Advice - to RO or not to RO

[Teelie]

Chemicals and additives rarely work long term and can cause major pH shifts which can kill your fish. Better to do it slowly and more naturally.

 

[Timmy]

BTW there is nothing wrong with drinking RO or RO/DI water. It doesn't take much Googling to find that out.

 

[Teelie]

Both can over time cause health problems though as I said, it's nothing immediate and it would be long term. R/O water by it's nature causes nutrients in the body to be leached out by osmosis. R/O water is void of anything in it so over time, consuming too much of that kind of water will cause the minerals and vitiamins in your body to equalize the distribution via osmosis.

RO/DI has no electrolytes so it does something somewhat similar but is more detrimental..

 

[rvm]

Both can over time cause health problems though as I said, it's nothing immediate and it would be long term. R/O water by it's nature causes nutrients in the body to be leached out by osmosis. R/O water is void of anything in it so over time, consuming too much of that kind of water will cause the minerals and vitiamins in your body to equalize the distribution via osmosis.

RO/DI has no electrolytes so it does something somewhat similar but is more detrimental..

If that is the case, then why are there so many domestic RO filters on the market specifically aimed as a drinking water filter? I'm sure the companies that market them would be in serious trouble if the product they are selling makes people ill, and have done plenty of research into that fact!!

 

[Def]

Domestic filters as far as I know are not the same as R/O filters sold for aquatic uses. Domestic filters for drinking water are far closer to the Brita filter jug things...

 

[Ed4567]

R/O water by it's nature causes nutrients in the body to be leached out by osmosis.

osmosis is the movement of water across a semipermiable membrane (down a water potential gradient)...

 

[Teelie]

Give me a break, it was nearly 5 am and I hadn't slept. What I mean is essentally the same though. The minerals and metals in your body will have to reach equilbrium with the water that has none of that in it. And it's long term as I said. The reason it's not illegal to market them is because most people don't drink exclusively from R/O water and probably wouldn't if they knew the dangers of it in the long run.

Ever read why they say never keep your fish in 100% R/O water? Same thing applies to humans only it's a longer process. It's perfectly safe to drink R/O water but if that's ALL you drink and you don't get enough nutrients in your body, you'll eventually start suffering some nutrient defficency.

 

[Def]

osmosis is the movement of water across a semipermiable membrane

Actually it's the movement of water from a region of high water potential to a region of low water potential across a semi-permeable membrane and is one of the characteristics of a living organism. And Teelie is correct.

I took highschool biology too, y'see.

 

[mlee0332]

RO filtration systems are VERY expensive, but if you get one, wouldn't the pH be the same? You'd have to be filtering the same water that is 9pH, unless you have a well...

Edit: also, I think the word you all are getting confused is diffusion and osmosis. I just got thru taking biology about a month ago. Diffusion is from high concentration to low concentration and osmosis is low concentration to high concentration. Osmosis moves water, diffusion moves elements...

 

[Opcn]

R/O is used in drinking water because sometimes water thats empty is better than water thats full of whats in it.

 

[rvm]

Domestic filters as far as I know are not the same as R/O filters sold for aquatic uses. Domestic filters for drinking water are far closer to the Brita filter jug things...

nope, I know the ones you mean, but high end water filtration is RO. look here!

 

[Teelie]

RO filtration systems are VERY expensive, but if you get one, wouldn't the pH be the same? You'd have to be filtering the same water that is 9pH, unless you have a well...

Not really as R/O will be filtering out what makes the pH so high. It should lower the pH to neutral or near neutral once everything is removed from it.

 

[mlee0332]

okay, wasn't sure about that... Just wanted to make sure that wouldn't be a problem...

 

[Ed4567]

I said:

osmosis is the movement of water across a semipermiable membrane (down a water potential gradient)...

Def said:

Actually it's the movement of water from a region of high water potential to a region of low water potential across a semi-permeable membrane and is one of the characteristics of a living organism. And Teelie is correct.

I'm not quite sure what the difference is except I put the water potential bit in brackets since I presumed most people wouldn't be interested in this.

Since we are now talking about diffusion, and each chemical species will move down its own concentration gradient, pehaps you could tell us what 'nutrients' the body relies on tap water to obtain (considering the relative concentrations in water and in food...)?

 

[Teelie]

Minerals and vitamins mainly. The water has NOTHING in it so SOMETHING must fill it. Regular tap water has all kinds of stuff in it, most of it nonnutritious but it's there so there's little need of equilibrium. Our body is made of 60-80% of water depending on who you ask so the water in our body and the water we take in must have a balance. If one body of water is void of anything, the body of water (us) will naturally lose some of it's suspended particles.

Anyhow, this page discusses what I'm talking about. It's biased towards "health nuts" but the quotes below are what I'm getting at.

Purified or reverse osmosis water is free of dissolved minerals and, because of this, has the special property of being able to actively absorb toxic substances from the body and eliminate them. Studies validate the benefits of drinking purified water when one is seeking to cleanse or detoxify the system for short periods of time (a few weeks at a time). Fasting using purified water can be dangerous because of the rapid loss of electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride) and trace minerals like magnesium, deficiencies of which can cause heart beat irregularities and high blood pressure. Cooking foods in purified water pulls the minerals out of them and lowers their nutrient value.