Is Your Drinking Water Filter Harming Your Health

A drinking water filter is necessary because contaminated drinking water is commonly found in both your tap and bottles. Because these contaminants can cause serious health consequences, you will minimize these risks by drinking filtered water.

In "How to Survive on a Toxic Planet", Dr. Steve Nugent gives a brief overview of the types of drinking water filters available and their effectiveness. The following is a summary of this information.

Sedimentation, the least expensive filter, removes large particulate matter like dirt from well water. This might come as a surprise to you, but, well water has the same contaminants as tap water according to testing done around the world.

Carbon filters are made of charcoal-based activated carbon. They reduce 90% of the chlorine, some organics, some solvents, some pesticides and some heavy metals. They don't reduce enough but are better than nothing.

Hybrid carbon filters are more expensive and more effective than standard carbon filters. In addition to what carbon filters remove from drinking water, these filters absorb arsenic and fluoride.

Enhanced hybrid carbon or Hybrid carbon plus reduce a broad spectrum of contaminants, all organics, all solvents, all pesticides and heavy metals that have been tested so far. It also yields 'wetter water'. This results in faster absorption by your body, better absorption of nutrients and increases how efficient your body is at detoxification. Overall, this is the best filter because you experience the best hydration and detoxification.

Reverse Osmosis (RO) water is very pure but it has a big drawback. Water usually has a neutral charge. But, RO water has a negative charge which gives it the ability to dissolve a nail over time.

Distillation offers the highest purity but is dangerous to drink over time. Artificially distilled water attracts minerals. While this can help in the detoxification process by pulling out toxins, it can also rob the body of healthy minerals, and over time promote bone loss. Use distilled or RO water only for special purposes such as detoxifying and cleansing.

Drinking Water filters vary widely in their effectiveness and in price.

When choosing a system that is right for you, remember that any filter is better than none, so buy the best one you can that fits your budget!

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