Health Blog: Health and Clean Water, Part 3

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How Much is Enough Water?

Some would have us believe that all we need is water to survive, but most reasonable persons would see this idea for what it is: patently absurd. But we do need enough water to have healthy body processes. Everyday most of us wash the outside of our bodies. We like to be clean and it makes us feel better. So doesn’t make sense that we would want to wash the inside as well? Our internal body utilizes water in every molecular and cellular process in its goals to detoxify and purify.

It follows that our health will be at its best if we make pure water available to these many processes. Even though our bodies have an amazing capacity to adapt to limiting physiological situations, wisdom suggests that optimal circumstances, not challenging ones, will serve us best.  It used to be said that it is optimal to drink eight glasses of water a day. A more accurate estimate of our body water needs would be one ounce per kilogram of body weight [or approximately ½ our body weight in pounds] per day.

Do We Need to Filter Our Water?

After perusing the above information, it probably has become obvious that to ensure a clean and pure water supply, we are going to have to invest in some kind of filtering system for our home and work environment. Bottled water is not necessarily to be trusted, not to mention those pesky plastic polymers water bottles are made from that are such powerful biological disruptors [xenobiotics]. So where to begin?

The first thing is to have your water source tested by a reliable independent laboratory. It’s not as expensive as you might think – a one-time extensive water testing panel for hardness, bacteria, fungus, protozoans such as giardia, pesticides, herbicides, other petrochemicals and heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead will cost $200-$300, and will be well worth it. You can get less extensive testing targeted to suspected problems for as low as $20-$30. Based on your results, you can then intelligently determine what type of system in which you will want to invest.

Treatment systems usually use one or a combination of five basic categories: disinfection methods, filtration, reverse osmosis, distillation or ion exchange. Most people will want to consider a multi-step filtration system. There is a plethora of information on filtration systems out there and a discussion of all that is beyond this article. Suffice it to say that you will have to do your homework.

Your Place in the Soup: What Else You Can Do About It

“This brother wanted him to place his whole body in the water of life. No such honor had ever come to him; to the best of his knowledge and belief no one had ever before been offered such a holy privilege. Yet he had begun to understand that these others did have greater acquaintance with the stuff of life… a fact not yet grokked but which he had to accept.”

– From Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land

Here are some ideas to consider about how we use and interact with water:

1. Be grateful and act gratefully when you contact, view or use it.
2. End water for profit: Support putting the power of clean water back in the hands of the people.
3. Conserve, use wisely, and don’t put new to nature molecules in yours.
4. Take action consistent with what really matters, not what is easiest.
5. Educate yourself about the issues. Here are some books to read:

Blue Gold: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, by Maude Barlow

Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit, by Vandana Shiva

The Holy Order of Water, by William E. Marks

Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource, by Marq deVilliers

When the Rivers Run Dry: Water – The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century, by Fred Pearce

Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It, by Robert Glennon

And watch the award-winning documentary film about the water war, “FLOW”

You can read all of Dr. Mikles’ health blogs here.

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