Water Quality, Structure, and the Biology of Performance

Minerals are crucial for hydration, nerve signaling, muscle contraction, acid-base balance, and nutrient transport. Their effectiveness is influenced by composition, concentration, and structure.
 Aurmina End-of-Year Sale Ends Tonight
 As we close out Aurmina’s first year, really, its first few months, we wanted to mark the moment with something simple: gratitude.
 Lisa, Scott, and I built Aurmina because we believed there was a missing piece in modern water treatment, and we’ve been genuinely moved by how many people immediately understood what we were trying to do. Watching this small company help real people has been deeply satisfying, and we wanted to say thank you.
 Through midnight, we’re offering 25% off single bottles , with no limit on quantity. For those who already know they’ll be using Aurmina long-term, the 6-pack remains the best value at 34% off , so don’t outsmart yourself by buying six singles.
 Discount Code: HOLIDAY
 If you’ve been following my water series, you already know why this exists. Aurmina isn’t about stripping water down to nothing. It’s about restoring order, clarity, and purity after modern treatment has tried to do its job.
 This is our thank-you.
 A Blue Planet, With Less Water Than We Think
 From space, Earth appears blue because most of its surface is covered with water. But the reality is that only about 2.5 percent of all that water is fresh, and most of it is frozen in ice caps and Greenland. The remainder, consisting of lakes, rivers, and shallow groundwater, comes out to less than one percent of the planet’s total water, and only a slice of that is even usable. As pollution rises, that slice is becoming smaller and less clear.
 Inside the body, the situation is just as unforgiving. And yet the body has no warehouse of water you can draw from later. You stay hydrated only by constant replacement, day after day, against steady losses through urine, sweat, breathing, and stool. Balance is something you earn repeatedly, not something you bank.
 Why Animals Show the Truth First
 It is difficult to study the effects of water in humans because of the many other changing variables like diet, activity, climate, income, disease, and compliance. In animals, especially livestock, those variables are much easier to control. Feed is controlled and genetics and environmental settings are similar. Outcomes like growth, milk production, fertility, illness, and death are measured directly. That’s why the clearest signal connecting water quality to health shows up first in veterinary and agricultural studies.
 The pattern is absolutely striking. First, know that animals can tolerate a contaminated water source that would absolutely crush human physiology, and yet measurable losses in health and performance still appear as water quality drops. When water improves into a cleaner, better mineral balanced, and less osmotically stressful state, those losses reverse.
 When Water Looks Fine and Still Hurts
 Imagine water with a TDS of around 4,400 mg/L. Your kidneys could not tolerate such water physiologically, so thankfully, your taste buds would protect you from drinking it first. Osmotically, such water drives dehydration rather than correcting it. Yet water in that range shows up routinely in livestock studies.
 Those numbers don’t come from exotic toxins. They come from ordinary ions concentrated to brutal levels. Brackish groundwater loaded with sodium and chloride forms the base. Sulfate from gypsum-rich geology piles on. Calcium and magnesium bicarbonate add alkalinity. Stock tanks evaporate, shallow wells concentrate salts, and agricultural runoff adds nitrates. The water can be clear, disinfected, and free of pathogens but still impose constant metabolic stress.
 Energy is diverted to electrolyte handling and excretion, so animals drink less, which slows their growth and milk production. Reproductive performance also declines.
 The reason is simple physiology. Cattle, sheep, and goats can excrete salt at two to three times the capacity of humans. Their systems evolved for mineral-rich environments; ours never did. And even with that advantage, water quality still shows up in performance metrics again and again.
 That’s the key point. If organisms with wider tolerance margins still suffer measurable consequences, this suggests that in the more narrowly tolerable systems of humans, the difference in impacts according to water quality are likely larger.
 As water quality degrades, health, growth, and productivity slide. When water improves, those curves bend back the other way. The effects show up early and quietly, not as dramatic poisoning, but as chronic drag.
 Much of what follows in this chapter draws from a comprehensive review in 2009 from North Dakota State University, which pulled together field data and controlled studies tracking performance and health under different water conditions. The signals are consistent.
 Outcomes Associated With Poor Water Quality
 Across species, water quality affects performance before overt disease develops. Subclinical effects dominate and first appear as changes in intake, growth, reproduction, and efficiency.
 Multiple studies show that elevated TDS, sulphates, nitrates, iron, or poor palatability reliably reduce voluntary water intake. Because water and feed intake are tightly coupled, this leads to measurable drops in growth rate, feed conversion efficiency, milk production, egg production, eggshell quality, and reproductive success.
 For example, cattle consuming high-sulphate or high-TDS water showed reduced water intake, followed by reduced feed intake and impaired performance metrics.
 Water low in essential minerals, or water that delivers minerals in excess or distorted ratios, has been repeatedly associated with electrolyte imbalance, increased diuresis, disrupted mineral absorption from feed, and secondary deficiencies (notably magnesium, copper, and calcium interactions). Animals drinking mineral-poor or imbalanced water must compensate metabolically, often at the expense of performance and resilience.
 Field data and epidemiologic comparisons also associate low-mineral or poorly buffered water with higher rates of cardiovascular stress and sudden death (especially linked to magnesium deficiency), muscle weakness, tremors, reduced exercise tolerance, slower growth, developmental abnormalities in young animals, and increased morbidity in newborns. Again, these effects were observed without significant toxicity, reinforcing the idea that water quality exerts chronic physiological pressure rather than acute poisoning.
 Regions or operations using low-mineral or otherwise marginal water showed increased edema and anemia in pregnant animals, higher morbidity in offspring, and reduced reproductive efficiency. These findings were particularly striking because diet, air quality, and husbandry were otherwise comparable , isolating water quality as the differentiating variable.
 Improved Intake and Performance After Water Quality Improvement
 Here is where it gets good. Intervention studies and field corrections show that improving water quality, by reducing excessive TDS, sulphates, nitrates, or microbial load, produced rapid, measurable improvements, including increased water intake, increased feed intake, improved growth rate, improved feed conversion, and improved milk yield and egg production. One cited intervention showed that reducing TDS from ~4,400 mg/L to ~440 mg/L led to increased water and feed intake , followed by performance gains.
 Mineral-Appropriate Water as a Performance Variable
 The review repeatedly emphasized that water containing moderate, balanced mineral content supports better metabolic stability, improved thermoregulation, reduced stress during heat exposure, and greater tolerance to other dietary challenges. Animals consuming water with moderate calcium, magnesium, and bicarbonate levels demonstrated lower morbidity and more stable production outcomes than those consuming low-mineral water, even when all other variables were similar.
 Cleaner Water Reduces Disease Pressure
 Improved microbiological quality, particularly reduction of bacterial contamination and cyanotoxins, was unsurprisingly associated with lower incidence of acute illness, reduced mortality events, improved overall herd health, and reduced pathogen amplification within operations. Water improvements often reduced disease risk even when pathogens were asymptomatic carriers , highlighting water’s role as a silent multiplier or dampener of biological stress.
 Across species and settings, moving water out of the low-mineral, low-buffer range and into a moderate, mineral-coordinated range consistently improves hydration behavior, physiologic stability, growth, and disease outcomes, often rapidly and at population scale.
 Humans And Water: An Unrecognized Epidemic Of Chronic Dehydration
 Before we look into the compelling, albeit smaller, evidence base supporting the impacts of improved water quality on human health and performance, I first want to explore the issue of “chronic dehydration,” a scourge I was not really aware of until I started to dig deeper into water quality research.
 I thought chronic dehydration largely plagued only the elderly or impaired. I was shocked to learn that there is immense amounts of epidemiologic and physiologic data showing that chronic low-grade dehydration is widespread across the general population , seen in office workers, manual laborers, athletes, and sedentary adults alike.
 The key point I want to make here is that in these studies, they did not assess for obvious clinical signs and instead looked at physiologic signals that integrate hydration status over time , not just whether someone drank water that day.
 For instance, they looked at plasma osmolality (concentration of solutes in the blood). If levels are high - not enough water. Large cohorts showed a surprising proportion living near or above the threshold of 295mOsm/kg. Literally 40-60% of adults fell at or above this threshold on a single measurement, and 20-30% of adults remained there persistently across repeated samples. What?
 These are not institutionalized, frail, or heat-stressed populations! They are people with intact thirst mechanisms, normal kidney function, and regular access to fluids, many of whom believe they hydrate adequately. Yet their plasma chemistry shows a chronic bias toward concentration, meaning their bodies are continuously defending water balance rather than operating in a relaxed, well-hydrated state.
 It gets worse: controlled trials in healthy adults demonstrated that mild but sustained underhydration, often as little as 1–2% body water deficit maintained over days, led to higher blood viscosity, poorer cerebral perfusion, and reduced glymphatic clearance, the system responsible for removing metabolic waste from the brain during sleep. No wonder I get headaches when I forget to switch from coffee over to water around noon.
 Participants were otherwise “healthy,” exercising, and not “clinically” dehydrated, yet in this state, they produced measurable declines in attention, reaction time, endurance, mood stability, and thermoregulation. So is that what’s wrong with everybody lately?
 Basically, in younger or healthier adults, chronic dehydration tends to manifest subtly: fatigue, headaches, impaired concentration, reduced exercise tolerance, increased kidney stone risk, higher vasopressin tone, and long-term cardiometabolic signaling changes. Interestingly, such complaints are either normalized, misattributed to stress or aging, or never linked to hydration at all.
 Dehydration In the Elderly
 Conversely, in older or impaired adults, the same physiology instead tips into overt pathology : delirium, hypotension, acute kidney injury, falls, arrhythmias, constipation, infections, and hospitalization. Their margin for error is simply smaller because their perception of thirst decreases with age, many take diuretics or antihypertensives that increase water loss, and their regulation of blood osmolality weakens.
 Worse, studies of elderly patients have identified chronic dehydration as an independent risk factor for hospital length of stay, readmission, intensive care, in-hospital mortality, and poor prognosis. Apparently, it is so common that it has been tied to a substantial economic and social burden.
 One study really got my attention; it reported that up to one-third of acute confusion or delirium episodes in the elderly resolve with rehydration .
 That last finding genuinely humbled me. I immediately thought back to when one of my core roles as an ICU Director was training teams to respond to medical emergencies in the hospital. I had developed a number of protocolized assessment and response techniques to allow for rapid diagnosis and resuscitation across a myriad of causes and complaints.
 “Altered mental status” in an elderly patient was among the most common emergency calls I took, at all hours of the night. Yet, looking back, dehydration was rarely near the top of my differential diagnosis. To think that up to a third of those calls might have been resolved with something as simple as a glass of water? My God.
 Why We Are Chronically Dehydrated
 Historically, we drank water, not proactively, but rather in response to signals of deficit. Those signals are triggered in two ways, intracellular and extracellular. The first signal occurs when water is lost without accompanying electrolytes, solute concentration rises, which draws water out of cells into the extracellular space. The resulting cellular shrinkage is detected by osmoreceptors in the brain, which initiate hormonal signals that drive drinking. In this way, thirst only appears when a significant internal imbalance occurs.
 But, our brains make us stop drinking even before ingested fluid ever reaches the bloodstream. Sensory input from taste receptors in the mouth and gut, particularly signals related to salt content, activates anticipatory reflexes that tell the brain hydration is underway. These reflexes shut down thirst early, often long before intracellular hydration has been fully restored. As a result, people frequently stop drinking while cells remain relatively underhydrated.
 This aspect I found fascinating (and that I completely identified with), is that in modern environments, thirst only plays a small role in daily fluid intake. Most fluids are consumed incidentally, through foods, caffeinated beverages, sweetened drinks, alcohol, or for comfort and stimulation rather than physiologic need. While this pattern can prevent severe dehydration, it also disconnects drinking behavior from true cellular hydration status. The outcome is a population that drinks frequently yet insufficiently, resulting in subtle, chronic underhydration at the tissue level, an effect reinforced by intermittent beverages that blunt thirst signals without effectively restoring intracellular water.
 I think I just described my average friggin day. Yeesh.
 Ultimately, what I found both shocking and unsurprising is that chronic underhydration correlates with increased cardiometabolic risks, chronic diseases, and premature mortality markers. Even modest chronic dehydration is physiologically stressful and associated with measurable health costs beyond athletic performance.
 Benefits Of Water Quality In Human Exercise Performance
 Although human studies showing physiologic benefits from higher-quality drinking water do exist, they are far fewer and more heterogeneous than those in animals. My argument, grounded in the much larger, better-controlled veterinary literature, particularly structured-water studies demonstrating improved intracellular hydration and mineral handling, is that similar gains in human health and performance are a reasonable expectation as water quality improves, whether through better mineral balance, improved hydration dynamics, or both.
 Hydration, Muscle Cramps, and Exercise Recovery
 In athletes, water quality shows up in measurable ways. In one study of soccer players, regular consumption of mineralized bottled water was associated with improved hydration status and more efficient lactate handling, reflected in lower urine specific gravity and a rise in urine pH.
 Broader review s of the literature report similar patterns: when fluid intake includes water with appropriate electrolyte content, both physical and cognitive performance improve, dehydration is less likely to develop, and fluid–electrolyte balance is more easily maintained.
 This becomes especially apparent during and after heavy exertion, where c linical studies consistently show that electrolyte-containing water better preserves serum sodium, reduces the incidence of muscle cramps, and supports faster recovery compared with plain water.
 Benefits of Mineral Water On Human Cardiovascular and General Health
 In a previous post, we reviewed the wealth of studies showing the detrimental effects of demineralized and/or low-mineral-content water on a range of health outcomes. Conversely, in terms of the positive benefits of well-mineralized water, this study found that regular consumption of mineral-rich water was linked to improved cardiovascular health, blood pressure regulation, and vascular function.
 Across other large human epidemiologic studies and meta-analyses, drinking water that naturally contains calcium and magnesium was consistently associated with materially lower rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, and sudden cardiac death, with relative risk reductions on the order of 15–35% as mineral concentrations rose into ranges commonly found in untreated groundwater.
 Magnesium appears to carry the strongest signal, with protective associations emerging at concentrations as low as 8–10 mg/L, while calcium contributes additional benefit at moderate levels.
 Impacts of Structured Water on Animal Health
 When I discovered that there was a wealth of veterinary literature studying the impacts of “structured” water on health outcomes and performance, I was excited, not only because Aurmina structures water, but because I could not find a single study in humans.
 Let’s start with racehorses. In a randomized trial involving thoroughbreds, matched for physiological, training and racing attributes, researchers found that over four weeks, horses provided approximately 10 liters per day (which was only 15% of daily intake!) of structured water exhibited increased hydration (measured by bioelectrical impedance analysis), improved upper airway health post-exercise, and enhanced heart rate variability compared to the control group.
 One paper consisted of a narrative review of various studies of livestock and laboratory animals where they drank s tructured water, also called magnetized or modified water. Across those animal studies, the consistent findings (seen in three or more studies) included a cluster of positive physiological responses when animals consume structured water daily for at least one month, such as:
 Increased growth rates

 Reduced markers of oxidative stress

 Improved glucose and insulin responses in diabetic models

 Improved blood lipid profiles

 Better semen and sperm quality

 Increased tissue conductivity measured by bioelectrical impedance

 Among these outcomes, the most striking (and repeatedly observed) effects reported were increases in growth and improvements in metabolic and reproductive markers across multiple species, suggesting physiological changes beyond hydration alone.
 Note that some studies measured higher tissue conductivity by bioelectrical impedance .
 I want to stop on that last phrase, because it is relevant to a study I will be sponsoring, which assesses whether Aurmina-treated water improves intracellular hydration. So, a quick primer on bioelectrical impedance (BEI) is due;
 BEI is a well-validated method that reflects how water and dissolved electrolytes move and distribute through the body by measuring how easily signals pass through tissues. Changes in tissue conductivity reflect shifts in total and intracellular body water and electrolyte content.
 Rising tissue conductivity reflects water moving into cells and participating in charge transfer, signaling functional hydration rather than simple fluid accumulation. This indicates more effective electrolyte retention and intracellular water distribution rather than simple plasma dilution.
 Used properly, it lets us observe hydration where it actually matters, in tissue and cells, rather than guessing from intake, output, or lab work. As noted in the review above, animals that drank structured water consistently showed improvements in intracellular hydration.
 Conclusion: Water as a Quiet Determinant of Health
 By the end of this chapter, the pattern should be clear; water quality shows up in the body the same way it shows up in a herd, upstream, quiet, and cumulative. Long before pathology announces itself, water chemistry is already shaping hydration behavior, electrolyte handling, tissue function, and metabolic stability.
 The veterinary literature makes this impossible to ignore. When water quality degrades, animals do not immediately collapse; they drink a little less, eat a little less, grow more slowly, reproduce less efficiently, tolerate stress poorly, and fall behind. When water quality improves, those same systems rebound, often rapidly and at scale, even when nothing else changes. That pattern mirrors what we see repeatedly in human health: regulation fails gradually, not catastrophically.
 Human data, though thinner and more confounded, point in the same direction.
 Chronic underhydration is widespread, even among healthy adults with access to fluids and intact thirst mechanisms. Mild but sustained dehydration alters cognition, exercise tolerance, cardiovascular signaling, renal stress, and brain waste clearance. Mineral-poor water worsens electrolyte loss and increases diuresis. Mineral-appropriate water stabilizes hydration, supports cardiovascular function, and improves resilience, especially under stress.
 What makes this uncomfortable is how most water looks fine, tastes acceptable, and meets every regulatory box. And yet, when stripped of buffering capacity, mineral balance, and ionic order, it behaves differently inside the body. Hydration becomes inefficient, cells stay subtly underfilled, hormonal systems remain activated, and performance slips before disease ever appears.
 This post is about recognizing water as a biologically active input, not a neutral background variable. Like food quality, sleep, or light exposure, water exerts its influence quietly, every day, whether we pay attention or not. When its chemistry supports physiology, the body works with less friction. When it doesn’t, the cost is paid slowly, diffusely, and often invisibly.
 Taken together, the evidence supports a coherent pattern rather than a single isolated mechanism: water that carries geologically derived minerals appears to support cardiovascular and metabolic stability, while water stripped of its geologically derived minerals behaves more like an inert solvent that must be biologically corrected at the body’s expense.

 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I then write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now
 More Stuff: Aurmina and Book Publications
 If you want to learn more about the water purifier we made from Shimanishi’s volcanic-mineral complex, go to Aurmina.com where we are running a 25% off end-of year sale, code: HOLIDAY.

 Upcoming Book Publications
 Yup — not one, but two books are dropping from yours truly (at the same time? What?)

 If, instead of (or in addition to) these Substack posted chapters, you prefer the feel of a real book, or the smell of paper, or like to give holiday gifts, pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping end of January.

 And if you want to read (or gift) another chronicle of suppression, science, and survival, grab The War on Chlorine Dioxide —the sequel you didn’t see coming—shipping early to mid-January. On this one, I say: “Buy it before they ban it.” Hah!

Summary: Water quality affects performance, growth, and cognition before overt pathology emerges. Across species, the evidence shows water's mineral balance, structure, and quality impact health outcomes.


Inside America’s "Boil Water Advisories" - What They Really Mean and What They Don’t

Aurmina End-of-Year Sale
 As we close out Aurmina’s first year, really, its first few months, we wanted to mark the moment with something simple: gratitude.
 Lisa, Scott, and I built Aurmina because we believed there was a missing piece in modern water treatment, and we’ve been genuinely moved by how many people immediately understood what we were trying to do. Watching this small company help real people has been deeply satisfying, and we wanted to say thank you.
 Through the end of the year, we’re offering 25% off single bottles , with no limit on quantity. For those who already know they’ll be using Aurmina long-term, the 6-pack remains the best value at 34% off , so don’t outsmart yourself by buying six singles.
 Discount Code: HOLIDAY
 If you’ve been following my water series, you already know why this exists. Aurmina isn’t about stripping water down to nothing. It’s about restoring order, clarity, and purity after modern treatment has tried to do its job.
 This is our thank-you. The sale runs through the end of the year.

 Of the six “Acts” in my upcoming book, “ From Volcanoes to Vitality , ” the one exploring the many facets of the relationship between minerals and modern water has nine chapters. I have posted quite a few on Substack, primarily concentrated in this last week of the year, accompanying our sale above, in some combined “edu-marketing” effort. Today’s post will not be in the book, but since my research led me down this rabbit hole, I figured I'd share it.
 In my previous post called “ What Happens When Water Is Allowed To Tell The Truth ,” we reviewed what happens when you flocculate your drinking water with Aurmina minerals, what falls out of your water (showing what it had “invisibly” been carrying), and what compounds and contaminants make up that “cargo.”
 Our water quality is changing, and not for the better. It not only has changed over decades, but it also changes day to day. Let’s start with a few anecdotes that I believe you will find illuminating.
 Bottle Water Anecdote
 A colleague who has been working with Shimanishi’s minerals for 20 years to purify, structure, and mineralize their water told me that, when traveling, he always bought a particular brand of water, known for its high quality, pristine sourcing, and apparently superior taste.
 Twenty years ago, when he first added minerals to that brand’s bottled water, nothing happened, nothing at all. The water remained clear, with no haze or sediment. Today, that same brand produces what I’d call an average amount of sediment, no different from nearly every other bottled water on the shelf that Lisa and I have tested (go to the end of this linked post if curious). Times have changed. Even our once-pristine mountain sources are now carrying the “fingerprints” of modern life.
 Personal Anecdote
 I have been treating my water with Aurmina (and Adya Clarity before that) since April, 2025. About 2 months ago, I was tending to my little assembly line of water containers, and I noticed that the water filling the previous day’s container had at least twice the sediment I was used to seeing. I lived in Sarasota at the time and had been treating the municipal water for months, so I well knew the average amount of sediment it discharged from day to day.
 But on that day, the amount of sediment in the container was literally about 2 to 3 times the daily average. I called Lisa over and said, “Yeesh, looks like they are having a bad day at the water treatment plant.” Although it kinda freaked me out, I knew Aurmina was there to protect us from unknowingly drinking that day’s “invisibility quotient” in the water, and instead have it fall to the bottom of a container.
 The Boil Water Advisory Anecdote
 The third anecdote opens up a bigger can of worms and leads us to the focus of this post. A few years ago, a customer of Adya Clarity (forerunner of Aurmina ) called my colleague, who owns it, asking whether “the formula” had changed, as her water did not taste as good that day and was discolored, unlike its usual clarity and taste.
 Since the “formula” of Aurmina can’t and won’t ever change (aside from slight variations in mineral composition due to geology), she was told to check with her municipality, where she discovered that the municipal treatment plant had issued a “Boil Water Advisory” that day. Boil Water Advisory? What the hell is that?
 This ain’t gonna be pretty, but let’s go.
 Boil Water Advisories
 A boil water advisory (BWA), often called “boil water in effect,” is a public health emergency notice issued by a water utility or health department when there is reason to believe the municipal drinking water may be contaminated with disease-causing microorganisms.
 What triggers a BWA?
 A boil water notice is issued when microbial safety can no longer be guaranteed , usually due to:
 Loss of pressure in the distribution system (main breaks, power outages)

 Treatment failures (chlorination failure, filtration malfunction)

 Flooding that may introduce surface water into pipes

 Detection of E. coli or total coliform bacteria

 Cross-connections or backflow events

 Natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, fires)

 Let’s unpack that list for a bit, zeroing in on the failures that can “ pull contaminated water back” into the distribution system.” Particularly, “back-flow events” and “pressure loss.”
 In each case, there is a sudden loss of pressure or a pressure buildup in a connection, and water goes the wrong way. Whoops. So, what can you get pulled in?
 Apparently, it depends on where the connection is, but here is the list:
 Fertilizers/pesticides from irrigation systems

 Boiler or cooling-tower chemicals

 Industrial process fluids

 Contaminated hose water (think hose in a bucket, mop sink, or chemical sprayer)

 Non-potable reclaimed water from cross-connections

 What Happens When It’s Detected, and What Does It Mean?
 Utilities can isolate or flush the affected area, temporarily increase disinfectant residual, or issue a “do not drink” or “ boil water” advisory if warranted.
 A boil water notice means: The system failed its most basic safety function. The utility cannot verify microbiological integrity; regulators are choosing the simplest available risk-reduction tool.
 It does not necessarily mean that the problem is fully understood or that chemical safety is intact. It’s basically a blunt instrument for an acute microbial risk.
 Do you know who makes the call?
 Now, before we go into what they protect against, what their instructions are, and whether they are increasing in the U.S. (they are), the thing I started to wonder about is how “embarrassing” it is for a municipality to have to issue one.
 I kept imagining what that must feel like in a municipality that prides itself on delivering the cleanest, safest water possible. I started picturing a conference room, people around a table, charts on the wall, phones buzzing, someone asking whether this really rises to the level of going public, someone else worrying about headlines and panic.
 So I dug in to see whether there are clear, immovable thresholds or if there is a lot of “personal judgment” involved.
 Well, wouldn’t you know, there are a bunch of “grey areas” because BWAs sit at an “ uncomfortable intersection” of engineering thresholds, regulatory rules, and “ human judgment. ”
 It should not be surprising that municipalities dislike issuing BWAs. They are reputationally damaging, politically uncomfortable, and operationally expensive. They trigger media attention, public fear, customer complaints, bottled-water costs, and scrutiny from regulators. No water utility wants to issue one unless it feels unavoidable.
 Second, although there are hard triggers, they are not as hard as people assume. Yes, some events mandate an advisory almost automatically, such as loss of positive pressure in the distribution system, detection of E. coli in finished water, or specific confirmed or backflow events. Those are codified in state primacy agency rules (EPA delegates authority to states). In theory, they are “hard stops.”
 But, and this is what concerned me, many real-world situations fall into gray zones, like:
 How long did pressure drop, and how low did it go?

 Was the affected zone small or system-wide?

 Was chlorine residual still present?

 Was the backflow event “theoretical” or “confirmed”?

 Did turbidity spike briefly or persist?

 Did samples show total coliforms but not E. coli?

 In these cases, professional judgment absolutely enters the picture, and further, the thresholds themselves are set by people under constraints. Regulatory triggers are built around what is measurable in real time , what historically correlated with outbreaks , and worst, what utilities could realistically comply with .
 They are built to manage risk without collapsing the system, which means acceptable safety-related uncertainty is baked in.
 Fourth, and this matters most, BWAs are often issued late, not early. Utilities may try a few things first, like:
 Flush and boost disinfectant first

 Take “confirmation samples” (ugh)

 Wait for lab results (which take 18–24 hours)

 Consult with the state before going public

 Unsurprisingly, although the above is standard practice, it means there is often a window of risk before the public is informed, and, of course, there are incentives governing these decisions. No operator gets praised for issuing “too many” advisories. They are questioned for causing unnecessary panic . So the system subtly r ewards delay until certainty rather than early warning under uncertainty . A systems-design issue.
 Ultimately, my worry about how much “judgment calls slip in” was not hypothetical. It’s inherent and reveals the uncomfortable truth that water safety is probabilistic, not binary, and that regulation manages population risk, not individual exposure.
 The most disturbing was the phrase “ transparency competes with institutional self-protection. ” So, ultimately, any system that depends on judgment under reputational pressure will often choose silence before certainty. To my fellow Covidian freedom fighters, that should sound pretty damn familiar.
 What Boiling Actually Protects Against
 Boiling water is about killing living pathogens , not removing chemicals because boiling kills bacteria (E. coli, Salmonella), Inactivates viruses, and kills protozoa (Giardia, Cryptosporidium). But boiling does not remove: heavy metals (lead, arsenic), PFAS, Nitrates, Pesticides, or Pharmaceuticals (in fact, boiling can concentrate the latter).
 What You’re Supposed To Do When Under A BWA
 They tell you to bring water to a rolling boil for at least 1 minute (3 minutes at high altitude). Then, you should use boiled or bottled water for: drinking, brushing teeth, making ice, washing fruits and vegetables, and preparing baby formula. But you can be reassured that you can usually still use tap water for showering (avoid swallowing), handwashing (with soap), and laundry.
 The bottom line is that a boil water advisory is about infection control, protecting you from germs when the water system’s integrity is compromised. It does not protect from broader chemical factors that shape water quality day to day (like that day in Sarasota).
 Frequency of Boil-Water Advisories
 There are thousands of boil-water advisories issued across the U.S. every year. The frequency varies widely by state, system size, infrastructure age, and weather events , with some large cities reporting recurring advisories year-to-year due to aging pipes and pressure issues.
 Louisiana, in particular, issues about 1,600–1,700 boil-water notices per year, and that is excluding major storm impacts. Not so fun fact: my oldest daughter goes to Tulane, and neither she nor any of her fellow students drink water from the faucet, instead they take turns going on endless Costco runs for cases of bottled water.
 Are Boil Water Advisories Becoming More Common In The U.S?
 Although there’s no single national reporting requirement for BWA’s, in a Kentucky water system study, the number of boil water advisories increased over 17 years (2004–2020). News and self-reported headline analyses show that mentions of “boil water notices” and related water quality reporting have risen in recent years.
 Root Cause: Aging Water Infrastructure
 Infrastructure failures are the leading driver of BWAs. Many U.S. water systems use pipes and equipment that are decades old, increasing the likelihood of breaks, pressure losses, and contamination, all common triggers for boil water advisories.
 And that, my friends, launched me down yet another rabbit hole.
 The United States is widely recognized by engineers, economists, and even its own government agencies as being chronically slow and inconsistent at updating public infrastructure. And much of U.S. infrastructure is old, like very old.
 Large portions of water and sewer systems were built between the late 1800s and the post-World War II boom. Water pipes in many cities are 75–120 years old. Treatment plants designed for mid-20th-century populations are still carrying modern chemical loads they were never built to handle. Replacement is always deferred in favor of patching.
 Second, U.S. infrastructure funding is reactive rather than proactive. Budgets reward new construction and visible projects, not buried pipes. Politically, ribbon-cutting beats pipe replacement every time.
 Third, responsibility is fragmented. The U.S. delegates most responsibility to states, counties, and municipalities, often with different tax bases, technical capacity, and regulatory rigor. Two cities a hundred miles apart can operate under entirely different standards, timelines, and risk tolerances.
 Fourth, regulation often lags reality. Rules are written around historical risks like pathogens, turbidity, chlorine residuals, and not emerging challenges like PFAS or complex chemical mixtures. Updating regulations requires years of rule-making, legal review, and political negotiation, during which systems continue operating as designed decades ago.
 Fifth, infrastructure is invisible until it fails. Roads, bridges, and airports get attention because failure is obvious. Water systems fail quietly, through leaks, pressure drops, corrosion, sediment, and advisories, until something dramatic happens. Yet another form of “invisibility” when it comes to water.
 It is well known that peer nations that invest continuously, like Germany, Japan, and parts of Scandinavia, replace and modernize systems on predictable cycles. The U.S. tends to wait for a crisis.
 So yes, the U.S. is well known for deferred infrastructure renewal, not because of incompetence or malice, but because the system rewards short-term function over long-term integrity. The bill always comes later, and usually quietly, until it doesn’t.
 The Last Line Of Defense
 Just as people buy firearms knowing that if community protection fails, responsibility lands at their door, I think similarly of Aurmina as a last line of defense. A way to see what the water brought with it before I drink it.
 Also, it does’t just keep intruders out; it helps rebuild the house - clearer, more stable, mineral-balanced, and structured.
 So, it should not come as a surprise that “I don’t leave home without it.” To wit, below is the Kory Family Traveling Water Treatment Plant . We came up to Montana so I could finish my book, and so we shipped our set-up here beforehand:

 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I then write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now
 More Stuff: Aurmina and Book Publications
 If you want to learn more about the water purifier we made from Shimanishi’s volcanic-mineral complex, go to Aurmina.com where we are running a 25% off end-of year sale, code: HOLIDAY.

 Upcoming Book Publications
 Yup — not one, but two books are dropping from yours truly (at the same time? What?)

 If, instead of (or in addition to) these Substack posted chapters, you prefer the feel of a real book, or the smell of paper, or like to give holiday gifts, pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping end of January.

 And if you want to read (or gift) another chronicle of suppression, science, and survival, grab The War on Chlorine Dioxide —the sequel you didn’t see coming—shipping early to mid-January. On this one, I say: “Buy it before they ban it.” Hah!

Summary: BWA's expose a deeper truth about how fragile and judgment-driven our water systems are. Let's look at what triggers them, who decides, and why they are becoming a signal of a system under strain.


What Happens When Water Is Allowed to Tell the Truth

Aurmina End-of-Year Sale
 As we close out Aurmina’s first year, really, its first few months, we wanted to mark the moment with something simple: gratitude.
 Lisa, Scott, and I built Aurmina because we believed there was a missing piece in modern water treatment, and we’ve been genuinely moved by how many people immediately understood what we were trying to do. Watching this small company help real people has been deeply satisfying, and we wanted to say thank you.
 Through the end of the year, we’re offering 25% off single bottles , with no limit on quantity. For those who already know they’ll be using Aurmina long-term, the 6-pack remains the best value at 34% off , so don’t outsmart yourself by buying six singles.
 Discount Code: HOLIDAY
 If you’ve been following my water series, you already know why this exists. Aurmina isn’t about stripping water down to nothing. It’s about restoring order, clarity, and purity after modern treatment has done its job.
 And in the spirit of transparency (and a little humor), the first draft of the post below was written before Aurmina even existed. If that makes this post a marketing scheme, it’s the most accidental one I’ve ever been part of.
 Either way, this is our thank-you. The sale runs through the end of the year.

 The “What’s In The Sediment” Post
 Most people have never seen what their drinking water carries. Not because it isn’t there, but because, as discussed in this prior post , modern water treatment practices are designed to keep contaminants dissolved, dispersed, and chemically stable. As long as substances remain dissolved and below action limits, the water stays clear and is deemed “safe.”
 This chapter is about what happens when that invisibility breaks.
 Visibility as a Diagnostic Event
 When mineral forces are reintroduced and water is allowed to behave according to basic physical and chemical rules, material falls out. What settles is not created by the process itself; it is released by it.
 The sediment at the bottom of the container is a physical record of what modern water sources have been quietly transporting all along, industrial residues, destabilized minerals, altered organics, and fragments of a chemical history many people might assume had already been “treated away.”
 It means that whatever entered the water along its journey to your home is no longer being held in suspension. To look at that sediment is to confront the difference between water that appears clean and water that actually is.
 In untreated or minimally treated natural waters, minerals, organic compounds, metals, and particulates exist in dynamic equilibrium. In natural systems, this is how water cleans itself: particles bind, settle, are filtered through soil, or are taken up by biological systems.
 Modern treatment systems interrupt this process. By aggressively controlling pH, oxidation state, and ionic strength, they prevent these interactions from occurring. The water remains visually clear, but chemically unresolved.
 When mineral-rich water is reintroduced into such systems, whether through remineralization, contact with mineral substrates, or intentional mineral addition, aggregation becomes possible again. What appears is not contamination newly introduced, but contamination newly revealed.
 Disclosure and Reader Context
 I want to be transparent at the outset. My work over the past many months has led me deep into mineral science and water chemistry, and that research ultimately resulted in the creation of a company, Aurmina , which sells a mineral-based water purification product.
 That overlap can understandably raise questions for new readers about motive or bias. I don’t try to hide that conflict. Instead, I encourage all skepticism, as I always have, of institutions, of products, of claims, and of me. Nothing in this Substack should be taken on trust alone; it should stand or fall on evidence, mechanisms, and reproducibility.
 I am comfortable with that. The research summarized here predates Aurmina , is grounded in established chemistry and water science, and can be evaluated independently of any product. Readers are free to test, compare, disagree, or ignore entirely.
 My goal here is less to persuade, and more to illuminate and educate in a way that restores agency to my readers.
 Another reason I am careful not to frame this work as fear-based is simple reality: most of us have been drinking municipal water our entire lives without obvious catastrophe (just like R.O and distilled water drinkers). I’m a 1970s kid. I drank from garden hoses (heck, I still do). I’m alive, functional, and, on most days, doing just fine.
 This work is not about acute toxicity or imminent danger. It is about cumulative burden, structural chemistry, and biological context. Some bodies tolerate that burden better than others (just ask my friends from college). Some environments amplify it and some water systems hide it more effectively than we realize.
 Understanding that difference, and not panicking about it, is the point of this chapter.
 The Misinterpretation of “Something Falling Out”
 The appearance of particles are substances that water treatment had previously kept dissolved which are now binding, becoming visible, settling out, and thus becoming filterable.
 This phenomenon explains why some mineral-based purification systems appear to “dirty” water before clarifying it. What is seen is the unmasking of chemical burden that was previously hidden by stabilization chemistry. The discomfort people feel when water changes appearance is rooted in expectation, not chemistry.
 There is a simple way to understand what modern water is carrying that requires no charts, no epidemiology, and no trust in institutions. Basically, you add minerals, let the water sit, and watch what happens.
 The Kory Family Water Treatment Plant
 At home (seen below), I do not rely on municipal treatment alone, nor do I drink fully stripped R.O or distilled water that has not been “broadly re-mineralized.”.

 Our purification system at home is simple. Fill all three containers with tap water, add Aurmina as per label (1-2 tsp per gallon - or more depending on the quality of your water). Once added, wait 24-72 hours (we like 48 hours but are not overly obsessive about it).
 When the first container just to the right of our ceramic gravity filter “matures” at 48 hours, we pour everything except the sediment into the top chamber of the ceramic gravity filter to its left, then it goes to the “back of the line.”
 Once the water enters the top chamber of the gravity filter, it is now in the “polishing” phase, whereby any remaining particulates are removed as it passes (very slowly) through the filter into the bottom chamber.
 In this way, anytime we need water for drinking or cooking, we fill from the tap at the bottom of the gravity filter. Thus, all the water we consume is pure, clear and, get this, structured (if you don’t know what that means, enjoy this post).
 What Falls Out Tells the Story
 When water is allowed to interact with minerals freely, the resulting precipitates, flocs, or sediments reflect the history of that water, its source, its treatment, and its exposure to industrial, agricultural, and infrastructural inputs.
 Surface water drawn downstream from agricultural regions behaves differently than deep groundwater. Water exposed to chlorination and corrosion control behaves differently than untreated spring water. Municipal water with long pipe residence times reveals different patterns than freshly treated water.
 These differences are signatures.
 The Sediment
 Although most of the sediment is not classified as a toxin (although some is), most people don’t realize that, simply by virtue of it falling out of your water, it means that whatever it is, it otherwise would not be found in pristine mountain springs (which are unfortunately vanishing in number).
 The finer point is that, by name and elemental components, they may sound like compounds that can be found in nature and/or are not known to be toxic, but again, by their falling out of the water, it means that those compounds have been modified by human and/or industrial activity in some way, or into some new form, which now makes it precipitate out of the water.
 Such “non-toxic”, or more accurately, “supposedly” non-toxic compounds consist of industrial residues, destabilized minerals, and altered organics.
 What A Century Of Sediment Analysis Has Found
 The settled material formed during flocculation is not poorly characterized. In municipal water treatment plants, wastewater facilities, and laboratory jar tests, this material, often called “water treatment residuals” or sludge, has been studied routinely for more than a hundred years.
 Environmental chemists analyze it using standard tools: ICP-MS and ICP-OES for metals and minerals; GC-MS and LC-MS for organic contaminants; FTIR and Raman spectroscopy for microplastics; SEM-EDS for particle morphology and elemental composition; and targeted assays for PFAS, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and hormones.
 What those analyses show, consistently, is something that, at first, I found somewhat reassuring, but no longer do.
 What The Sediment Is Mostly Made Of
 By mass, the sediment is overwhelmingly composed of structural material:
 iron or aluminum hydroxides that form the floc matrix itself,

 calcium and magnesium carbonates

 silicates and clays

 bound sulfate

 organic matter derived from soils and plant decay

 Together, these components typically account for well over eighty to ninety-five percent of what settles out. This is why water engineers often describe floc as a scaffold whose job is to gather, bind, and carry other things out of suspension, and not as anything toxic.
 What Should Not Reassure You
 The core issue for me is that, although these materials are not classified as toxins, their presence in these forms are not “natural” or “neutral,” and thus should not necessarily be reassuring.
 In clean, coherent water systems, undisturbed springs, intact aquifers, you can find similarly named substances (albeit in different forms and compounds) that remain dissolved, balanced, and biologically compatible. They do not collapse into particulates or act as scaffolding and they do not settle.
 The main point of this post is that, if something settles out of the water, it tells you it never should have been there, or, more accurately, the modern world has modified it into some new form compared to the form that the otherwise harmless sounding elemental compound would exist as in nature.
 The Small Fraction That Matters Most
 The contaminants people worry about, things like microplastics, PFAS, pesticides, endocrine disruptors, pharmaceutical residues, are real, and they do appear in the sediment. But those are almost always a very small fraction of its total mass, typically well under one percent.
 Yes, by weight, the toxins are minor, but by biological significance, they raise much higher concern. Luckily, flocculation concentrates what is present in the water, thus making the invisible visible, and converting these contaminants into a removable mass.
 When “Chemical” Stops Being A Useful Word
 When I refer to a “chemical burden,” I am not using the word chemical to literally mean synthetic, toxic, or unnatural. Let’s be calm and clear here: even a mineral is a “chemical” when using the strict, scientific definition.
 At its most basic level, a chemical is any substance with a defined composition and structure. By that definition, everything made of matter is chemical: water, oxygen, sodium chloride, quartz, hemoglobin, ATP, and yes, minerals. Calcium carbonate is a chemical. Magnesium sulfate is a chemical. Silicon dioxide is a chemical.
 But that is a scientific definition and not the “biological” one most people use. My sense is that in everyday language, when people say chemical they mean something synthetic, industrial, toxic, foreign, or something added to nature rather than arising from it.
 Calling minerals “chemicals” is technically correct but biologically meaningless unless the form, context, or behavior is specified.
 I feel that the best distinction between chemical and non-chemical is to think of each as ordered or disordered, lattice-bound or freely reactive, biologically coherent or biologically disruptive.
 Let’s go through some examples:
 Calcium locked into a crystalline lattice behaves very differently than calcium stripped into excess ionic form.

 Aluminum bound into silicate minerals behaves very differently than aluminum present as free hydroxide complexes.

 All are “chemicals.” Only some are biologically appropriate . My argument is that modern water contains:
 chemicals in the wrong forms

 chemicals in the wrong ratios

 chemicals in the wrong redox states

 chemicals liberated from their natural structural context

 chemicals behaving in ways biology did not evolve to handle continuously

 Ultimately, although natural solid minerals are technically chemicals, when they are stripped from their natural order and forced into reactive forms, they stop behaving like nutrients and can instead start behaving like stressors.
 When Minerals Lose Their Place
 Mining, agriculture, water treatment chemistry, infrastructure corrosion, acidification, and altered redox conditions have displaced minerals from lattices into free or loosely bound ionic forms. Metals that biology expects to encounter as constrained structural elements now appear as reactive participants.
 And here is where the rubber hits the road; minerals in such forms can compete at enzyme binding sites, interfere with membrane transporters, displace magnesium or zinc in metalloproteins, and catalyze redox reactions that increase local oxidative stress. There you have it.
 Chronic Disruption Without Poisoning
 Their presence does not automatically produce overt toxicity. The issue is that, over time, this creates a state of chronic and inappropriate biological availability, increasing the burden of “oxidative stress,” a central driver of inflammation, dysfunction, aging, and disease, particularly when present at non-physiologic concentrations or in inappropriate biological compartments.
 A similar disruption occurs with organic compounds like synthetic surfactants, chelators, and disinfectant byproducts. These are the substance that are used to keep molecules soluble when normal water biology would typically precipitate or degrade them. “Chelators” prevent their sequestering while disinfectants stabilize compounds that should break down. Surfactants can carry organics across membranes and into places they were never meant to go.
 The result is not poisoning in the classic sense. It is chronic disruption: distorted mineral signaling, altered enzyme kinetics, mitochondrial redox imbalance, and microbiome shifts that never trigger regulatory alarms because no single substance exceeds a toxic threshold.
 Ultimately, the problem is not what these substances are, it is what they have been turned into.
 What Sediment Is Revealing
 In that sense, the sediment is a material record of what the water was quietly carrying all along. When people ask what’s in the sediment, the most honest answer is this:
 “mostly minerals, along with a concentrated archive of everything modern civilization has forced water to carry”
 The more material that settles, the more the source water has been pushed out of equilibrium by oxidation, treatment chemistry, agricultural runoff, industrial residues, or aging infrastructure.
 At this point, my view shifted from initially being somewhat reassured to one of feeling warned.
 What Remains After the Burden Is Removed
 During my research into mineral chemistry and water behavior, I encountered Shimanishi’s sulfated biotite mineral complexes because they addressed a problem this post has defined repeatedly: modern water carries a chemically stabilized burden that biology never evolved to process continuously. I had already been using an identical mineral system to remove this burden from our household water before founding Aurmina and loved it, and that is why I started the company.
 After flocculation and filtration, the remaining water is not stripped or inert, as with reverse osmosis or distillation. It retains a lighter, cleaner ionic profile: low-level ionic calcium and magnesium, trace iron and aluminum at or below detection, sulfate-coordinated multivalent ions, and minimal organic interference.
 That is exactly what one of the world’s leading water contamination experts, Paul Rosenfeld’s ICP-MS analysis, found ( covered in this prior post) . Minerals were still present amd in forms water water could “structure” around rather than be destabilized by.
 Fun fact: Rosenfeld volunteered, without pay, to perform the analysis driven by scientific curiosity, specifically, to see whether the proposed purification mechanisms of Themarox-derived solutions would withstand laboratory testing.
 Ultimately, what interferes with water coherence is disordered mineral load : particulate hydroxides, carbonates, colloids, fine clays, excess monovalent salts, and organic debris. It disrupts exclusion-zone formation, collapses charge organization, and degrades functional hydration ( it is this latter limitation that applies to R.O and distilled water as well ) .
 Shimanishi’s extract does not remove minerals to induce structure. It removes mineral disorder so structure can stabilize. In the most elegant view (which is what initially pulled me into an exploration of the science behind it), it performs an “addition by subtraction.” Following treatment, electrical conductivity rises, oxidation–reduction potential stabilizes, exclusion-zone behavior becomes detectable, and total dissolved solids often increase. It becomes a medium that not only carries charge but organizes it.
 What settles out during flocculation is not “the minerals,” but mineral chaos: excess hydroxides, carbonates, clays, silicates, and organic residues displaced from their natural context. What remains is water capable of coherent behavior—electrically active, chemically ordered, and biologically compatible.
 Where Aurmina Fits
 Practically, I think of Aurmina as a last line of defense. It offers protection from everything modern industrial society is adding to, and keeping in, your water by allowing you to make it visible and removable. It intervenes at a point between the faucet and when it reaches your lips and begins its journey to each of your cells. The beauty of it all is that it gives you a water that is not “pure but dead,” but one more like that of pristine, undisturbed mountain springs (however few there are left).
 Closing
 Modern water safety prioritizes invisibility. If substances remain dissolved, tasteless, odorless, and below regulatory thresholds, they are treated as negligible. Biology does not operate on thresholds alone. It responds to cumulative exposure, chemical form, and structural context.
 When mineral context is restored, water stops behaving as a simple stabilized solvent and resumes behavior as a chemical and biological system. In doing so, it tells the truth about where it has been.
 Once revealed, that truth cannot be unseen.

 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I then write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now
 More Stuff: Aurmina and Book Publications
 If you want to learn more about the water purifier we made from Shimanishi’s volcanic-mineral complex, go to Aurmina.com where we are running a 25% off end-of year sale, code: HOLIDAY.

 Upcoming Book Publications
 Yup — not one, but two books are dropping from yours truly (at the same time? What?)

 If, instead of (or in addition to) these Substack posted chapters, you prefer the feel of a real book, or the smell of paper, or like to give holiday gifts, pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping end of January.

 And if you want to read (or gift) another chronicle of suppression, science, and survival, grab The War on Chlorine Dioxide —the sequel you didn’t see coming—shipping early to mid-January. On this one, I say: “Buy it before they ban it.” Hah!

Summary: When black mica minerals are allowed to interact freely with your water, they reveal what modern treatment systems are designed to conceal. What falls out tells the real story. And it ain't pretty.


Purity, Pipes, and Plumbing: The Loss Of Mineral Order In Your Water

Aurmina End-of-Year Sale
 As we close out Aurmina’s first year, really, its first few months, we wanted to mark the moment with something simple: gratitude.
 Lisa, Scott, and I built Aurmina because we believed there was a missing piece in modern water treatment, and we’ve been genuinely moved by how many people immediately understood what we were trying to do. Watching this small company help real people has been deeply satisfying, and we wanted to say thank you.
 Through the end of the year, we’re offering 25% off single bottles , with no limit on quantity. For those who already know they’ll be using Aurmina long-term, the 6-pack remains the best value at 34% off , so don’t outsmart yourself by buying six singles.
 Discount Code: HOLIDAY
 If you’ve been following my water series, you already know why this exists. Aurmina isn’t about stripping water down to nothing. It’s about restoring order, clarity, and purity after modern treatment has done its job.
 And in the spirit of transparency (and a little humor), the first draft of the post below was written before Aurmina even existed. If that makes this post a marketing scheme, it’s the most accidental one I’ve ever been part of.
 Either way, this is our thank-you. The sale runs through the end of the year.

 Modern water is engineered for infrastructure, not for life. Whether softened, hardened, R.O’ed, or distilled, the processes that make it behave in pipes steadily remove the mineral order biology depends on.
 Today I want to walk through why and how stripped-down water (reverse osmosis and distilled) can quietly drive a wide range of detrimental health effects.
 R.O, Distilled, and High-Grade Filtered Water: Solving One Problem While Creating Another
 Many “health enthusiasts” mistakenly believe that high-grade gravity filtration, reverse osmosis, or distilled water is an improvement to their health by removing any of the dozens of contaminants we have covered in previous chapters. The reality is that while these methods do largely remove contaminants, they also render water biologically inert by stripping essential trace and major minerals.
 Life as we know it is inseparable from minerals. Water provides the medium, but mineral ions provide the function. Without minerals, water can no longer participate meaningfully in biology.
 Alarmingly, mineral-free water is actually detrimental to health. This should not be surprising because no natural source of drinking water on Earth, now or historically, has ever been devoid of dissolved minerals or organic material.
 Remember, we live on a rock. Thus all groundwater, surface water, springs, rivers, and even glacial melt all carry ionic mineral content. Human physiology evolved on mineralized water, not on a chemically stripped solvent.
 Human biology reflects this dependency. When mineral-free water enters the gut, it cannot be absorbed as is. Electrolytes must first be added, drawn from the body’s own reserves. Numerous controlled studies show that consumption of demineralized water increases urine output and accelerates renal loss of sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Serum potassium levels fall, hormonal regulation of fluid balance shifts, and water redistributes out of cells into plasma. The body must surrender its own minerals simply to make the water usable.
 Why Demineralized Water Poorly Hydrates Cells
 Water does not hydrate the body by volume alone. It hydrates by electrochemistry. For water to enter cells, remain there, and participate in metabolism, it must carry dissolved ions.
 Mineralized water arrives with electrolytes already in solution, allowing it to follow osmotic and electrical gradients into tissues. Demineralized water does not. When reverse-osmosis or distilled water enters the gut, it must first acquire ions to become absorbable, and it can only obtain them from the body itself.
 The result is increased diuresis, accelerated loss of sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium, and redistribution of water out of cells into plasma. In practical terms, mineral-free water passes through the body efficiently, but it does not hydrate efficiently.
 This is why zero-TDS water consistently behaves as hypotonic and physiologically unstable. Lacking buffering ions, especially bicarbonate, it increases renal electrolyte loss, destabilizes plasma osmolality, and forces continuous hormonal correction rather than allowing the system to relax into hydration.
 No natural drinking water source on Earth is mineral-free, because biology did not evolve to hydrate on chemically stripped solvent. Hydration is retention, not intake, and retention depends on mineral context. Water without ions may be analytically pure, but inside a living system it behaves as transient fluid rather than as a biological medium.
 *A major (but not the only) source for the following comes from this comprehensive review by František Kožíšek, M.D., Ph.D., published by the Czech National Institute of Public Health in 2004, which also included previous reviews done by the WHO.
 Bicarbonate, TDS, and the Architecture of Physiologic Water
 One of the most under-appreciated consequences of “demineralized” water, meaning reverse osmosis (R.O.) or distilled water, is that both processes remove bicarbonate almost completely and dramatically lower total dissolved solids (TDS) towards zero.
 The bulk of TDS in our drinking water is from geologically derived minerals (good) and mineral compounds generated by pipes, treatment chemicals, and pollution (not so good). The remainder of the TDS are from metals and “organic compounds,” meaning all the substances people fear, such as pesticides, disruptors, disinfection byproducts, and treatment-derived chemicals. When TDS decreases towards zero, it shows that these processes remove all of the “bad stuff” but also all of the “good stuff.”
 Looking at a TDS number alone does not tell you much, because two waters with the same TDS can have dramatically different content dissolved within. Although the statement that adding Aurmina will not significantly change the TDS number is true, what it does do is change the TDS profile from a “bad” one to a “good” one, meaning that, via flocculation and precipitation, it will remove the components you don’t want, such as organics, treatment chemicals, and disinfectants, and will leave behind the ones you do want, namely geologically derived minerals, in a ratio and composition that increases electrical conductivity and allows for structuring.
 Because bicarbonate exists only in dissolved equilibrium with carbon dioxide and mineral cations, any technology that strips ions indiscriminately, whether using membranes, distillation, or deionization, will leave your water with near-zero buffering capacity.
 Typical R.O. or distilled water contains less than 5–10 mg/L bicarbonate, often effectively zero. This matters because bicarbonate is not a cosmetic mineral. It is the dominant buffering system in human physiology, tightly linked to acid–base balance, renal handling of electrolytes, calcium solubility, and vascular tone.
 WHO-reviewed studies show that water with low bicarbonate content increases diuresis and electrolyte loss, while waters containing moderate to high bicarbonate, approximately 80–250 mg/L, were associated with lower morbidity and better metabolic stability.
 In other words, R.O. and distilled water are chemical and mineral free, but physiologically incomplete. They remove not only contaminants, but also the buffering architecture that allows water to interact gently and coherently with biology.
 So, How Much Bicarbonate and TDS Should Be In My Water?
 A large Russian ecological study compared regions given “low-mineralized” and “high-mineralized” water, and found that the lowest morbidity was associated with water having calcium levels of 30–90 mg/L, magnesium levels of 17–35 mg/L, a bicarbonate level between 200–250 mg/L and a TDS of about 400 mg/L. The author concluded that such water could be considered as “physiologically optimum.”
 How Aurmina Balances Without Bicarbonate
 Aurmina-treated water does not function by adding bicarbonate directly, nor does it attempt to mimic mineral water through forceful ion supplementation. It operates upstream, at the level of mineral order, redox balance, and charge organization, overlapping functionally with the stabilizing roles bicarbonate plays in natural waters.
 Bicarbonate stabilizes water by buffering pH, coordinating divalent cations, moderating redox reactivity, and preventing aggressive ionic behavior. Aurmina on the other hand, achieves similar stabilizing effects through a different mechanism: removing disordered mineral load, collapsing colloids, coordinating multivalent ions, and restoring electrical and redox coherence in the remaining water.
 In practical terms, even when measured bicarbonate does not rise dramatically, the water behaves as though buffering capacity has returned. pH stabilizes. Oxidation–reduction potential normalizes. Electrical conductivity improves. Exclusion-zone formation becomes detectable. Carbonate–CO₂ equilibria re-establish themselves under calmer, more coherent conditions.
 The result is water that is neither stripped and aggressive like R.O. or distilled water. It is redox-stable, mineral-coordinated, and structurally permissive.
 “It’s All Good, I Have A Remineralization Filter “
 Yeah right. If you think your remineralization filter is making your water healthy, or even physiologic, you would be “dead” wrong (just like your water, sorry). Standard remineralization filters used with R.O systems produce demonstrably suboptimal TDS and bicarbonate levels.
 Just like in yesterday’s post where we walked along your waters journey from aquifer to municipal treatment plant then to your house, now let’s walk through the journey that your water takes when it meets your R.O system.
 R.O Filtration Step
 Upon passing through the R.O filters, 90–99% of dissolved solids are removed, including calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, sulfate, sodium, and unfortunately, trace elements as well.
 What remains is mostly residual CO₂, trace sodium or silica, and very small amounts of whatever the membrane leaks.
 Typical TDS readings at this point range from 5–30 mg/L (ideal is around 400mg/L), typical bicarbonate level is 0–10mg/L (ideal is around 224 mg/L). Functionally, at this point, your R.O. water is low-buffer, low-ionic, and electrically weak , even when it’s analytically “clean.”
 Remineralization Filter Step
 Your remineralization filter then tries to “build it back up again” by using a paltry, narrow set of salts like Calcite (CaCO₃), Corosex (MgO), limestone blends, and occasionally dolomite (CaMg(CO₃)₂). This raises your bicarbonate on average to between 30–80 mg/L (ideal around 225), and your TDS to 50–100 ppm TDS (ideal around 400).
 Thus, with or without remineralization filters, your R.O water will have a low TDS and low bicarb. There are two problems with that;
 salts are leached from the body under the influence of drinking water with a low TDS

 water with a TDS of 25–50 mg/L is described as tasteless in volunteer studies

 water-salt balance is altered when TDS is between 50 and 75 mg/L, thus the WHO recommends that the minimum TDS in drinking water should be 100 mg/L.

 Thus, even with remineralization filters, your water falls way short. Also know that two waters can have the same TDS and behave nothing alike. For instance, 50 mg/L from calcite chips is not equivalent to 50 mg/L from natural spring minerals, or even 100 mg/L from CaCO₃ alone has nothing to do with 100 mg/L distributed across multivalent, coordinated ions like in Aurmina.
 Ultimately, TDS tells you quantity, not organization. Industry remineralization is focused on raising TDS just enough to avoid corrosion, but it does not restore redox balance, trace mineral spectra, or structured, biologically coherent water. It solves a plumbing problem, not a physiological one .
 How Does U.S Municipal Water Fare?
 Typical U.S. municipal water shows enormous variability, but most systems fall roughly into these ranges. Let’s start with bicarbonate:
 Soft surface water systems: ~20–60 mg/L HCO₃⁻

 Moderately buffered systems: ~60–120 mg/L

 Hard groundwater systems (Midwest, Southwest): 150–300+ mg/L

 Thus, many U.S. systems, especially those using reverse osmosis, ion exchange softening, or aggressive corrosion control, operate below the bicarbonate levels associated with lowest morbidity.
 Now lets look into TDS, where U.S systems fare a little better:
 The nationwide averages range from 150–400 mg/L, with a median U.S. municipal TDS of around 250 mg/L. By source type, surface water systems range between 50–200 mg/L, while groundwater systems range higher, from 200–600 mg/L, largely due to prolonged water–rock interaction.
 Health Impacts of Drinking De-Mineralized Water
 If you’re an R.O or distilled water drinker and you’re still with me, you may wish you weren’t as sometimes ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there is a substantial body of scientific evidence that documents adverse health effects associated with consumption of demineralized water. These effects are not theoretical and they do not require decades to manifest.
 Clinical studies report fatigue, weakness, muscle cramps, headaches, and disturbances in cardiac rhythm appearing within weeks to months of consuming reverse osmosis or distilled water, particularly in relation to magnesium and calcium depletion. These findings were significant enough that multiple European public-health authorities issued formal warnings against routine consumption of distilled water.
 Even with “lightly mineralized” water, major health disturbances can be measured. The largest study in the literature comes from Russia, where they compared two regions in Russia with the same eating habits, air quality, social conditions, and time of residence.
 One area received low-mineral water, (all units in mg/L): TDS-134, Calcium-18.7, Mag-4.9, Bicarb-86, while the other area received high mineral water, TDS-385, Ca-29.5, Mag-8.3, Bicarb-243.
 Findings:
 Adults drinking low-mineral water had higher rates of hypertension, ischemic heart disease, gastric and duodenal ulcers, chronic gastritis, cholecystitis, and nephritis

 Children in the low-mineral area showed slower physical development and increased growth abnormalities

 Pregnant women had higher rates of edema and anemia

 Newborns in the low-mineral area had higher overall morbidity

 From the comprehensive review by František Kožíšek, M.D., Ph.D;
 “Consuming R.O. water for even a few months can lead to side effects such as fatigue, weakness, muscle cramps, and potentially impaired heart rhythm due to low levels of magnesium and calcium.”
 Epidemiological studies link long-term consumption of low-mineral water to cardiovascular disorders, hypertension, osteoporosis, and complications during pregnancy and infancy. Mineral loss is further exacerbated during food preparation, as R.O. water can leach minerals from foods cooked in it, further reducing dietary intake.
 Communities consuming low-calcium and low-magnesium water consistently demonstrate higher rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, and sudden cardiac death. Magnesium deficiency, in particular, destabilizes cardiac electrical activity in ways that mineral-free water quietly amplifies.
 There is another rarely discussed consequence. Mineral-free water is chemically aggressive. Lacking buffering ions, it readily dissolves metals from pipes, fittings, storage tanks, and fixtures. Documented cases of lead exposure, including infant poisoning, have been traced to low-mineral water leaching metals from household plumbing. In attempting to remove contaminants, purified water can create new exposure pathways the moment it enters real-world infrastructure.
 The Hard Water vs. Soft Water Problem
 Hard water is water that is rich in calcium and magnesium, typically acquired through prolonged contact with limestone, dolomite, or other mineral-rich geology. The modern (not historical) concerns over hard water is that it can form scale in pipes, boilers, and kettles, reduces soap lather, leaves residue on fixtures, and causes appliance inefficiency over time. Cavemen did not have those concerns.
 But, from a biological perspective, hard water supplies dietary calcium and magnesium, which often correlates with lower cardiovascular mortality in population studies. It also provides buffering capacity via bicarbonate–carbonate systems and thus is generally less corrosive to pipes, which is important for lead and copper exposure.
 Know that since free protons drive many calcification processes, Aurmina, by its ability to moderate proton activity, makes calcium stay in a more stable, usable state instead of converting into hard, insoluble deposits.
 Although you can’t use Aurmina as an addition to the plumbing infrastructure of your home, when you use Aurmina treated water for your plants and soil, the calcium stays more accessible to plant roots instead of binding tightly and becoming unavailable. For people prone to kidney stones, calcium that is less inclined to crystallize is generally better tolerated than calcium that readily calcifies.
 Soft water on the other hand, is water that is low in calcium and magnesium. In practical terms, this results in better soap performance and no scale formation, but such water is often more aggressive and corrosive chemically.
 From a biological perspective, naturally soft water has low mineral contribution, often has low buffering capacity, and can enhance metal leaching from pipes, increasing exposure to lead, copper, and iron. Soft does not mean clean or healthy; it simply means low hardness.
 Epidemiologic studies from Europe and Russia repeatedly found higher rates of cardiovascular disease and sudden cardiac death in regions with very soft water, likely due to magnesium deficiency.
 Threading The Needle
 So we have a “tough needle to thread” here, meaning if your water is hard, although it is better for your health in terms of being a source of minerals and protecting you from pipe corrosion, it increases risks of scaling in your plumbing.
 If your water is soft, it is not good for your health because it lowers mineral intake and may increase exposure to metals in your pipes, however, you don’t have to worry about scaling.
 So what do people do? Soft water people “harden” their water, hard water people “soften.” Let’s walk through what that looks like. And it ain’t good.
 Artificially Softening Water (Ion Exchange)
 This is where most confusion arises because ion-exchange softeners actually make things worse. They remove calcium and magnesium and replace them with Sodium (Na⁺) or Potassium (K⁺), which results in water with zero hardness, higher sodium, same TDS or higher, no buffering improvement, and no biological magnesium.
 From a biological perspective, it is worse for people with hypertension, kidney disease, and heart failure. Further, it remains chemically aggressive, and certainly not mineral-restorative, just mineral-substituted.
 Artificially Hardening Water
 Converse to hard water, soft water is typically low in calcium and magnesium and often slightly acidic. Municipalities and homeowners “harden” water primarily to protect infrastructure, improve taste, stabilize pH.
 Various methods are employed to harden water:
 Calcium And Bicarbonate

 Most common is adding calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), calcium hydroxide (lime), and sodium bicarbonate or calcium bicarbonate (for alkalinity). The pros are that it reduces pipe corrosion, raises pH and alkalinity, and improves taste. The cons are that the minerals are often added in simple ionic forms and can increase carbonate without restoring mineral balance. Thus it produces water that is harder but not necessarily biologically coherent. This often creates disordered hardness.
 Crushed Limestone Or Calcite

 Another method used by homes and municipalities is to pass water through crushed limestone or calcite media which adds calcium naturally and raises alkalinity gently. The problem is that this adds mostly calcium, not magnesium or trace minerals. You can overshoot hardness while not restoring trace mineral diversity. This has a limited effect on redox balance. Better than nothing, but incomplete.
 Dolomite Media (Calcium + Magnesium)

 Some systems use dolomite (calcium and magnesium) instead of pure calcite which produces a better mineral ratio than calcite alone, but you are still limited to bulk minerals with absent trace elements and the mineral form depends heavily on water chemistry. This can approach partial order, but it’s still blunt.
 DIY Mineral Addition

 Some people add baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate), calcium chloride or commercial mineral drops. The pros are that it is cheap, adjustable, and can raise alkalinity quickly but the cons are that it is very easy to overdose, it creates ionic chaos, and often worsens redox instability. Also it can aggravate GI, renal, or cardiovascular issues. This is the fastest way to turn soft water into disordered hard water.
 “Ordered vs. Disordered” Water Rather Than “Hard vs. Soft” Water
 Biologically and physically, because hardness refers to calcium and magnesium content it is a signal that your water has spent time in contact with mineral lattices that confer charge balance, buffering capacity, and redox stability. Ultimately, hard water should be considered an entry point and not an endpoint.
 Yes, without it, you cannot have organized water, but at the same time, most modern “hard water” will not allow for optimal organization.
 The biologically meaningful distinction in water is therefore not “hard versus soft,” but “ordered versus disordered.” Ordered mineral water retains minerals in forms that support redox balance, charge separation, and structural coherence. Disordered mineral water contains the same elements stripped from their natural context, behaving as reactive stressors rather than biological supports.
 Modern water treatment excels at producing chemically compliant water, but often at the cost of mineral order, the very property life depends upon.
 Where Aurmina Comes In For All Camps
 Aurmina doesn’t care whether your water started out hard or soft, stripped or overloaded, piped through copper or pulled from a well. It steps in after all of that and does the one thing modern water systems never even attempt: restore order.
 Hard-water people spend their lives trying to soften water so it behaves in pipes. Soft-water people spend theirs trying to harden it for taste and corrosion control. R.O. and distilled users swing the pendulum to zero, then work to bolt minerals back on. Every one of these strategies is aimed at managing plumbing and pollution. None of them are designed around physiology.
 Aurmina bypasses that entire argument by focusing on the water you actually ingest, not the water rushing through municipal infrastructure. Water optimized for pipes is engineered to remain chemically tame, visually clear, and legally compliant.
 Water optimized for biology must be mineral-ordered, redox-balanced, and structurally coherent. Aurmina removes mineral chaos without stripping life out of the water, allowing structure to emerge rather than forcing chemistry in.
 What you end up with is water that looks and acts like what comes out of the best mineral springs on Earth. Now you know why I started this company :).
 Aurmina doesn’t ask you to change how your city treats water or how your house is plumbed. It optimizes the final interface between water and biology. Your body is not a pipe. Stop trying to make your drinking water behave like an industrial fluid.
 Conclusion
 By this point, the scope of the problem is clear. Modern drinking water is burdened, imperfectly regulated, and chemically altered in ways that rarely enter public discussion. We’ve examined contamination, delayed exposure, misplaced confidence in bottled and “purified” water, and the negative health consequences of long-term mineral absence.
 In the next chapter, we step away from regulations, reports, and assumptions and into something less abstract. We let the water show what it has been carrying, and what falls out when Aurmina chemistry finally allows it to happen. The long awaited “Sediment Analysis” post, coming to you tomorrow…

 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I then write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now
 More Stuff (Aurmina and Book Publications)
 If you want to learn more about the water purifier we made from Shimanishi’s volcanic-mineral complex, go to Aurmina.com where we are running a 25% off end-of year sale.

 Upcoming Book Publications
 Yup — not one, but two books are dropping from yours truly (at the same time? What?)

 If, instead of (or in addition to) these Substack posted chapters, you prefer the feel of a real book, or the smell of paper, or like to give holiday gifts, pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping end of January.

 And if you want to read (or gift) another chronicle of suppression, science, and survival, grab The War on Chlorine Dioxide —the sequel you didn’t see coming—shipping early to mid-January. On this one, I say: “Buy it before they ban it.” Hah!

Summary: R.O. and distillation of water made "pipe-friendly" by regulatory standards then strips away the mineral architecture that life evolved with. What remains looks purer but is harmful to your health.