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You should.  At least sign up for their newsletter, and make sure you use this resource if you are ever trying to figure out if a product is clean (anything from food to make up).

Their mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment.  How lucky is that?!  They have easy to read educational breakthrough research, all focused for the consumer.  My favorite go-to for my clients is their 12 top clean & dirty products list.  Cleanest sunscreens and the best household cleaning products!

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Kangen Water

By Torie Borrelli

Being that our bodies are about two thirds water, they need to be hydrated in order to carry out normal functions.  Water helps our bodies detoxify, acts as a natural appetite suppressant, lubricates joints, and helps rev up our metabolism.  Plus, without proper hydration, no matter how clean we eat, or how much we exercise, we cannot absorb and assimilate our nutrients, or even recover from our workouts!

More people than you think are walking around in a dehydrated state.  Being dehydrated can give our body’s mixed signals.  For example, make us think we are hungry or are craving something specific, when actually we are in need of some H20!  Also, when dehydration is taking place, our bodies can feel fatigued.  This could lead to not having enough energy to meet out workout goals.  It's a vicious cycle we can easily fix.

Poor hydration can lead to so many symptoms. Constipation, low energy, dry skin, itchy skin, skin issues, repeated urinary tract infections, dry coughs, sneezing, sinus pressure, headaches, and much more.  All of these can be the result of toxins building up in our bodies.  Poor hydration weakens the body's immune system and leads to chemical, nutritional, and pH imbalances, which can eventually cause sickness and premature aging.

Science shows that our bodies lose about 60 ounces of water per day just through breathing.  That is before we exercise!  It's critical we replace that water, and understand when and how much is needed to hydrate ourselves.

How can you tell if you are properly hydrated? First, are you drinking half your body weight in ounces and do you feel thirsty?  Second, what color is your urine?  If it is dark, you need to drink more agua!

WATER INFO FROM CLINICAL STUDIES & RESEARCH

The Dangers of Drinking Reverse Osmosis Water  Scientists and researchers worldwide have repeatedly demonstrated that long-term consumption of Reverse Osmosis (RO) water is bad for your health.

Just about everyone knows that RO systems excel at removing water impurities, similar to distilled water, they both take out the natural minerals in the water.  Asia and the European countries call it "dead water".  In some countries it is even banned.  Few are aware they also remove the beneficial minerals in this process. In fact, the RO process removes 92 to 99% of beneficial calcium and magnesium.  What is the big deal?  “Disease and early death is more likely to be seen with the long term drinking of distilled water, reverse osmosis water”, Zoltan P. Rona MD MSc.  In other words RO can cause death.

After analyzing hundreds of scientific studies concerning demineralized or RO water, the World Health Organization released a report stating that such water “has a definite adverse influence on the animal and human organism.”

Consumers have been so concerned with removing as many things from water as possible that they have forgotten to ask if the resulting water actually improves health or causes health problems.  It is assumed that no toxins equals better health, but there is simply more to healthful water than a lack of toxins, as the World Health Organization clearly points out.

What is alarming is that consuming RO water for even a few months can create serious side effects.  “The effects of most chemicals commonly found in drinking water manifest themselves after long exposure”.  However, “only a few months exposure may be sufficient consumption time effects" from water that is low in magnesium and/or calcium.

Some illustrations of short-term exposures are cases in the Czech and Slovak populations who began using RO-based systems for final treatment of drinking water at their home taps in 2000 to 2002.  Within several weeks to months, various health complaints suggestive of acute magnesium (and possibly calcium) deficiency were reported.  Among these complaints were cardiovascular disorders, fatigue, weakness, and muscular cramps.  Again, serious side effects within just several weeks or months.

It gets worse.  Because RO water does not have enough minerals, when it is consumed, it also leaches minerals from the body.  This means the minerals being consumed in food and vitamins are being urinated away.  Less minerals consumed, plus more minerals being excreted, equals serious and negative side effects leading to major health problems.  In a scientific study performed to see if minerals consumed in food can make up for the lack of minerals in RO water, scientists concluded that “reduced mineral intake from water was not compensated by their diets…low-mineral water was responsible for an increased elimination of minerals from the body.”

“It has been adequately demonstrated that consuming water of low mineral content has a negative effect on homeostasis mechanisms, compromising the mineral and water metabolism in the body.”  Consumption of RO water “leads to the dilution of the electrolytes dissolved in the body water. Inadequate body water redistribution between compartments may compromise the function of vital organs. Side effects at the very beginning of this condition include tiredness, weakness and headache; more severe symptoms are muscular cramps and impaired heart rate.”

WHAT ABOUT RO SYSTEMS THAT ADD MINERALS BACK IN

One popular trend since the negative side effects of consuming RO water emerged is the practice of adding minerals back into the RO water.  On this trend, the World Health Organization states that “possibly none of the commonly used ways of re-mineralization could be considered optimum, since the water does not contain all of its beneficial components. In the case of borderline deficiency of a given element, even the relatively low intake of the element with drinking water may play a relevant protective role.”  It is practically impossible to recreate natural water with all of its minerals and trace elements from RO treated water.  Why risk the side effects of RO water, in any form, if healthful alternatives are available?

Since the early 1960′s, epidemiological studies, in countries all around the world, have reported that water low in calcium and magnesium is associated with increased morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease.

When used for cooking, RO water was found to cause substantial loss of all essential elements from food (vegetables, meat, cereals).  Such losses may reach up to 60% for magnesium and calcium.  Or more for some other microelements (e.g., copper 66%, manganese 70%, cobalt 86%).  In contrast, when mineralized water is used for cooking, the loss of these elements is much lower.  In some cases, even higher calcium content was reported in food because of cooking.

In a multi-city study, women living in cities with low-mineral water more frequently showed cardiovascular changes (as measured by ECG), higher blood pressure, somatoform autonomic dysfunctions, headache, dizziness, and osteoporosis (as measured by X-ray absorptiometry), compared to cities with higher mineral content water.

The second website that drives a dagger into the RO industry's myth of, "its pure water", is the World Health Organization (WHO).  Healthy comes from the WHO and they provides us with a Position Paper titled “The Health risks from drinking demineralized water”, written by F. Kozisek.  You can tell by the title where the article is headed.

The final report, published as an internal working document (WHO 1980), concluded that “not only does completely demineralized water (distillate) have unsatisfactory organoleptic properties, but it also has a definite adverse influence on the animal and human organism.”

Scientific testing and the best “unbiased” brains in the world have repeatedly demonstrated that long term consumption of demineralized (RO) water is bad for your health.