Water quality is crucial to good health

Yes, there is another side to the bottled water craze, i.e. the plethora of plastic bottles littering the environment, and all things should be kept in balance. However, the truth is the quality of the water we drink is an important component of good health.

Bear in mind that water can look 'clean' to the naked eye, but might not be clean when taken through the rigours of laboratory tests, and for this reason we consumers have to depend on and trust 'the relevant authorities' to do the right thing in terms of making water potable for drinking and household use.

Germs in water

Water can contain various contaminants with potentially negative impact on health - faecal contaminants from human waste, birds and other animals, pharmaceutical and other medical waste, bacteria, viruses and a host of other germs. You don't want to be drinking contaminated water; you might end up with diarrhoeal diseases and other gastrointestinal problems, and with the high cost of health care and long waits at hospitals and clinics if you can stay far away from ill-health, then by all means do.

I was browsing through an updated version of the publication, Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality by the World Health Organization (WHO). No less a body than the WHO states:

"The quality of drinking water is a powerful environmental determinant of health. Assurance of drinking-water safety is a foundation for the prevention and control of waterborne diseases."

Health targets

Four distinct types of health-based targets are described in the guidelines:

1. Health outcome targets (e.g. tolerable burdens of disease).

2. Water quality targets (e.g. guideline values for chemical hazards).

3. Performance targets (e.g. log reductions of specific pathogens).

4. Specified technology targets (e.g. application of defined treatment processes).

Concern, according to WHO, should be maintained for securing the safety of drinking water from microbes by using 'multiple barriers' from the time of water catchment to delivery to the consumer. The barriers, the health organisation indicates, would include "protection of water resources, proper selection and operation of a series of treatment steps and management of distribution systems (piped or otherwise) to maintain and protect treated water quality". The greatest microbial risk in drinking water is connected to faecal contamination.

Water quality at home

I have been boiling my drinking water for years now, The habit started out more for cosmetic reasons because I didn't like the taste of tap water, and it developed into a concern for good health. Alas, when the electricity bills started to go through the roof, conservation measures had to be instituted, and I had to do a cost-benefit analysis of continuing this practice.

I shifted to bottled water, which was more economical for a while, but that too has taken a toll on my pocketbook, and so my latest experiment in accessing a constant supply of clean drinking water is to use the jugs on the market (various brands) with water filtration cartridges that use activated carbon to purify water. So far, this is appearing economical as cartridges are changed every three to four months.

However, I am still not yet sure that activated carbon is the best water purification system out there. There is a lot of literature on the superior benefits of water purified by reverse osmosis, for instance, and perhaps ultraviolet sterilisation.

The simplest way, though, to purify water at home (may not be the cheapest) is to boil it for about five minutes or use drops of bleach.

Eulalee Thompson is health editor and a professional counsellor; email: eulalee.thompson@gleanerjm.com.