Clean drinking water is a weighted and heavily debated conversation in the holistic health world. To be honest, it’s one I just wanted to avoid, because I had been drinking reverse osmosis water for over 12 years, and I was certain it was the right thing for my family. My recent experience with distilled water, however — and that of my clients — has now given me a 180 degree change of perspective on the topic.
“Don’t drink that!” my mom would say to us as kids. “It’s for the iron to get wrinkles out of the clothes!” I thought that meant there was something IN that water that rendered it unsafe for us to consume. So of course, we never drank it.
My role as an educator and holistic health practitioner means being willing to try new ideas and resources, particularly if I intend to make them as a recommendation to my clients. For the past three years, I have become more and more educated on the benefits of distilled water. I heard story after story of those with chronic health conditions who improved greatly by making the change.
What Do You Know About Your Drinking Water?
The most common contaminants found in drinking water include:
- Uranium
- PFOA and PFOS
- Microplastics
- Arsenic
- Pharmaceuticals
- Bacteria, viruses, and protozoa
- Chlorine/chloramines
- Lead
- Nitrates/nitrites
Upon doing some research, here is what I discovered about the water in my neighborhood. The shots below are from the Environmental Working Group’s tap water database. Go to the site yourself and plug in your zip code to see the results for yourself.
The data here is from 2014 – 2019, so keep in mind it might be slightly different now. But at that time there were “11 total contaminants,” 8 of which “exceed EWG health guidelines.”
Toxic Heavy Metals and Fertility
To bring some reality to this, let’s talk about what I see in my practice using muscle testing. Take arsenic, for example — a big problem for many. In my experience, it’s often stuck in the reproductive organs of a female. If someone is presenting with reproductive-related concerns, I immediately ask them to bring in a sample of water from home based on what I have learned over the years. I want to know how safe their body feels the drinking water is to consume.
This toxic metal hit home for me after I got curious about the cause of my fifth miscarriage about seven years ago. When I learned from my Nutrition Response Testing practitioner that arsenic was testing as toxic to my uterus, I did some research to understand whether arsenic toxicity is direclty connected to miscarriage.
A pubmed study suggests “evidence of increased risk of infant mortality with increasing arsenic exposure during pregnancy, with less evidence of associations with spontaneous abortion or stillbirth risk.”
Another study found “Over half (54.7%) of women in ASGM areas of Northern Tanzania had adverse birth outcomes and the risk of adverse birth outcomes was significantly associated with increased prenatal exposure to arsenic and mercury.”
My last miscarriage was September 24, 2014 (you can read the details here). When my practitioner discovered arsenic to be a toxin in my uterus at the time, he developed a designed clinical nutrition program to support the appropriate detoxification of this heavy metal.
My understanding was that arsenic is found in our groundwater, which is now evidenced by the data I uncovered. But I had focused my efforts on the water I was drinking for the first two weeks of that pregnancy, which was in northern Minnesota in a mining town. What I learned then is that arsenic is in higher amounts in our drinking water in areas where the ground has been disturbed by mining. What I wrongly assumed was that our drinking water at home was safe. We had an additional “arsenic filter” applied to our reverse osmosis system, so, of course, I thought we were covered. Turns out I was wrong.
At the time I thought the only way to handle the toxicity was through supplementation. It would be a few years until I finally leaned into the research and realized our everyday drinking water, though reverse osmosis, was still not clean enough.
Distilled vs. Reverse Osmosis vs. Filters
Like I mentioned above, this can be a heated issue. People who are on a health journey understand the importance of water — clean water. This video explains how the three work.
This chart helps you easily see how the different methods stack up and what toxins you may still be exposed to.
My Distilled Water Healing Journey
Dr. Jay Davidson describes our drinking water at home as still not being clean when all we have been doing is trying to remove the chemicals from the water. There is no way our filters can remove the amount of chemicals that are in our drinking water. What needs to happen is that our water needs to be removed from the chemicals, which happens in the distillation process.
My own health history includes decades of bloating, abdominal and pelvic inflammation, skin conditions, and digestive concerns. Parasite clearing and switching to distilled water have completely transformed my health. Within one full week of drinking only distilled water, my chronic stomach aches and pelvic inflammation were completely gone and have yet to return.
In this video, Chelsea, another Nutrition Response Testing practitioner, tests me with three samples of water. Check out how my body responds to tap, reverse osmosis, and distilled water.
In case after case with my clients, I am seeing a drop in weight that wasn’t moving no matter what we did. This looks like a loss of 15 pounds in two months for some and 5 pounds in a week for others. This makes sense when our fat cells are what house toxicity. If we don’t fill our bodies with toxins, our fat cells can finally release and eventually disappear, creating a loss in weight.
For me, the transition to drinking only distilled water also resulted in some significant detox of radioactive elements, fungus, and the surfacing of Bartonella, a Lyme co-infection. You can hear more about that in the video below.
Distilled Water and Children’s Health
The most common issues I see in the children I work with are digestive, skin (hives, eczema, keratosis pilaris, rashes, itching, picking), and neurological tics. Those on the autism spectrum and/or struggling with PANS/PANDAS (infection induces autoimmune conditions that disrupt a child’s normal neurological functioning) are among the most sensitive I see.
Making the change to distilled water is a request I make to many, if not all families I work with. Whether that is an overnight change or one to ease into depends on my recommendation and the family’s willingness to take the necessary actions around the health of their family.
This excerpt pulled from the Family and Health brochure by My Pure Water, highlights the importance of clean drinking water for infants and children and why they are more susceptible to toxicants such as metals, chemicals, and bacteria, than adults.
- Infants consume seven times as much water for their size as adults do and children consume twice as much. This means that their exposure to contaminants is considerably greater.
- Children and infants have a much lower body mass, which means that toxins build up in their bodies faster. This is why nitrate and lead contamination are such a concern for children.
- Children have a less developed immune system than adults and are more susceptible to contamination (especially biological contamination) than adults. Contamination outbreaks are considerably more dangerous for children than adults.
- Unlike adults, children’s bodies and brains are still growing and going through critical development stages. Many contaminants have been linked to developmental problems that interfere with critical growth stages.
- Children are very sensitive to bad tastes in water. This causes them to either turn to sugared drinks that hide the bad tastes or they don’t drink enough water.
“I started my 5 year old on distilled water like you suggested and the day I switched there was instant calm — 90% improvement with behavior.” — L.K., My Healthy Beginning client
Changing out your drinking water is an easy step to make in cleaning up your health. If a family isn’t ready for supplementation on a supervised detoxification and clean up program, upgrading your drinking water to distilled is a fantastic way to start. It can also be done alongside a program if supervision feels more comfortable for you.
Looking for a distiller for your home? Here’s a short video showing off my countertop home distiller from Pure Water. You can shop Pure Water distillers and use promo code MHB-5 for 5% off.
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