chlorinated water from tap  For anyone who has ever owned a fish tank, you most likely observed how chlorine can affect your fish. That’s why whenever you add more water to your tank you always add chlorine remover.

If Chlorine is so bad for us why do they put it in our water?

For years water companies have put chlorine in our water to prevent and kill bacteria that might be present. It all started long ago in Great Britain, when chlorine was added in an attempt to stop typhoid fever. Due to the partial success of that, the U.S. began to add it in New Jersey in 1908 and continues until this day.

Chlorinated water virtually eliminated waterborne diseases like cholera, typhoid, dysentery and hepatitis. But over the past 30 years now, there has been much research showing how chlorine and its byproducts are harmful to your health.

For starters, chlorine can cause a  magnesium deficiency, which can cause many symptoms from high blood pressure, to chemical sensitivity or even sudden death. Furthermore, it also decreases the absorption while increasing the excretion of calcium and phosphorus. The increased loss of calcium into the urine, promotes osteoporosis.

It is known that it not only contributes to hypertension, but also cancers of the pancreas, colon, bladder and has been linked to heart attacks, diabetes, kidney stones and much more.

All these years we’ve been putting people on low sodium diets for control of high blood pressure. But it turns out the sodium is not the problem as much as the chloride!!

Technology does exist today  to safely disinfect our water, but since only 1 percent of water is actually used for consumptions it just doesn’t make economic sense to use these safer methods. Our water is our least expensive utility and if it tripled in cost even if it was healthier there surely would be an national outcry. 

Naturally the best way to approach this problem is to only drink filtered water or bottled.  Chlorine is also absorbed into your body in the shower so make sure you get a shower filter also.

What kind of water should I be drinking?

The answer to that question is currently being debated by many health professionals.

Not so long ago I remember distilled water or reverse osmosis water being touted as a healthy alternative to tap water. I was one person who jumped on that bandwagon and purchased reverse osmosis from my local vitamin store thinking this was better for my health.

Now many other views have been expressed.  Studies have been validated that drinking distilled water when cleansing or detoxifying the body is beneficial, but that’s when the politeness ends.

In one corner of the ring, distilled water essentially mineral free, is very aggressive and tends to dissolve  substances it comes in contact with.  Carbon dioxide from the air is rapidly absorbed, making the water acidic. Many metals can be dissolved with distilled water. 

Many commercial soft drinks have been made from distilled water and studies have consistently shown that heavy consumers of these drinks (with or without sugar) spill huge amounts calcium, magnesium and other trace minerals into their urine. The more mineral loss that we experience the greater risk for osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, and many more degenerative diseases that are associate with aging.

Many health practioners say that distilled water and reverse osmosis is dead water, devoid of any minerals. Fish cannot live in it for it is very acidic. What’s wrong with acidic water? Many scientist are advocating that aging and disease is the direct result of the accumulation of acid wastes.

Have you ever seen a glacier stream? It’s blue with minerals.  Water in nature contains traces of inorganic minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium. These minerals provides water with it’s antioxidant power. 

It seems the human body was not designed to run on water that is devoid of minerals. Nowhere in nature does this type of water exist on our planet.  Prolonged use of this type of water can lead to a mineral deficiency. 

In the other corner, many health professionals still insist that distilled water is the best water. They profess that distilled water only leaches out mineral from your body that you no longer need and it does not leech out minerals that are part of your cell structure.

Now as a new contender enters the ring, there is but another choice, ionized water. It is “Live Water”, similar in atomic structure to the waters that the Hunzakuts drank directly from glacial streams in the high Himalayas. The noted for the longest living people in the world. Noted for routinely living to 120 to 140 years old, free from and degenerative disease.

Their water was studied by Nobel Prize winner Dr Henry Coanda and found to have a high alkaline PH and and extraordinary high amount of active hydrogen (hydrogen with an extra electron) and high colloidal mineral content.

So, what is the answer?  

As one person I can’t tell you what’s right for you, listen to your body let it tell you what is best.  But I do think that we as a society have a hard time accepting the fact that we may have been wrong for so long, just look at how long women were told hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was good for them. So in an effort to save face rather than admit we were wrong we hold on to our beliefs even stronger than before. 

The only thing that we can all agree upon is that chlorinated water is not good for us.

For more information on water filters to remove chlorine and fluoride, along with water ionizers check out this site.