- dark-colored urine
- fatigue
- irritability
- anxiety
- depression
- food cravings
- allergies
- migraine headaches
- rheumatoid joint pain, back pain & constipation
If you have most of the above, your body may just be… well.. very thirsty. According to F. Batmanghelidj MD’s Physiological Effects of Dehydration: Cure Pain and Prevent Cancer , the above are symptoms of dehydration. In extreme cases, long-term dehydration can lead to high cholesterol levels, heart failure, chronic fatigue, cancers, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, stroke, and Alzheimer's.
Not drinking enough water is already an unhealthy thing. What about drinking unhealthy water? Though Singapore prides itself has having the “cleanest” drinkable tap water as compared to other countries (thank you PUB!). I still find our tap water reeking strong of chlorine taste. Then I read this:
Tap Water
Water treatment plants use basic filtration and chlorine to remove microbes and contaminants from our polluted water. This process makes the water “safe”, because it kills most germs and bacteria, but it also destroys water’s life-giving properties.Chlorine is not good for water because it has a strong ionic pull that easily distorts water’s healthful crystalline structure. It isn’t good for the body either. Chlorine has been associated with heart problems, cancer, and arteriosclerosis. Boiling water does not get rid of chlorine--it changes it into a carcinogen called trihalomethane. Another problem is that tap water tends to have an erratic pH (as low as 5.5 or as high as 10) which disturbs the body’s natural acid/alkaline balance of pH 7.35.
Keeping water in stagnant storage tanks and forcing it to travel through miles of pipes strip water of its natural energy and oxygen, disrupting the hexagonal clusters. By the time tap water reaches you, it is usually devoid of any healthful properties.
My sudden interest in water (being a water-sign helps too) led me to research on various home water purification products in the market.
And here are the comparisons:
Filtered Water | Many filters remove chlorine and heavy metals, but most still allow certain contaminants to pass through. Granular activated carbon (GAC) has been the most commonly used medium for home and industrial water filter applications, effectively removing chlorine, odors, bad taste & color from tap water. Most water filter systems use GAC even today. Nonetheless, carbon remains an essential component of water purification because of its unique pore structure and adsorptive quality. Many purists believe that distillation plus carbon, deionization plus carbon, or reverse osmosis plus carbon are the ultimate choices in water purification. Cons: Parasites like Cryptosporidium and Giardia are not killed by chlorine or UV light and may easily pass through simple carbon filters. Radioactive and volatile chemicals are also very hard to remove. Price of water filters : $155 (Osim) - $1,880 (Water Master Drinking System) |
Distilled Water | Distillation is the process of capturing recondensed steam from boiling the source water. If done properly, the resulting distilled water is very pure. It is essential to use carbon as a follow-up, especially with chlorinated water, because chlorine and some other chemicals in the water will be heated into gas and travel with the steam. The carbon will remove most of this chlorine and other volatile organics. Cons: Distillation devices do a better job of getting rid of harmful substances than simple filters do, but they take everything else out of the water too -- including beneficial minerals that are necessary for health and longevity. Price of distiller: approx $500+ (Purwa water distiller) |
Reverse Osmosis | Reverse Osmosis (RO) is a specialized type of screening of water contaminants using a fabricated membrane. A unique feature of reverse osmosis, compared to standard water filter methods, is that the molecules of water actually enter and become part of the membrane as they pass through. The membrane also allows oxygen through, as well as some other elements with a very small molecular size, including some colloidal and subcolloidal minerals. The pores are small enough to screen out bacteria and even some viruses. Cons: Still, some small molecule contaminants can make it through, so a reverse osmosis unit should always include some type of carbon post-filter to catch any residual organic chemicals. Although reverse osmosis water actually has an increased oxygen concentration, and contains small quantities of colloidal and subcolloidal minerals, it also is lacking in mineral value and may draw minerals from the body. More problematic, reverse osmosis units are very susceptible to the growth of bacteria and mold within them, especially when not in use. In addition to chlorine, bacteria can attack and ruin a membrane, resulting in contaminated water coming through. Price of reverse osmosis system: |
(source: http://www.acornid.com/articles_02.htm; http://waterus.com/compare.htm)
For me, I've opted for a normal filter (Osim upure) to remove that yucky chlorine taste & so-claimed 99% of bacteria and germs in tap water then boil it to kill any remaining bacterial and virus. Call it placebo effect or what, I'm already loving drinking direct from my tap.
"You ain't gonna miss your water until your well runs dry"
– Bob Marley
