by A Midwestern Doctor, Lew Rockwell:
I feel one of the biggest issues in modern medicine is that patients often don’t get the opportunity to establish a genuine relationship with their physician and hence often lack the critical voice necessary for a therapeutic doctor-patient relationship.
Because of this, my goal here was always to be able to correspond with everyone who reached out to me (e.g., through comments). Unfortunately, due to the unexpected reach of this publication (two hundred thousand readers), I don’t have the time to both do that and to write here. For that reason, I decided the best solution was to have monthly open threads where people could ask whatever they wanted on any topic and I would make a point to always reply to them.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
In tandem with these open threads, I try to have them tie to a subject that I feel is important to cover, but isn’t enough to be the focus of an entire article. For this month’s post, since water is a foundation of our body’s health, I would like to share my perspectives on the healthiest types of water to drink.
Note: I am currently finishing up a month long project on an article on DMSO and hematoxylin (two easily accessible compounds) which when combined, have over the years been shown to be a remarkable cancer therapy but like many things unfortunately was stonewalled by the FDA and became another Forgotten Side of Medicine.
The Water Industry
Over the decades I’ve been in the holistic health field, I’ve noticed device after device hit the market which claims to produce the optimal source of water for you to drink, frequently has a lot of marketing behind it, briefly becomes popular and in many cases, then fades into obscurity and is forgotten. This in turn has led me to cynically conclude the primary reason why these products are created is because they are easy to market, not because they are necessarily helpful.
From having extensively studied the subject, presently, I believe the following:
•There are so many unhealthy things in the water that any filter that can remove some of them is better than nothing.
•Many of the things you want to take out (e.g., fluoride) can only be taken out by a reverse osmosis water system, so if at all possible you should use one of them.
•There are a variety of other decent water filtration methods that many people get invested in, and may have specific advantages (e.g., Berkey water filters are gravity fed so they can be operated without electricity or an existing water pressure) but they are simply not as good at filtering as a reverse osmosis system.
•I do not like alkaline water filters (as I believe it is not good to neutralize your stomach acid) and I believe many of the benefits attributed to alkaline water filters come from how alkalinity can somewhat improve zeta potential or the fact that alkaline water generators often produce molecular hydrogen in the water.
Note: as Dr. Mercola discusses here, it is fairly unlikely alkaline water devices will actually change your pH.
•There are a variety of products which “energize” or “structure” water. Some people (e.g., those belonging to the “sensitize constitutional archetype”) find they help, but having explored this for years, all I can say is that the results vary immensely depending upon the product and the person who uses it.
•The one (recent) innovation I’ve repeatedly seen provide some degree of benefit to users are the hydrogen water bottles (which electrolyzes water so it becomes full of dissolved hydrogen and oxygen—which may also provide some of the benefit of the water). Many of the devices that do this are fairly cheap, so I believe if you want to experiment with a water product to see if it benefits you (e.g., some athletes find drinking hydrogen water increases their endurance) it’s the one to try.
Note: these is a significant amount of scientific evidence demonstrating the benefits of hydrogen water for a variety of conditions. Much of it has been compiled by The Molecular Hydrogen Institute.
•I like fresh spring water, but the value of it again varies immensely depending on the spring (a few are very good, many however are not). Additionally, I find long term consumption of spring water frequently causes issues for people due to the dissolved (positively charged) minerals disrupting their physiologic zeta potential (e.g., I know a few people who went on prolonged spring water diets who then developed cardiac arrhythmias). Finally, I believe if you want to store spring water, it needs to be stored in glass, as otherwise it loses the life-giving quality many attribute to spring water.
Note: when I was younger I spent a lot more time exploring spring water, but now that I live in a part of the Midwest that doesn’t have any springs to drink from, I’ve stopped doing that. For those sincerely interested in the topic, people around the world have spent years compiling a list of springs around the world on this website.
•I believe one of the most important but least appreciated water filtration needs is for showers. This is because once water is heated, chlorine will off gas from water, which results in people frequently breathing it significant amounts of it in while showering. In turn, I and many others have found a subset of patients (e.g., singers or those with a sensitive throat) find certain chronic symptoms improve once they get a chlorine shower filter, and likewise that it feels much better for the skin and hair if they use a dechlorinated shower. Given that shower chlorine filters cost very little and last for a long time, I believe they are an excellent health investment.
•Generally speaking, I believe you should not have ice in the water you drink. This is partially because the ice often comes from very dirty sources (especially on airplanes) and partially because it adversely affects your digestion (which for instance is why Chinese Medicine they advise many patients to not have cold drinks with meals).
Lastly, there are a variety of water products I believe sometimes have merit (e.g., Quinton Water), but since there are so many of them out there, I feel going into those is beyond the scope of a monthly open thread.
Reverse Osmosis Water
Throughout my life, I’ve seen a variety of things suggesting reverse osmosis (RO) water is the ideal liquid to drink. I believe many of the benefits of RO water are a result of some combination of the following:
•As mentioned before, RO is the most reliable way to remove toxins from water (although this requires having good quality filters which proceed the RO step).
•RO breaks water into much smaller clusters, which in turn makes it easier for that water to enter the cells of the body.
