I have been thinking a lot about drinking water lately – mostly in the context of the quality of the water that is going into my baby’s bottles – wondering if I really do need to be boiling the water, using “nursery” water, or if I can get just use filtered water. Filtering water has been on my mind since before RFK Jr. popularized taking the fluoride out of the water. I have been worried about the fluoride in water since learning that fluoride can be harmful to your thyroid.
I just listened to Aly Cohen on The Genius Life talk about the health of our water. Cohen is a rheumatologist and integrative medicine specialist that has been writing about environmental toxins for many years. Though she didn’t jump into the research – which I assume she will do in her forthcoming book – she had some interesting points to make on the podcast.
Here are her top 3 steps for detoxifying your environment:
#1 Spend money on a water filter
#2 Buy USDA organic foods
#3 buy less stuff and vet the things that you do buy for toxic ingredients
Obviously, I would like to focus on step #1. What does it mean to filter your water? Well, Cohen argues that any form of filtering is “good”, but there is a spectrum of options. Activated carbon is the most accessible “pretty good, not great” easy step to filtering your water. UV filters are another option that target killing any viruses in your water. Personally, I currently use a carbon filter with a UV light. Admittedly though, I have not charged the UV light since moving and misplacing the charger :/
Reverse osmosis is the most aggressive option for taking forever chemicals out of the water in the US. Forever chemicals and microplastics are so small that they are hard to filter out, but RO filters are the most powerful in getting out the smaller particles. I was always slightly reluctant to use an RO filter because they can demineralize the water so much that they can potentially make your water dehydrating. But now, I am effectively scared enough to invest in an RO filter for the health of my baby, me, and my thyroid.
That weirdo Bryan Johnson only drinks RO water, and he’s never going to die so that must mean something. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯