Nitrate contamination of U.S. drinking-water systems has been modeled to cause thousands of excess cancer cases annually at levels far under the EPA limit, largely from agricultural runoff, a separate concern from fluoride additives. The estimate: a mean of 6,537 nitrate-attributable cancer cases per year nationally (range 2,300-12,594), combining colorectal, ovarian, thyroid, kidney, and bladder cancer risk. A meta-analysis of eight studies calculated a one-in-a-million cancer risk threshold at just 0.14 mg/L nitrate, roughly 70 times lower than the EPA's 10 mg/L legal limit.[1] Water makes up most of cell volume. Conventional physiology treats intracellular water as a simple solvent, free to move osmotically across the cell membrane.

Polarized multilayer theory

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Gilbert Ling's Association-Induction Hypothesis proposes instead that most cell water exists as structured, polarized multilayers on the extended surfaces of cellular proteins, rather than as free bulk water. This structured water has different solvent properties than ordinary water and excludes solutes like sodium on its own, without requiring active membrane pumping.[2]

Osmosis

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Osmosis is the movement of water across a semipermeable membrane from an area of lower solute concentration to an area of higher solute concentration, driven by the tendency of water to equalize concentration on both sides. Conventional cell physiology explains cell volume and water content through osmotic balance across the cell membrane, maintained by ion pumps; the polarized multilayer theory above offers an alternative account, in which cell volume is governed by the state of structured water rather than membrane pumping alone.

Drinking a large load of plain water raised blood prolactin slightly in healthy men within half an hour, and in women prolactin rose as the blood became more dilute. Salt solutions given by vein did not change prolactin.[3]

Depolarization swelling and aging

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ATP holds water in cells in a tightly organized, structured form; when ATP is seriously depleted, adsorbed potassium is released and becomes osmotically active, letting sodium, chloride, and ordinary bulk water flood in.[4] This "depolarization swelling" is part of what happens to injured or dying cells, and milder versions of the same energy-dependent water shift likely occur physiologically as metabolic rate varies.[4] See ATP, Aging.

Dehydration and mood

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Mild whole-body dehydration measurably worsens mood in women. In a University of Connecticut trial, healthy young women lost a mean of 1.36% of body mass through exercise-induced dehydration without significant hyperthermia. Compared to their own fully hydrated trials, the dehydrated condition produced lower vigor-activity, higher fatigue-inertia, and greater total mood disturbance on the Profile of Mood States, plus increased perceived task difficulty, reduced concentration, and more headache symptoms, both at rest and during exercise. Most objective cognitive-performance measures, aside from these subjective and mood effects, were not significantly affected.[5]

Exercise dehydration raised the brain activation adolescents needed for the same task performance in a small randomized crossover fMRI study. Ten healthy adolescents (mean age 16.8) lost 1.64% of body mass after 90 minutes of exercise in heavy layered clothing versus 0.53% after the same exercise without it. After dehydration, frontal and parietal BOLD response during a Tower of London planning task rose more than after the control session, while reaction time, errors, and resting cerebral perfusion did not differ between sessions; lateral ventricle volume grew in step with body-mass loss (r = 0.77). The dehydration session also raised core temperature and heart rate more than the control session, so heat is part of the stimulus.[6]

In mice, 24 to 48 hours without water raised blood solute concentration and the water-retaining hormone AVP, blunted the cortical blood-flow rise to whisker stimulation, acetylcholine, and adenosine, and cut novel-arm exploration in a Y-maze memory test. Blocking the AVP receptor V1a with the drug SR49059 during deprivation reduced vascular oxidative stress and the rise of the vessel-constricting peptide ET-1 in cerebral vessels and improved the blood-flow and Y-maze results, without changing weight loss or blood solute concentration. Body weight and blood solute concentration placed the deprivation at moderate to severe dehydration.[7]

When people force themselves to drink a certain amount of water every day, even when they don't feel thirsty, they are activating complex adaptive processes unnecessarily. Thirst is the best guide to the amount of fluid needed.

— Ray Peat[8]

Bottled water

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Extracts of most bottled waters tested blocked estrogen and androgen receptors in yeast-based hormone tests; the one chemical identified, a plasticizer-like compound, was too weak and too dilute to explain the effect, so the main culprits remain unknown.[9]

The agents used to make stiff plastics more flexible are effective estrogens in very small amounts. All of the water supply of the world is contaminated with those.

— Ray Peat[10]

References

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  1. ↑ Temkin A, Evans S, Manidis T, Campbell C, Naidenko OV. "Exposure-based assessment and economic valuation of adverse birth outcomes and cancer risk due to nitrate in United States drinking water," Environ Res. 2019;176:108442.
  2. ↑ Ling, G.N. "A Quantitative Theory of Solute Distribution in Cell Water According to Molecular Size." Physiol. Chem. Phys. & Med. NMR (1993) 25:145-175.
  3. ↑ Adler RA et al. 1975. "Failure of oral water loading and intravenous hypotonic saline to suppress plasma prolactin in man." J Clin Endocrinol Metab. doi:10.1210/jcem-41-2-383 Human study, healthy volunteers, no placebo arm. Water load 20 ml/kg: mean prolactin 7.6 to 12.3 ng/ml in 10 men; non-significant rise in 11 women, with prolactin inversely correlated with plasma osmolality; 0.45% or 5% saline IV had no effect in 5 men.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Ray Peat, "Age Pigment: Cause and Effect of Aging," wiki.chadnet.org.
  5. ↑ Armstrong LE, Ganio MS, Casa DJ, Lee EC, McDermott BP, Klau JF, Jimenez L, Le Bellego L, Chevillotte E, Lieberman HR. "Mild Dehydration Affects Mood in Healthy Young Women," J Nutr. 2012;142(2):382-388.
  6. ↑ Kempton MJ, Ettinger U, Foster R, Williams SC, Calvert GA, Hampshire A, Zelaya FO, O'Gorman RL, McMorris T, Owen AM, Smith MS. "Dehydration affects brain structure and function in healthy adolescents," Hum Brain Mapp. 2011;32(1):71-79. doi:10.1002/hbm.20999. PMID 20336685. PMC6869970. Randomized crossover fMRI study, n = 10.
  7. ↑ Faraco G, Wijasa TS, Park L, Moore J, Anrather J, Iadecola C. "Water deprivation induces neurovascular and cognitive dysfunction through vasopressin-induced oxidative stress," J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 2014;34(5):852-860. doi:10.1038/jcbfm.2014.24. PMID 24517977. PMC4013763. Mouse study; AVP is arginine vasopressin.
  8. ↑ Water: swelling, tension, pain, fatigue, aging, raypeat.com, 2009
  9. ↑ Wagner M, Schlüsener MP, Ternes TA, Oehlmann J. "Identification of Putative Steroid Receptor Antagonists in Bottled Water: Combining Bioassays and High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry," PLoS One. 2013;8(8):e72472. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0072472. PMID 24015248. PMC3756062.
  10. ↑ Ray Peat, "Ask the Herb Doctor: The Hormones Behind Inflammation", KMUD, 2021, 26:18