this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Don't want to drink pure H₂O either...
I mean, unless I'm missing something it should be fine as long as you get salts another way.
Correct. I have no idea why people are freaking out over drinking water. We constantly eat and drink things that have wildly different osmolarity than our cells and yet here we still are. Our stomach and intestinal mucosa cells are not going to burst if we accidentally drink a milkshake (a hyperosmotic solution).
From what I can tell, they were told about osmosis and did not understand the actual volume of water involved in the quirky example of extremeness.
Going to link the comment of @ParsnipWitch@feddit.de, as that's a better explanation than I could have provided: https://feddit.de/comment/2620197
@can@sh.itjust.works
So exactly what I said. Balance it with other salts and you're fine. Most water doesn't have enough salts to balance your system anyway, that's called saline, and you would notice if you drank it.
Pure water is fine and will have no significant difference to any given generally safe tap water.
The relevant part is that distilled water + osmosis makes cells burst. So, we're talking about tiny injuries, not just some mineral inbalance.
As far as I understand, once it's in your stomach, it'll get dilluted and then it really is just water with too few minerals. But on the way into your stomach, it can cause damage.
We likely don't have scientific data on how much/frequently you'd have to drink it for the body to not counter-heal enough. But yeah, just don't drink distilled water.
OK let's break this down.
Distilled water will not in fact do any of this at a tiny l level. For one, again, the difference between distilled water and tap water in terms of osmolarity is actually pretty much insignificant.
For two, your mouth, and esophagus have mucus linings making this entirely moot as far as water is concerned.
For three, distilled water is far and away the least stressful thing your body ever deals with, eating something even moderately salty is far far more "dangerous" to your cells than drinking distilled water. Ever eat a potato chip?
Third, your cells actively resist osmotic pressure changes as necessary. You have to go pretty hard and actually change the salinity of your blood to have any noticeable effects.
Fourth, your cells are actively being replenished with good salinity blood.
Fifth, we are very insensitive to salinity changes in our blood. Blood salinity shifts quite a bit and regularly throughout the day.
Sixth, a benefit of being a multicellular organism is that we don't care much about any individual cell. Your mouth cells die and are replenished nearly the fastest of any set of tissue in the body. Your mouth in general is very much built to handle all sorts of harsh conditions. Chemically distilled water is nothing. I guarantee you 100% that if you drank distilled water every day for your entire life, and made sure to eat a normal diet which was not extremely low in salts, you would be fine.
Let's discuss non multicellular organisms for a moment as well: the salinity of fresh water is very low. That's the point of distinguishing it. Plenty of organisms live just fine in it. If you drank those organisms, many of them could also get you sick, as in live inside you, a pool of water with much higher salinity. Cells have ways to maintain homeostasis and respond to their environment. That's literally what they do.
No I don't think there is research on this specific subject. Are you starting to see why there isn't much worry on microdosing distilled water?
No? What would it be like?
It will damage your skin and mucous membranes. Pure H2O is quite reactive and will drain minerals from the environment. If your body is such an environment, it will get minor damages.
Ive got a pretty serious Nature check...
Probably tasting remarkably bland and would likely mess with your electrolyte and mineral levels.
Isn't it just distilled water?
Like in the other comments, you can drink distilled water as long as you only drink a "normal amount".
It's still an interesting thing to know, that you actually starve when drinking large quantities of distilled water (well, in theory since you have other stuff in your body that enriches the water with minerals anyway).
Through osmosis the cells on your mucosae will try to equalise the mineral content between the water and themselves. But since distilled water has no minerals they will take in so much water that they burst.
If you would drink liters and liters of distilled water, the cells responsible for taking in minerals will all be gone and you starve long-term.
Short-term you die from organ failure anyway, with your body desperately trying to keep in the minerals. This is the same as the good old water intoxication. Just that you reach that threshold faster with distilled water.
I have such a hard time believing the absence of trace minerals in distilled water is dangerous as to be deadly.
And I'm not talking that bullshit drank 5gallons thru a funnel than took a bath in it outlier, that is entirely unhelpful.
A normal person drinking 2 liters of distilled water is going to have no serious effect from it. A forkful of spinach has more of those trace minerals than 55gallons of water.
Imma go ahead and put this in the file with alkaline water and Japanese H²O that got its feelings hurt.
it causes cells to burst.
if you have extra cells for bursting then you'll be fine.
Yes that is why saline is used to as an IV fluid instead of water. But if you’re not injecting it straight into your blood stream, the osmolarity of the liquid does not matter so drinking distilled water is completely fine.
My biology teacher told me the same...
it basically is, although most distilled water does contain a small amount of contaminants, so it would likely not count as cemically pure.
as for drinking it: i've found this article, according to which you shouldnt expect health problems, provided you eat a healthy diet. As most minerals we consume come from our food, not the water.
then again it supposedly tastes bland, is more expensive than tap water (provided your tap water is safely drinkable) and why even take the risk?
Coffee.
Do you find that your coffee maker gets slow over time as it gets clogged with calcium buildup? The you have to run vinager through it and stink up the house to clean it? Use distilled water, and it won't do that anymore. As long as your entire liquid intake and majority of your calorie intake doesn't consist solely of coffee, it won't cause health problems either. You can even put a pinch of salt into the coffee basket to replace some electrolytes and make the coffee taste more like coffee.
Distilled water is not ideal for coffee. You want some buffer in the water to balance the acidity, and you want some hardness in the form of magnesium or calcium to assist in extraction and provide some flavor. A little sodium can also improve the flavor
"Purified water is water that has been mechanically filtered or processed to remove impurities and make it suitable for use. Distilled water was, formerly, the most common form of purified water, but, in recent years, water is more frequently purified by other processes including capacitive deionization, reverse osmosis, carbon filtering, microfiltration, ultrafiltration, ultraviolet oxidation, or electrodeionization. Combinations of a number of these processes have come into use to produce ultrapure water of such high purity that its trace contaminants are measured in parts per billion (ppb) or parts per trillion (ppt). "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purified_water
It is and you shouldn't drink it. At least not a lot of it or for a long time, otherwise your electrolytes could get to low. And while I don't remember the specifics(biology class was like 15 years ago), I think that can make the osmosis between your cells and your blood not work anymore or even reverse.
Or just eat food along with water. Under normal conditions drinking distilled water is just fine. But if you’re running a marathon in 100 degree F weather then yes you should also get some salt. This is why sports drinks and pedialyte is better for hydration for strenuous exercise.
With the osmosis thing, you might be thinking of this: https://feddit.de/comment/2620197
I have drunk a cup of ultra pure water. Taste wasn't very different from tap water. I have no idea if it messed with my electrolyte levels much but seemed to be safe to drink.
It is. If you were to exclusively drink distilled water you might want to add some salts and minerals to your diet via other means.