Trends in Pseudoscience: Raw Water

Trend:

Water consciousness movement/raw water

What is it?

The water consciousness movement is a trend towards eschewing tap or bottled water for drinking and instead turning to unfiltered, unpasteurised, unsterilised spring water.

But why?

Proponents and, indeed, suppliers of this trend say that tap water in the US has been filtered – removing bacteria and minerals that they believe benefit the body. One supplier of ‘raw’ or ‘live’ water, Live Water, claims that “you can attempt to remineralize filtered water, but those minerals will never be bio-available like in fresh living spring water”. The bacteria content in ‘live’ water is lauded with Live Water announcing “there could be countless other beneficial microbes present, scientists just haven’t discovered yet”. They claim that beneficial bacteria, which they refer to as probiotics, are crucial for the proper digestion of food and the promotion of good health. Not only that but some raw water proponents are fearful of fluoride present in tap water. The founder of Live Water, Mukhande Singh, told The New York Times “Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it’s a mind-control drug that has no benefit to our dental health.”

And why not?

The filtering process applied to US tap water is and important step in making water that is safe to drink. It removes bacteria which can include organisms like E.coli but also parasites and viruses. A telling indication of the microorganisms present in ‘raw’ water comes from Mukhande Singh who told The New York Times of his company’s ‘live’ water: “If it sits around too long, it’ll turn green. People don’t even realize that because all their water’s dead, so they never see it turn green”. Water going green over time is a sure sign that something is growing in it. The water is alive, just not in the way that Mr Singh claims. Water borne diseases are not a problem for many Americans, these days, because we solved the problem with the availability of clean drinking water. The blight of the 1800s, cholera, a disease caused by water contaminated with a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae taught us a lot about the dangers of drinking unsanitary water. Sufferers of the ‘blue death’ often succumbed to a rapid death caused by severe dehydration, a consequence of incessant diarrhoea and vomiting.

US tap water is carefully regulated to ensure safe levels of microorganisms. US tap water is fluoridated which is scientifically proven to improve dental health. But there’s another benefit to drinking water that is regulated to prioritise health and safety. These regulations are subject to changes based on the evidence as our scientific understanding of certain contaminants develops. For instance, arsenic naturally occurs in water. Since the 1960s the regulations sustained arsenic below 50ug/L but by 2006 all drinking water in the US was required to have a level of 10ug/L or less. Studies show that this reduction in the regulated level in US drinking water has resulted in a reduction in the diagnosis of lung, bladder and skin cancer each year.

‘Raw’ water, is not regulated in the same way. The contamination of each ‘batch’ of water might not even be monitored. Not only might customers be drinking dangerous contaminants – they have no idea of which contaminants and at what level might be present in the ‘raw’ water they consume.

Author: Dr Alice Howarth

I am a science loving PhD cancer researcher with a passion for science accessibility. I like cell biology, scientific skepticism and equality. For almost 5 years I have been an integral part of The Merseyside Skeptics society - a non-profit organisation which aims to promote scientific reasoning, nationally and internationally. I am co-host of the successful podcast, Skeptics with a K where I discuss topical science stories on a fortnightly basis. I am a science communicator to a wide variety of audiences from school age children to interested members of the public and academic researchers. View all posts by Dr Alice Howarth