The water you drink

"Drinking water", Leonardo da Vinci once wrote, "can be healthy, unhealthy, laxative, sulphurous, sad, angry, red, yellow, green, black, blue, oily, oily and thin".

The water you drink today probably has some of these properties. But even today, around 500 million people are said to be constantly sick from the water they drink. Ten million of them can die every year.

Surprisingly, even the developed countries that pride themselves on their “safe” water are now fighting. Modern agriculture and industry are introducing a growing list of potentially hazardous and difficult to eliminate chemicals from drinking water sources. “Anything that makes life easier seems to pollute the water,” said a US Senate hearing expert on the issue.

Life depends on it

Despite these problems, water remains one of the most wonderful and absolutely necessary substances. The existence of life on earth is based on this. In fact, water is the most important component of most living things. The human body has been described as a "virtual walking bag containing dangerous fluids". About two-thirds of your total weight is water, while three-quarters of your brain and muscles is water.

From this, it can be seen that life works best in the narrow temperature range in which water is present in liquid form. It is said that such an environment in which life can practically exist does not exist in other parts of the universe. Although scientists are speculating on the potential millions of planets in the universe, the book Water: The Web of Life is:

“When we learn about the truly unusual conditions on earth. . . We wonder if we might even find a duplicate Earth among millions of planets. . . . Apparently, there are a number of very special events that lead to a planet with liquid water on its surface. "What water does to support the life of your body shows just how remarkable it really is.

Water in action in you

Blood is often equated with the life of the creature, as in the term vital blood. Preferably, the blood is more than four fifths of the water. The unique properties of water make it ideal as a base for this vital fluid. For example, more substances are dissolved in water than in any other liquid. It also has the unique ability to move freely back and forth through the cell walls of the body, carrying the chemicals of life with it. At the same time, it functions as a medium in which complex chemical reactions take place in cells.

These reactions “burn” the food you eat for fuel and generate heat, just like a car engine burns when it burns. But how does your body maintain a constant temperature of 98.6 °? The water! If the water in your body were a different liquid like mercury, the heat in your cells would tend to rise in temperature thirty times faster than it does. This is because water takes a lot more heat to change temperature than most other substances.

But water also serves as another means of controlling body temperature. The rapid circulation in the bloodstream keeps the heat relatively even and quickly transfers excess heat to the skin to radiate into the air. On the other hand, the heat stored in body water gives your extremities a pleasant warmth when you are cold.

Even with this amazing system, your body usually cannot get rid of the heat it generates quickly enough. Then another fantastic property of water comes into play: evaporation. How it helps

When half a liter of water evaporates, it absorbs around 1,100 times more heat than when the temperature rises by only one degree! Feel this cooling effect when the wind dries the moisture from your skin. Since about two liters of body water is normally evaporated daily by breathing through the skin and lungs, this usually releases too much heat.

But on a hot day or when activity returns to normal, the sweat glands exhale more water, maybe liters, per day. All the sweat that evaporates from the surface, instead of running, brings with it enormous amounts of heat - truly a wonderful cooling system!

Your need for water

Since water is such an important part of our existence,we must take care of our body. Although a person can survive for up to eighty days without food, can go more than ten days without water. With a very small drop compared to normal water content, you quickly get thirsty. Even a 1% or 2% lack of water can be worrying or painful. Only 5% cause tightness of the skin, dry mouth and tongue and hallucinations occur. A loss of 15% is usually fatal.

Your body is constantly losing water. In addition to the two liters that are normally lost through the skin and breathing, another three or more liters can pass through the kidneys and intestines. Water and even tears drained through sweat should be added to the normal five or six liters, which should be replaced daily to maintain the body's water balance.

Does that mean you have to drink three liters of fluid a day? If you do not sweat a lot. In fact, about a third of the water we need comes from consuming "solid" foods, which are often primarily water. The bread is also about a third of the water. Interestingly, almost a quarter of how the body's cells chemically produce water (H2O), because they use oxygen (O) to burn hydrogen (H) from food for fuel.

Therefore, you may need to drink only five or six glasses of liquid such as milk, coffee, juice or water directly a day. Although water is one of the most common substances on earth, it is an important task to provide enough drinking water. Because it can dissolve so many different substances, water is not always drinkable without cleaning it.

Make drinking water

Drinking water can rarely be described as "pure" or "pure" in the chemical sense, as it almost always contains dissolved gases and minerals. To make the water "drinkable" or drinkable and good, it is not necessary to remove all impurities. In fact, some of the basic elements for good health and good taste are often found naturally in good quality drinking water.

Fresh groundwater from springs and wells is often, but not always, drinkable due to filtration and purification that occurs as it sinks through layers of soil and porous rocks. Even soft surface water can be cleaned. During movement, tap water tends to break down, dissolve and dilute the debris that has entered it to make it harmless, so that the heavier particles can settle. Wind and turbulence help ventilate running water, emit unwanted exhaust fumes and absorb oxygen.

Dissolved oxygen is important for an incredible gradual "digestive process" that takes place in moving water. Oxygen can directly oxidize or "burn" waste, neutralize it or more often support bacteria that make the waste harmless waste.

As it develops, the small life forms consume bacteria and remove more water. Sunlight penetrates more easily and promotes the growth of green algae, which in turn consume certain polluting compounds and releases a lot of oxygen in the process. The small aquatic creatures feed on algae and complete the "digestive cycle". In this way, fresh water tends to purify over time.

But even this wonderful system can suffer from indigestion, just as you do when you eat too much of the wrong things. Drainage from agricultural land usually contains chemical fertilizers and pesticide residues. New industrial waste networks connect them to our water sources and suffocate them with an infinite amount and amount of chemicals, often outside the capacity of the natural cleaning system. Consequently, according to preventive medicine and public health, self-purification has "at best become half-truth and has been used very often in the past to justify the acceptance of dangerous water." Today, almost all societies in developed countries treat water in one way or another before using it.

In this way, their methods often follow nature. Therefore, ventilation is usually the first step in a typical cleaning system. Water is sprayed, cascaded, or air bubbles to take in as much cleansing oxygen as possible. Then certain chemicals are added that stimulate pollutants and bacteria to "herd" together. This coagulation process accelerates the natural sedimentation process, which ends with sedimentation. Filtration is then done, usually through sand filters, to remove any remaining flakes and most other contaminants. Eventually, disinfection kills most of the remaining living organisms, usually with the help of chlorine.

Problems with water treatment.

You would think that the above process would remove anything dangerous from the water you drink. However, recent research from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests that small amounts of many chemicals are getting into the crane in some cities. Some of these compounds are known to cause cancer. The irony here is that many are viewed as high chlorine compounds that are added to make water safe to drink.

Some doctors also show evidence that chlorine can trigger the formation of cholesterol in human blood vessels, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Joseph M. Price, MD, in Coronaries / Cholesterol / Chlorine, says that it is "one of the greatest paradoxes in history" that a public health measure responsible for saving so many lives must be suspected of being responsible for many chronic diseases of adult life ".

Although these results are controversial, hundreds of cities in Europe, Russia, Canada, and Japan prefer alternative methods of sanitizing their waters. For example, in Nice, France, ozone has been used in place of chlorine for over sixty years. Paris, since 1968. Ozone is an unstable form of oxygen that reacts with water in a chemical intoxication, quickly oxidizing pollutants and leaving no ozone residue.

Others offer granulated activated carbon instead of or in addition to conventional sand in filters. Activated carbon has a unique chemical "viscosity" that "absorbs" contaminants. It is said that a single pound exposes more than four million square feet of activated carbon surface to remove contaminants. Many American environmental activists are putting increasing pressure on them to force the adoption of such alternatives.

Water as medicine

Should citizens receive massive medical treatment with clean water? This problem still contradicts fluoridation, even though nearly half the American population now drinks fluoridated water. Children who drink treated water only have between half and a third of the cavities.

Opponents cite the fact that most people do not benefit from it as it certainly only helps young people. In addition, they claim that some who drink more water than others are at greater exposure to potential hazards, which are likely to include Mongolians, cancer, and shorter lifespans. While most medical authorities ignore the fee, opponents of fluoridation say they should be free to choose.

Some people fled in bottles of water for safety reasons. However, recent studies show that even some water bottles cannot be considered safe. A doctor writes in Medical World News' annual cardiovascular journal suggesting boiling drinking water to remove free chlorine. But even cooking doesn't necessarily eliminate other harmful compounds.