Drinking water is an essential food to live. 50% to 70% is the water content of the body and blood contains 95%, liver 90%, bone 22% and fat has 14% water. Women have 5% less water than men.

Water helps to get rid of wastes, regulates temperature and provides a medium for biological reactions in the body. If one doesn’t drink enough water, he could become dehydrated. The symptoms of dehydration include confusion, restless behaviour, absence of tears, dry and warm skin, dark yellow urine, weakness, cramping in the arms and legs and headache. The symptoms of moderate to severe dehydration includes low blood pressure, dry eyes, convulsions, severe muscle contractions in the arms, legs, stomach and back, bloating, rapid or weak pulse and heart failure. 5% drop in body fluids will cause 25 to 30% energy loss and 15% drop causes death. 80% of world’s population suffers energy loss because of mild dehydration.

Healthy adults need between 3 l to 4 l water in a day. Hot weather and physical activity increases the need for more water, 4 l to 6 l. If the colour of the urine is pale straw the fluid intake is normally fine. If it is dark yellow, one has to drink more. Coffee, tea and fruit juices intake could be counted with water intake. Vitamin B2 makes the urine dark yellow.

Health risks can arise from drinking of water contaminated with bacteria, virus, toxic chemicals including environmental poisons and radioactive compounds. It contributes diseases in developing and in developed countries. Water helps to metabolize fat and helps weight reduction. Boiling water can kill most of the bacteria and virus. Chlorine can react with chemicals to form toxic substances.

Recent studies in USA and UK show that a number of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, anti-epileptics, mood stabilizers and female sex hormones are found in drinking water. The found concentrations are very low – in parts per billion or trillion – which are far below the dose of medical dose. The water industry says that their water is safe. But the presence of so many drugs, prescription as well as over-the-counter medicines may have cumulative negative effects of long-term consequences to human health. We have to think of the mostly used drugs like paracetamol and ibuprofen. These can come from human excretions like urine or faeces and do not forget many throw the medicines in the toilets also. From the recycled or ground water these residues come to our drinking water.

The problems with hormones from the oral contraceptives are well known in Western countries.

The filters what we buy to purify our tap water are useless to filter these residues. Two things could help – the purifiers with reverse osmosis technique and the other one is simply distilling water. Rain water after 30 minutes of rain beginning is the most pure water if there is no industrial chimney in that area. The easiest, best and cheap method of purifying water from drugs and medicines is the distillation of water. Young scientists! Develop cheap distilling system which could be used in every house in this world. The cost of this should be distributed in such a way that the industry must subsidise this water distilling units to every home in our world.

If you have kidney problems or undergoing dialysis ask your doctor to know the amount of water to drink.