Pure water, on the other hand, does act as an electronegative enhancer, increasing spacing between red blood cells and encouraging fat cells to release some of their stored toxins -- which is why it is valuable for detoxification regimens. With the amount of toxins in our food, air and water supply, it makes great sense to drink pure water to encourage our bodies to dump these toxins through the bodies normal channels.

A. I have studied the DI and RO water very carefully. I am in the business of water well rehabilitation, however, have also gotten into the purity of water.

DI and RO water is better for your body then any other water. The MAYO Clinic has many reports on this matter and all are in favor of DI drinking.

Yes it is a solvent, however, we need to detox with all the junk in our food, water, and air.

Please look up the MAYO clinics reports for further detail.

A. I purchased an RO/DI filter unit online that specializes in the Marine aquatics industry. For a reef or FOWLR (Fish Only With Live Rock) RO/DI OR distilled water is needed with the mixing of specialized salts for this hobby. Tap water often has way too high a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) in it, as well as chlorine, chloramine, phosphate, and copper, just to name a few minerals as well as some waste products, etc. All these things especially copper and have a negative impact on fish and invertebrates.
After using this unit to produce zero TDS water, I watched a video of a fellow who has had over 20 years experience in the commercial field of aquaculturing corals for sale. In this video, he stated that there were no scientific tests confirming the claim that drinking RO/DI water had any negative impacts on health. He also stated that he himself had been drinking this water for over 12 years. At the time, I had been diagnosed with Hemochromatosis "Iron overload" and was having phlebotomies done twice a month. I began drinking the RO/DI water I made at home, mostly because of the hassle involved in just tapping into RO water before the DI stage. After two weeks of this, I no longer needed to get the phlebotomies. This result is of course subjective. There is no proof that the water helped reduce the iron overload. I can say after several months drinking only RO/DI water, that I have noticed no negative impacts. Again, it subjective for there have not yet been any further tests.

So from my personal experience, (to date) it has neither harmed nor helped, with the exception that the water being tested straight from the taps has had a TDS as high as 31 and I'm no longer drinking all that added junk.

A warning though, if you have metal fillings in your teeth, you may want to restrict yourself to just RO water and bypass the DI stages for drinking purposes. Some people experience a "zing" in goof the filling. My wife indicated it was like chewing tin foil!