Is an RO Water Purifier Good for Health?

According to the Oxford dictionary, Osmosis is the process by which molecules of a solvent tend to pass through a semipermeable membrane from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one. 

What is Reverse Osmosis?

Reverse Osmosis is a special type of filtration that uses a semi-permeable, porous membrane, that allows only pure water to pass through it, filtering the larger molecules or impurities.

Application of RO in water purification:

In recent years, Reverse Osmosis technology has proven to be a breakthrough technology that is implemented by companies manufacturing water purifiers. It has enabled the release of numerous variants of RO water purifiers into the market.

Originally used in industries and laboratories, Reverse Osmosis technology has proven to be successful in effectively addressing water contamination, which is the ground reality of developing countries like India. An RO Water Purifier has a semipermeable membrane that has a pore size of 0.0005 microns. These pores can help remove the tiniest dissolved salts, metals, and impurities, over and above filtering microbes like bacteria and viruses. 

RO water purifiers are not perfect: 

After all, they eliminate all the minerals of the water. 

For optimal functioning, our body requires nutrients including trace minerals, Calcium and Magnesium which are eliminated through the reverse osmosis process. To some extent, this has been addressed by adding mineralization cartridges to the water purifiers. You can add an extra mineralizer cartridge after UV or post-carbon filter, just before the water is filled in the storage tank. It can be done yourself or you can get this done with help from a professional.

Copper Infused Purification:

Of all the cartridges, Copper is the most popular, as a number of pieces of research corroborate its usefulness to the human body. Pureit offers Copper-infused, clean drinking water in one of its variants. The best part about it is that it comes with two outlets - one with copper-infused water and one with just RO purified water that is not copper-infused - and you can choose the one that you prefer.

So, when planning to buy an RO water purifier from the market, look for RO purifiers with mineralizer or TDS controller or TDS modulator. This is especially important if the TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) level of your water level is below 900 ppm as Reverse osmosis eliminates nearly 90 percent of the TDS.

Remember that water is not the only source of trace mineral nutrition. So, you can complement your RO water consumption with good quality nutrition that ensures that you don’t miss out on this essential nutrition.

Conclusion: Though Reverse Osmosis eliminates all the minerals, it effectively eliminates dangerous diseases like cholera, typhoid, Hepatitis A, dysentery that spread through water. Without water purification technologies coming to the rescue, we would have seen outbreaks of these diseases that are almost fatal. When its disadvantage can be overcome just by TDS modulation or remineralization, the writing on the wall is clear: RO water purification is not only safe with mineralization but also necessary.