Thursday, May 29, 2008

Water

I quit drinking bottled water last week in favor of plain old tap water, and noticed not only that my persistent night-time cough has stopped, but that my skin tone has improved noticeably. A bit perplexing, considering many websites claim that drinking bottled water helps do away with coughing and is good for you, etc. Anyone have a clue why a chronic cough would go away after switching to tap water?

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting. I would follow your lead except MY tap water runs brown from rust for 30 seconds after I turn the faucet on. Under the circumstances, drinking that water isn't an option.

Keep us posted. As a doctorate in physics, your expertise in this will obviously trump Evian, et al.

5/29/2008 2:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would guess it's the cough known as "cum hoc ergo propter hoc".

5/29/2008 3:25 PM  
Blogger Stickwick Stapers said...

I might have thought so, anon, except for two things:

1) when I resumed drinking bottled water for one night (too lazy to go to the faucet, and had a bottle next to the bed), the cough came back.

2) my dad also lost his night-time cough when he switched to tap water.

Carolyn -- I sympathize. When I lived (briefly) in La Jolla, the tap water was UNDRINKABLE. Not brown, but really gross-tasting. I literally gagged the first time I tried it. Brita made it quasi-drinkable.

5/29/2008 3:52 PM  
Blogger Russell said...

It's the drugs the government puts in the water. Not only do they make the citizens docile sheeple, they also clear coughs, improve skin color and tone, and give your hair a healthy, lustrous glow!

Or it might be your were lacking some minerals that come in the tap water but are filtered out of the bottled?

5/29/2008 4:19 PM  
Blogger Stickwick Stapers said...

You know what's funny, Russ, is that a lot of bottled water -- including Aquafina and Dasani -- apparently comes from municipal sources, i.e. it's just tap water. But it's not regulated the same way as tap water, and testing is showing some weird stuff in bottled water.

5/29/2008 6:30 PM  
Blogger Russell said...

I had no idea.

From the website:

"The NRDC found that samples of two brands were contaminated with phthalates, in one case exceeding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards for tap water. These chemicals, used to make plastic softer, are found in cosmetics and fragrances, shower curtains, even baby toys, and are under increasing scrutiny. They're endocrine disrupters, which means they block or mimic hormones, affecting the body's normal functions. And the effects of exposure to the widespread chemicals may add up."

That might be the problem.

Jeez, away from evil H20 back to diet soda drinks for me!

5/30/2008 7:58 PM  
Blogger Billll said...

I'm going to agree with Russel here, and speculate that things are leaching into the bottled water from the plastic bottles, especially if they've been exposed to heat, like in a car trunk.

6/01/2008 7:59 PM  
Blogger Robert M. Lindsey said...

Fluoridation...

Mother Earth News is really against plastic bottles and the chemicals that leech into the water. Maybe they are on to something.

6/06/2008 1:04 PM  

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