Since the beginning of time, water has been both praised and blamed for good health and human ills. We now know the real functions of water in the human body are to serve as a solvent and medium for the transport of nutrients and wastes to and from cells throughout the body, a regulator of temperature, a lubricator of joints and other tissues, and a participant in our body’s biochemical reactions. It is the H2O in water and not the dissolved and suspended minerals and other constituents that carry out these functions. Total dissolved solids (TDS) is a measure of the combined content of all inorganic and organic matter which is found in solution in water. Water low in TDS is defined in this paper as that containing between 1-100 milligrams per liter (mg/l) of TDS. This is typical of the water quality obtained from distillation, reverse osmosis, and deionization point-of-use water treatment of public or private water supplies that are generally available to consumers in the world. Worldwide, there are no agencies having scientific data to support that drinking water with low TDS will have adverse health effects. There is a recommendation regarding high TDS, which is to drink water with less than 500mg/L. Some people speculate that drinking highly purified water, treated by distillation, reverse osmosis, or deionization, “leaches” minerals from the body and thus causes mineral deficiencies with subsequent ill health effects.
