Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Mistletoe 1032 days ago
This is untrue, do the math on tap water compared to food. It's such a small contribution.

>Using an average calcium concentration in public water supplies of 26 mg/liter and a maximum of 145 mg/liter (Durfor and Becker, 1964) and assuming that the average adult drinks 2 liters of this water daily, then the drinking water could contribute an average of 52 mg/day and a maximum of 290 mg/day. On an average basis this would represent 5% to 10% of the usual daily intake or approximately 6.5% of the adult RDA.

>Therefore, typical drinking water in the United States, Canada, or Europe provides approximately 3% to 7% of the RDA for magnesium intake by a healthy human.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216589/

I don't think 5% of the RDA really moves the needle either way and those are the major minerals in tap water.

2 comments

I actually had a Vevor water distiller (still have it, actually) and drank almost exclusively distilled water for ~10months, ending June 2023.

I feel better going back on tap water, fewer stomach issues. I don't have a proper theory that can explain why this is the case, but it's certainly the case.

Your body is not an abstraction. There will be parts of your body that will come in contact with acidic distilled water before it diffuses. But even in aggregate there were some studies showing increase in muscle cramps and heart disease in people drinking distilled water.