Distilled water and myths.

[anunitu]

One reason I posted this is what seems some question on distilled water,my daughter mentioned the idea that distilled water could leach minerals from the human body,there is some notions of this on the web,but by scientific fact this seems very stupid . distilled water is safe for people to consume,and i wonder where this idea came from,water might not be good for you if it contained to MANY minerals,but pure water is pure water,right?

So,look here about these myths. (https://www.megahome-distillers.co.uk/nine-myths-about-drinking-distilled-water)

[anunitu]

i use it for my coffee, because the mineral rich tap water would jam my coffee maker up. single cup coffee maker.

[Hawkfeathers]

Distilled water is recommended for spider plants, if I remember right, because their leaves are sensitive to minerals. It's NOT recommended for parrots, and I'm not sure about other animals, but neither is most tap water. I have a Culligan filter system on my kitchen sink which is the only water I use for cooking & drinking. My water here has a lot of lime. In NJ it had a lot of iron.

[Ula]

I use it in my diffuser and to make incense

[anubisa]

I use distilled water for my c-pap. So I don't think it would be bad for your health if they recommend it for your c-pap.

[iris]

depends on how it's distilled. or how much I guess. when I hear distilled water I think of the kind we use in a lab, and that's safe to drink but really not ideal at all... you can drink it, but if it's all you drink and you don't get enough minerals from other sources it could be dangerous for you.

[prometheus]

You'd have to drink a lot of distilled water, and getting no minerals from other dietary sources before getting to toxic levels.

Hard water is bad for kettles. but it is good for your heart (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2265038/).

[anunitu]

why good for your heart?

[prometheus]

why good for your heart?

It's a dietary source of calcium and magnesium. From the paper linked above:


The mechanism by which hard water may provide protection against cardiovascular disease remains a matter of debate. The extra calcium it carries could help reduce blood pressure, whereas low serum magnesium concentrations—common to people living in soft-water areas—appear linked with arrhythmias. “Couple this with the fact that many of today’s refined foods are low in magnesium, that many people in developed countries either do not cover or only barely cover their magnesium needs, and that magnesium in drinking water is more bioavailable than that in food, and you can see how [even the relatively small] extra supply of this mineral to people in hard-water areas could be beneficial,” says Frantisek Kozísek, head of the National Reference Centre for Drinking Water in Prague, Czech Republic. “Cooking food in soft water also tends to remove magnesium, calcium, and other essential elements from food, making matters worse.”

[anunitu]

rain water is distilled in fact

[prometheus]

Maybe, but most water animals consume has been flowing through river or pipes.

Either way i wouldn't worry about. Any difference between hard and soft water is so small that they've had to do a ton of research to find it.

[kashioz]

Distilled water is an active absorber and absorbs carbon dioxide on contact with air, making it acidic. The acidity can then leach minerals from the body.THE FACTS: This is true but it is nothing to worry about. Pure H2O does weakly bond with CO2 to form Carbonic Acid. That is why both rain water (which is distilled water) and distilled water are mildly acidic. But not enough to harm you at all, we're talking pH5 or 6. That is about the same as a banana. Neutral pH is 7. Your stomach has a pH of 1-2. The pH scale is logarithmic that means pH6 is ten times more acidic than ph7. So distilled water, after contact with air, is 10-100 times more acidic than neutral (if that makes sense). Your stomach is 1000 times more acidic than distilled water. And Coca-Cola with a pH of 2.8 is over 100 times more acidic than distilled water. The idea of acidic water sounds scary but it does not harm you, if it could, rainwater would harm you and most foods would harm you. There is nothing harmful about drinking distilled water. And if you are at all worried about it being mildly acidic then you can always add a pinch of Sodium Bicarbonate.
The whole leaching minerals argument is an example of what is called psychologists call truthiness; it kind of sounds like it could be true so people believe it. In reality it is non-science. Your body works extremely hard to keep your blood pH between 7.35 and 7.45. If it goes outside that range then your enzymes start to denature and you need to go to hospital. Even people who are slightly out of range like pH7.25 can be very ill indeed. For your blood to be acidic enough to actually start leaching minerals it would have to be well below pH6 and you would definitely be long dead by then.