Health effects of Reverse Osmosis Water
Published December 1, 2008 | 
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Mark from California Writes:
For many years I’ve used a sediment/carbon/ro/DI filter, to take my 390 PPM city water to zero PPM for drinking. Been drinking it for a decade, water indoor plants with it, feed it to pets, cook and drink with it, and have no problems. Now i read all over the net, the dangers of drinking ultra-pure RO/DI water. We like the taste, and have had no health problems we know of. Is ultra pure water safe – if one has a multivitamin daily?
Hi Mark, thank you for the question.
I’m not a health professional so I cannot tell you specifically how it’s affecting you, based on the amount you drink, your multivitamins or your current diet. I am a water professional, and I can tell you the properties of DI/R.O. water and why it is considered dangerous to your health.
For many years, DI/R.O. was considered the best water for you. The rational was that if nothing was in the water except water itself, then this must be the best for you. Nothing but water and nothing could hurt you.
Today we know this is not true for two reasons:
- Natural water is a perfect source for vitamin and mineral absorption by the body
- Ultra pure water is actually a very aggressive chemical.
I’d like to deal with the first point, of course, first. One of my areas of expertise is the precise addition of chemicals to water. If a dosage is called for, I get it there down to the tenth of a mg/L. In order to precisely dose a chemical, to have it best integrate, mix, and dissolve in the water, it must be in a liquid format. This is true to the point where if I have to deal with a powder or other solid chemical or a gaseous chemical, I dissolved it into a liquid solution with make up water before dosing it into the process.
In the same way, the minerals already dissolved in natural water supplies integrate far better into the body than do your multivitamins in pill form, and that is because of point two.
Water is called a universal solvent for very good reason. It will dissolve just about anything over time. That’s why it has needed minerals dissolved in it like calcium, magnesium and Iron. By removing those minerals and bringing it to an ultra pure state, you are creating a corrosive chemical.
Think of ultrapure water like a sponge. This water needs and craves minerals, and will get them from wherever it can. Water likes to be in whats known as an “ion balance”. The ions in the water that is in your body will move to fill the void by the new water without ions in it. The result will be a lower amount of ions in the water in your body as a whole. This works just like heat, which will move from higher heat to lower heat, leaving the whole reduced in temperature as a whole.
This also works in reverse. If your body has a lower concentration of dissolved ions, water with a higher concentration will impart some of it’s ions by this ion balancing process.
What all this means is that DI/R.O. water can be a problem, but it is not an acute problem, like high doses of arsenic in your water or certain pathogens would be. It is a chronic problem and can affect you when taken regularly over longer periods of time. This is especially true for women who are at risk for or are suffering from osteoperosis.
I hope I’ve helped you understand why DI/R.O. water is considered a chronic risk. I understand your liking of the taste, that is a personal preference that you share with many people. I encourage you to seek a medical professional to discuss this with them, and to see if your multivitamins and diet can help you keep the proper amount of minerals in your body.
If you need further clarification or want to ask another question, please don’t hesitate to write in again.
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Thank you so much, your answer duplicates most answers on the web from people selling alternative water filters or water “conditioners”. The idea that pure
water is a poison and can leach things out of your bones is not based on science.
As an example, I grow sprouts – alfalfa, lentils, peas, beans – and on pure water
with 0 TDS, they grow twice as fast as on tap water. In sprout growing there is no dirt, just water and light on seeds. My cat only drinks 0 TdS water and he’s 11 now, so I don’t know how dangerous pure water is except in a lab where osmosis counts.
Thank you for the Comment Mark.
The concept of Ion Balancing is a valid one and based on good science. I do not sell anything and I give information for free. I’m sorry that you do not agree but the fact remains ultra pure water has the potential to have some chronic long term affects because of this.
Best of luck in your future endeavors,
Mike
While I have no real information to contribute towards the discussion of whether or not DI/RO water will cause harm to the human body, I can say that somewhere in the past I read about home water systems that first remove all ‘impurities’ in drinking water via Reverse Osmosis and then have a special attachment that puts back specific ions that the manufacturers claimed the human body actually needed.
I apologize for not have anything more psecific about these devices, but I read that article several years ago and unfortunately did not save any links to the devices it referenced. A search on Google or another prominent Search Engine will probably turn up some information, though.
I am ordering some “celtic sea salt” to add to my RO/DI water. It’s a neat
concept to remove everything from your water, then add what you want to add -
calcium, magnesium, etc. That sounds good to me. Too bad it’s impossible
to have an inline salt crystal in a home system – problem is, water will
sit on the salt for less than 1 second sometimes, and 12 hours other times,
adding too much, or too little salt.
Hi Mark
What you would need to do is make up a saturated salt solution, and have a metering pump inject it into your drinking water at the required amount.
A company called LMI has a saturator/metering pump assembly that could do just that. It was meant for potassium permanganate crystals but it would work equally well with salt.
You’d need some sort of flow switch to activate the metering pump and some patience playing with the settings of the pump.
It would probably cost you about $1500 for the equipment alone, so I would do it only if you had money to burn.
In any case, I’d be interested to know how the “celtic sea salt” works out for you.
I have Mark’s same concern and agree with your response RO water could potential be harmful with chronic intake. Do you know of any substantiated long term research that has been done to more or less prove that RO water is harmful? After all, the leaching effect of pure water may be negligible with a regular diet, vitamins, etc. Who knows?
Yep, I know both sides are true. Pure water is good, and pure water
will not sustain life. But in reality, my tummy always has other stuff in it
so pure water SEEMs safe to me unless injected. I tried for a month to find
proof one way or the other, the only proof I can find is bad stuff in water is bad.
No proof good water is good or bad with solid science can be found by me.
hu i think you r right bcause iam doing research on this RO purified water .and i found that this water is injurious for health if we r taking it for a long time . beacuse this water work as adsorbent whcih will catch minerals of your body make you exposed for diseases . so in my personal view RO water is safe for drinking water although it remove impurities but also remove minerals that is important for health .