Minutus

Dear Shannon

Lead was being blamed.

Soft water has a greater ability to dissolve other substances.

Add soft water to lead and it will start to dissolve lead.

In parts of Glasgow and Scotland where I believe the original heart data
came from, lead pipes were in use in houses.

To avid the problem, the instruction was to run the water for a few minutes
to get rid of the lead loaded water and then use the fresh water for dinking
and cooking.

(In any case with the high levels of smoking / drinking and poor food
consumed in Glasgow area, I am not surprised they have a lot of heart
problem cases - but whether it is because of lead in the water or high fat
food etc I do not know.)

Most new houses now have copper pipes in UK.
But in most parts of the world MAINS iron pipes are in use - these are being
changed to plastic to avoid the rust problem.

So the problem of plasticizers remains with us.

Rgds
Soroush
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Soroush,

I may have written something other than what I intended, but I meant to say
that I've read drinking hard water is associated with *less* heart trouble,
so I think this is something different from the lead issue you are referring
to. It seems that the calcium, magnesium, and trace minerals in naturally
occurring *hard* water have some protective effect.

Personally, since our (well) water is very hard but also very contaminated,
we run it thru an RO filter, then add back minerals (at least, when I think
of it ).

Best wishes,
Shannon
on 8/11/04 10:52 AM, Finrod at finrod@webstar.co.uk wrote:

Dear Shannon

The water in Glasgow region is soft! I forgot to mention this. It therefore
has the ability to dissolve the lead off the pipes.

We too have had a RO unit since mid 80. Ever since our local water company
announced that they had add a substance to kill the eggs and larvae of some
fly and therefore it should not be added to fish ponds or aquariums.
Although they said it was safe for humans (where did we hear that before) I
decided this was the time to change. We soften the water first and then RO
it. This way the filters last MUCH longer!

I do not bother with adding anything back, and do not seem to have suffered
any consequences.

Rgds
Soroush
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]