For the last six years, Russia has been working out its rules and norms for bottled water that will be even stricter than euro standards. Scientists account for such strict norms by the idea that we have a greater need for high quality water than the Europeans.
There’s no need to explain to most of our citizens that water is life: the market of bottled water has increased by 30% in the last 2 years and it’s steadily increasing.
According to the data, presented by the agency of FD Fgroup, just in Moscow, about 55 million liters of drinking water are sold monthly, in general, in Russia – 2.5 billion liters per year. On the whole, a Russian man drinks 18 liters of bottled water a year. The Europeans consume eight times more bottled water.
That’s where the problem lies, in opinion of scientists, exploring quality of drinking water: to ensure themselves “a quality life”, as they say in Europe, the Russians should drink only bottled water, and even in larger amounts than the Europeans do. Why? Because tap water is good for nothing.
WAТER AND QUALITY OF LIFE
“The water that we drink influences our health, capacity for work and even level of stress resistance’’, explains director of the A.N. Sisin Scientific Research Institute of Human Ecology and Environmental Hygiene at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Academician Yuriy Rakhmanin, “Moreover, it’s not only about what water doesn’t contain, I mean harmful admixtures, it’s also about what it contains: calcium, magnesium, potassium, bicarbonates, fluorine, iodine”.
This is the basis to work out requirements for drinking water quality, as it’s believed in the Sisin Institute. 90% of the country’s population suffer from fluorine deficiency, 85% suffer from iodine deficiency, at the same time we aren’t accustomed to use nutritional supplements and multivitamins to replenish vitamin supply (in comparison, in the European Union 85% of people regularly use nutritional supplements and vitamins). Fluorine and iodine deficiency are closely linked to three problems: expensive sea foods were excluded from the consumer basket of the bulk of the population, the consumption of red meat has decreased, vegetables and cereals are deficient in mineral substances (because of excessive land use intensity). The easiest way to solve this problem is drinking water that can satisfy half of our daily requirement of salts, fluorine and iodine. On condition that it is high-quality bottled water, of course.
PANACEA IN A BOTTLE
Bottled water in itself is no good quality guarantee. It is no coincidence that counterfeits are found in 80% of all raids, made by the Federal Service for Surveillance of Consumer Rights Protection. According to the evaluation of the experts’ findings, the percentage of counterfeit waters may vary from 15 to 30%.
“As a rule, counterfeit water is bottled from the water pipe-line”, explains to “The Ogonyek” head of the laboratory of the hygiene of drinking water supply at the Sisin Scientific Research Institute, Rufina Mikhailova, “Tap water contains about 500 stable chlorine compounds; most of them are carcinogenic and mutagenic (they cause disturbance of the genetic system)”.
“Most of our compatriots can’t even distinguish drinking water from mineral”, emphasizes assistant director of the State Scientific Research Institute of Balneology in Pyatigorsk, Doctor of Medical Science, Nataliya Efimenko, “Drinking water ( content of mineral salts is 0.1 – 1 g per 1 liter) can be drunk daily, throughout your life, while mineral waters containing 1-15 g of salts per 1 liter should be used on doctor’s orders during two 30-day courses a year at most”.
The cause of this limitation is a complex chemical composition of mineral waters: besides usual salts, they contain complex organic matters and almost all elements of Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table. 30 minutes after you have drunk some mineral water, it gets into the intestines and reacts with the endocrine glands, influencing the whole body - from the pancreas to the hypophysis. It means the following: mineral waters, as we call them, can correct physical, mental and sexual activity of a human being. Misuse of mineral water can do harm to health and even lead to a surgical operation.
RECOGNIZED WATER
The serious problem of drinking water quality is linked to the fact that sanitary norms and rules for bottled water have been worked out quite recently. As a result, till 2000 bottled water had been rated according to the criteria of tap water. Officials didn’t acknowledge water quality to have any special influence on national health. Besides, there was no laboratory equipment to control water in production line.
The attitude towards the question started changing in the middle of the 90ies when the A.N. Sisin Scientific Research Institute examined 1100 Moscow pupils. It turned out that children from Frunze and Lenin districts of the capital with tap water enriched with fluorine at Cherepkovsk station, had no caries.
“74% of Americans, including residents of 40 of 50 megapolises get their tap water, enriched with fluorine”, says Academician Rakhmanin , who is considered the chief specialist in water hygiene sphere, “It costs as much as two dollars per head a year, and it allows to save up to 200 dollars on dental services ”.
It became obvious: it’s expensive to change technologies at water treatment facilities and it’ll take lots of time, so it’s necessary to ensure national health by means of high quality bottled water.
On the grounds of 15-year researches of the Scientific Research Institute of Human Ecology, as well as researches of other institutes, on the 11th of November, 2000 the chief sanitary doctor of the Russian Federation issued a decree “On improvement of water quality as to content of biogenic elements in it”. Two years later - on the 20th of May, 2002- the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation passed technical regulations “on quality of bottled water”. In these regulations bottled water was recognised as a food product and made high demands of.
Nevertheless, these demands are coming into effect only now. First, most producers of bottled water have run out of their five-year certificates, given to them before 2002. Second, the rate of counterfeits on the Russian market made Gennadiy Onishchenko issue a decree “On strengthening of surveillance of production and turnover of mineral and drinking water” at the end of April. Profile scientific research institutes make no secret of the fact that the federal law on quality of drinking water is under preparation.
“As soon as we are through with bottled water issue”, says Rufina Mikhailova, “We’ll get our teeth into tap water problem – it also needs laws!”
HOW CAN WE PROTECT OURSELVES FROM COUNTERFEITS?
“The Ogonyek” asked director of the Institute of Human Ecology and Environmental Hygiene Yuriy Rakhmanin to tell what waters would come on to the Russian market.
- Yuriy Aleksandrovich, could you tell us what trademarks of bottled water we should choose now and how we can protect ourselves against counterfeits?
- Visit the site of the Federal Service for Surveillance of Consumer Rights Protection of the Russian Federation to find out what waters passed all quality tests - there’s a list of them there. In general, we classified bottled waters into two categories: the first category and the higher category waters. The first category waters satisfy all safety requirements; the higher category waters besides that are also physiologically well-balanced (see the table). In future, we’re planning to introduce a system of bottled water quality control not only in sale but also in production.
What will be the parameters of bottled water quality control?
According to the new rules, there’s a complex of parameters for testing bottled water. Five of them are aesthetic; 3 – fix the quality and quantity of composition of salt; 4 - determine safety of chemical composition; 21 – presence of toxic metals and non-metallic elements; 3 - presence of halogens (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine and astatine); 22 - presence of organic contaminants; 2 - complex indices of toxicity; 2 – indices of radioactivity; 11 – bacteriological and virusological indices. Full value of water will be estimated by 8 biogenic elements and 3 preservatives.
Still, let’s talk about Borzhomi. Do you think it was right to prohibit it?
Our task is not to prohibit, but to recommend. When it comes to recommendations, we can say that we have tested and we can guarantee high quality of the higher category waters of the following trademarks: “Rokadovskaya”, “Super Alexander”, “Crystalnaya ”, “Lekor”, “Troitsa”, “Your health”, “Living water”, “Crystal”, “The spring of Prikamiye”, “Premier” and “Novokuriinskaya”. Certainly, on condition that the water you bought is not a counterfeit.
Our body is 70% liquid; the blood, lymph, saliva, mucous membranes being slightly alkaline (ph of the blood of a healthy man is 7.4). A decrease in pH, that is, an increase in acidity, leads to immunoreaction disorders, rapid multiplication of viruses and bacteria getting into the blood, malassimilation of vitamins and trace elements, diseases of the heart, vessels, blood and many other pathologic states of the body, including oncological ones.
One of the basic chemical elements, making up our body is calcium. Calcium deficiency in the body leads to over 150 serious illnesses; children, pregnant women and people over 40 are especially sensitive to them.
The product that saturates water with active, ionized calcium is Корал Майн . This product was awarded The I.I. Mechnikov Gold Medal For the Contribution to National Health Improvement and The P. Ehrlich Gold Medal.
http://youtu.be/uUsRYrd6h4Q
No comments:
Post a Comment