Dietary Water vs. Industrialization

Nutritional status in humans and animals primarily focuses on the types of foods consumed, fat, fiber, vitamin, mineral and antioxidant intake. More recent investigation is addressing the role of water in the diet, not only of adequate amounts but also the type of water. The study of water is becoming a research field of its own and many facts and ideas are emerging.

Natural reservoirs of water have different properties often due to the mineral content depending on geographic location. Minerals and salts such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, silica, and sodium, common to natural water sources, can cause numerous and costly industrial problems, forming deposits on machinery. Modern filtration and purification treatments have rendered water better fit for industrial purposes rather than human and animal consumption. Colloidal silicate minerals indeed display a variety of functions and form complex interactions between solute and solvent and because of their abundance in certain locations may have provided colloidal particles beneficial to drinking water. Colloidal particle interactions may play a substantial role in nutrient bioavailabihty by enhancing solvation properties and were predicted to play an important nutritional role in health in the 1970's (Keller 1978). The particular area of physical and colloidal chemistry, known as cluster science, has further defined and measured

unique properties of naturally occurring and. synthesized colloidal minerals. Complex cluster reaction dynamics have demonstrated that colloidal silicate particles are hydrophilic (water loving), bind and release ions, and alter dielectric constants, surface tension and solvation properties of water.