Re: [APD] Don't Drink Distilled Water [SAFETY] (was "Storing large amounts of RO water")

[Charley Bay <charleyb123 at yahoo_com>]

<snip, don't drink distilled water>

Jerry responded:
> Do you really expect me to believe that
> losing 60 mg of electrolytes per day is going
> to hurt you? That's the difference between
> distilled water and R/O water if you drink 
> two liters a day. If you have soft tap water 
> it might be 150 mg. I'm not convinced.

Liz responded:
> Codswallop.
>
> Drinking distilled water will not kill you or
> harm you.  It will take a chunk out of your wallet.

Gee whiz.  Didn't mean to start a flame war here.

Salient points:

* It's not good for you
* It can be bad for you

The official name for the medical condition is
hyponatremia (common name "water intoxication").
You can get it just by drinking (too much) regular
water.  You get it faster by drinking distilled
water.

It's not uncommon, especially among endurance
athletes.  For example, water intoxication was
reported in 18% of marathon runners and in 29% of
the finishers in a Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon in
studies published around 2000 in the _Annals_of_
_Internal_Medicine_ and in _Medicine_&_Science_in_
_Sports_&_Exercise_ respectively (not exactly
junk science rags).

Besides the symptoms listed, it can lead to coma
and death.

Feel free to dis-believe this as a medical
condition.  If you disbelieve it and you're
a medical doctor, you're an idiot.  I only mention
it because people on this list play a lot with water
purification systems, and I have first-hand knowledge
of actual cases in different settings.

Dave wrote:
> This is an excellent time to remind everyone of the
> dangers of dihydrogen monoxide:
> 
> http://www.dhmo.org/

Absolutely.  Scary stuff.  ;-)

--charley

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