For drinking purposes, soft water is not particularly good at all in comparison with hard water where cardiovascular health is concerned.
That depends on where you buy. Places with good prices generally have good turnover of product.
I think where I live probably counts as West, and certainly North from an England-centric POV. Describing our tap water as soft could be seen as foolish - and popularity of caving in the area is a good hint that there's likely to be a fair bit of calcium in it.
You're funny.
We get our water analysed every so often. They mention coliforms every so often, but since it's some of the best tasting water we've had, and we've never suffered ill-effects from drinking it, we're prepared to ignore that.
cheers, clive
Possible, but in general, soft water comes from these regions.
You may wish to take a look through the quite large number of clinical studies indicating a relationship between magnesium and calcium compounds hard water and improved heart and CV health.
e.g.
That's nice, but why should I read them? I've already mentioned what our water is like - didn't you get the speleological hint?
clive
Having to go caving just for a glass of water, though....
OK, it's also been suggested to me that I may be on a 'dead leg' end of the watermain, and that I should get it scoured, or flushed. I'm the fourth house in the road out of many, so I don't really know if that would be the case. But the water pressure seems very good out of the mains.. I'll try and get the council to do this, but won't be able to know if they've done the job really.
Perhaps you should consider buying in the air you breathe as well.
that did make me wonder a bit and I was going to ask where you'd got that info from... then you came up with:
water have a cardioprotective effect, ie that there is a reduced incidence of cardio- and cerebrovascular problems in hard water areas.
Now that is completely different to claiming that there is an association between softness of water and *increased* incidence of cardiovascular disease. You can't claim a causative effect of morbidity of an agent by its being absent; it's the *presence* of minerals which have a beneficial effect. Eg, given that taking an aspirin a day is known to reduce the incidence of heart disease, would you then claim that eating a stick of celery a day instead *causes* heart disease (because it doesn't contain any aspirin...?!)
With spin like that, of Downing Street quality, anyone would have thought you owned a bottled-water company or something!
David
A bit less practical than selecting water....
|!>> |!> Doesn't it depend where the tap is? |!>> |! |!>> |!Drinking tap water anywhere bad idea??? |!>>
|!>> In many parts of the UK it is a *good* idea, notably in the North and |!>> West. |!>
|!> Actually, notably *not* in the North and West. There is a known |!> correlation, established over many years and in many geographies |!> throughout the world between softness in water and increased incidence of |!> ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease. |! |!I think where I live probably counts as West, and certainly North from an |!England-centric POV. Describing our tap water as soft could be seen as |!foolish - and popularity of caving in the area is a good hint that there's |!likely to be a fair bit of calcium in it.
The water in the North is however mainly collected from peat moors which are on top of gritstones, sandstones or igneous rocks, and is therefore soft. In limestone/chalk areas the water disappears underground which makes surface reservoirs useless. In limestone/chalk areas one has to pump hard water up from boreholes. AFAIK Yorkshire Water uses both sources, however the more West and/or North you are the more they use moorland reservoirs.
This is why I recommended that people find out where *their* water comes from.
Out of the tap.
I didn't suggest that soft water was *causative* in terms of increased IHD and CVD, only a correlation. The studies themselves suggest the causative factors but do also say that there is an increased incidence of cardio vascular mortality in soft water areas once all other factors are taken into account. Obviously if one is trying to demonstrate such a relationship, the other factors have to be taken out.
Nonetheless, one study reports:
"After adjustment for other factors, soft water areas (around 0.25 mmol/l) have a 10-15% higher cardiovascular mortality that areas of medium hardness (around 1.70 mmol/l) whereas any further increase beyond 1.70 mmol/l has little extra lowering effect on cardiovascular mortality."
Nope. We aren't talking about aspirin or celery (and of course I know of the beneficial effects of the former); nor are we talking about other regional variations such as diet, smoking and all the rest of it.
How do you know I don't :-)
It's not spin. At no point have I said that type of water drunk is the only or even the largest influencer of cardiovascular health. Nonetheless, 10-15% difference due to this is certainly statistically siginificant. If it were 1-2% that would be a different matter.
Reminds me. Must check the share price.....
If you knew where cavers pissed, you wouldn't ... (Hoping to get up to the Trenchfoot Arms this year.)
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.