How Does Water Quality Affect Your Biology?

We define purity as water that’s free from biological, chemical, and industrial contaminants. To truly understand the importance of purity, we have to zoom in, all the way down to the cellular level.

Each one of your 30 trillion cells is the end recipient of everything you consume. Through a process known as endocytosis, they draw in water to hydrate themselves, nutrients to drive energy production, and proteins to reinforce and repair their membranes. These molecular imports are essential in keeping your mitochondria producing energy, stopping your cells from shrinking, and your overall system in a state of balance.

Water is the best natural transport medium as it carries anything that it can dissolve, suspend, or bind to. It readily dissolves ions, small molecules, and even some nonpolar substances if they’re attached to carriers like fats or plastics. 

But here’s the catch: your cells don’t get to choose what comes in. So if your water is contaminated with harmful substances, those too can enter the cellular environment, and this can accumulate over time.

This is why we believe Purity is the first core pillar of hydration. Without it, hydration becomes a delivery mechanism for low-grade threats, an invisible tax on your body’s immune function, energy levels, and cellular performance.

And this leads us to a critical concept known as the Purity Gap, the measurable difference in water quality between different sources of drinking water.

Whether it’s tap water, bottled water, or filtered pitchers, not all drinking water is created equal. And in this post, we’ll unpack how the Purity Gap affects your health, where it currently shows up in your daily life, and how to close it for good.

"It is the unseen that defines the visible" ~ Lao Tzu (Founder of Taoist philosophy & Author of "Tao Te Ching")

The Contaminants We’re Dealing With

Here's a breakdown of the most common contaminant classes relevant to UK drinking water sources.

#1 - Synthetic Chemicals

(PFAS, Pharmaceuticals, Hormonal Residues)

Some of the most concerning compounds in modern water systems didn’t even exist a hundred years ago. They were engineered by humans, not shaped by nature.

• PFAS (also called “forever chemicals”) were designed to be extremely durable, that’s what makes them so useful in things like firefighting foam, non-stick pans, and stain-resistant fabrics.
• But that same durability becomes a liability once they enter the body.
• Their carbon-fluorine bonds are among the strongest in all of organic chemistry, making them almost impossible to break down, persisting in water, soil, and tissue for decades.
• Alongside PFAS, many water systems also carry trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs and hormonal residues.
• These typically enter the system through wastewater recycling—a process that treats used water (from sinks, showers, toilets) so it can re-enter the supply chain.
• While these facilities do a great job of removing bacteria, viruses, and pathogens, they’re not designed to catch the finer, more complex molecules found in pharmaceuticals.

If these contaminants are so harmful, why aren't public water suppliers dealing with them?

The unfortunate truth is that from a business standpoint, it's not cost-effective to build filtration capable of targeting thousands of different drug compounds, given the volume of water they have to process. 

As a result, small quantities of birth control, antidepressants, antibiotics, and hormone disruptors survive treatment, eventually reaching kitchen taps.

The real biological risk comes from accumulation over time, particularly when multiple low-dose chemicals interact in unpredictable ways. This is also known as the 'Cocktail Effect', and is actively avoided in other fields.

In medicine, for instance, combining two otherwise safe drugs can trigger dangerous or unexpected side effects (polypharmacy), which is why healthcare protocols follow a strict zero-tolerance approach to unintended substance interactions.

#2 - Heavy Metals

(Lead, Copper, Arsenic)

Unlike other contaminants, heavy metals typically don’t come from the water source itself. Instead, they leach into water from ageing infrastructure like older buildings in city centres that have outdated plumbing.

• Public water facilities may pass all safety tests, but the issue lies in the last few metres before the tap.
• Old pipes, solder joints, or lead-containing fixtures can release toxic metals after the water has left the treatment plant.
• This contamination happens at the individual building level, so unless you test your own water quality, it often goes unnoticed.
• The health impact is significant, especially for children and pregnant women.
• Chronic exposure to lead and other metals has been linked to neurodevelopmental issues, reduced IQ, and long-term neurological inflammation.
  

#3 - Plastic Particles

(Microplastics & Nanoplastics)

We often think of plastics as solid, inert containers. But over time, they shed fragments—especially when exposed to heat, UV light, or physical stress from squeezing, transporting, or even just being stored over months and years.

• Microplastics are tiny fragments visible under a microscope.
• Nanoplastics are invisible even under magnification and roughly 50x smaller than microplastic particles.
• That’s small enough to cross cell barriers, infiltrate tissue, and even be engulfed by cells through a process called endocytosis.
• This is what makes nanoplastics especially concerning — they’re not just present; they’re bioavailable.
• And their surfaces are often chemically reactive, meaning they could potentially disrupt biological processes at the cellular level, especially over decades of unnoticed accumulation.

Why This Matters More Than You Might Think

What makes these contaminants dangerous isn’t just their toxicity, it’s how quietly they build up, how difficult they are to filter, and how rarely they're even tracked by standard water quality testing.

In many cases, the body doesn’t send loud warning signals when exposed to low-level contaminants. That’s not because it’s fine, it’s because your body is designed to adapt to stress in order to survive.

Take, for example, chronic high blood pressure. Many people can live with it for years without noticeable symptoms. That doesn’t make it harmless; it just means the body is compensating until it can’t anymore. The same principle applies to chemical exposure. You might still feel “fine,” even as stress quietly builds at the cellular level.

You don’t need to be a toxicologist or ecologist to understand why this matters.

The purer your water, the less burden you place on your cells, detox organs and immune system just to keep you functioning.

Immune System Overtime: A Biological Energy Cost 

As mentioned earlier, nanoplastics and other waterborne contaminants have the unique ability to cross biological barriers and penetrate our cells at the deepest level…

Don't Just Take Our Word For It

💡 Did You Know: All contaminants (PFAS, pharmaceuticals, nanoplastics, etc.) are filtered by the same systems that process all other waste out of your body, placing a continuous low-grade burden on your detox pathways and immune system. 

While the long-term consequences of these contaminants are still being studied, one thing is clear: Your immune system doesn’t ignore them. Even low-level exposures trigger a response every single time.

Immune Activation Burden

Like the other systems in your body, the immune system doesn’t have endless resources. No matter how microscopic, each time it detects a foreign substance, a response is triggered to remove the substance as quickly as possible.

• Macrophages: Specialised immune cells that ‘eat’ unwanted particles like bacteria, before they can multiply and spread.
• Cytokines: Messenger molecules used to help immune cells coordinate a fast response.
• Immune Cell Surveillance: Your body is constantly scanning for foreign particles, so it can respond to the threat immediately.

These responses continuously draw on your metabolic energy reserves and pull focus away from what your immune system does best: detoxifying, recovering, and preventing illness.

Put simply, your immune system would function better if it wasn't constantly side-tracked by substances that are easily avoidable.

Over time, decades of low-grade stress from chronic inflammation and immune activation burden gradually wear down your immune system's efficiency and functional capacity:

• T and B cells deteriorate into senescence, losing the ability to multiply and mount effective responses with age.
• Tissues accumulate microscopic damage that builds up over time.
• Antioxidant reserves run low, leaving you more vulnerable to oxidative stress.

This helps explain why older adults recover more slowly from minor illnesses and why they are at a higher risk of infections.

The Silent Energy Cost of Immune Cell Surveillance

Your immune system is one of the most energy-demanding networks in your body—burning through energy even when you’re completely at rest.

💡 Did You Know: Constant immune surveillance can use up to 15% of your basal metabolic rate (BMR). This is more than your heart (8-10%) and nearly as much as your brain (20%) at rest.

This high energy metabolism comes from immune cells rapidly dividing and targeting threats, like the low-level contaminant exposure that triggers:

1. Constant immune surveillance needs ATP (energy) for transport and signalling.
2. Cytokine release, which accelerates metabolism and coordinates immune response.
3. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced, which must be quickly neutralised by antioxidants.
4. Heat production (thermogenesis)—In a similar way in which infections raise your temperature.

These processes all demand constant energy, even when you feel healthy. Because your body doesn’t take any chances when it comes to foreign particles like contaminants, it treats them all as potential threats and burns through resources to eliminate each threat immediately.

Chronic low-level immune activation is a zero-sum trade-off, because more energy spent on contaminant defence means less is available for cell repair and detox.

Water purity isn’t just about taste or appearances—it’s about sparing your immune system from the daily energy cost of being forced to act as a secondary water filter.

Where Does the Purity Gap Exist?

Unfortunately, most common water sources contain far more than just H₂O, and those invisible extras come with biological consequences. So how do we prevent this?

The first step is awareness, and if you’ve made it this far, you’ve already taken it.

But understanding the why behind the Purity Gap is key to successfully closing it.

Tap Water: Limited by Regulations and Incentives

• Regional public water systems in the UK follow legal guidelines enforced by the DWI.
• But these guidelines aren’t optimised for health, they’re designed to meet regulatory minimums, not ideal biological standards.
• And these regulations often lag behind the science because studying contaminant harm in humans is inherently slow, expensive, and ethically complex.
• You can’t deliberately expose people to low-dose toxins just to observe the long-term effects.
• So researchers rely on animal studies, but even these are limited in scope and biological relevance to humans.
• As a result, many contaminants remain under-regulated.
• Not because they’re proven safe, but because they’re still poorly understood.

At the end of the day, it's an issue of misaligned goals. If public water companies existed to optimise individual health, wouldn’t they already be using the best filtration methods also trusted by hospitals, laboratories, and even space agencies?

The reality is: they don’t.

Because their goal is mass compliance, not cellular-level optimisation for each individual they serve.

Pitcher Filters: A Surface-Level Solution

Pitcher filters are designed for convenience, not purity. They improve taste and smell by removing larger contaminants like chlorine, but do little to remove the kinds of microscopic contaminants we’ve discussed so far.

• They rely on activated carbon, and struggle to deal with contaminants smaller than 100 nanometres (PFAS and nanoplastics) as a result.
• Gravity is the only force driving water pressure, which limits their filtration power.
• They use cheaper materials, focused on broad-spectrum improvement rather than complex contaminant removal.
  

Bottled Water: A Purity Illusion

The issue with bottled water isn’t always what’s in the water — it’s what leaches into it.

Plastics shed over time, especially when exposed to sunlight, heat, or pressure. These plastic fragments are small enough to cross biological barriers, infiltrate cells, and accumulate in tissues.

These plastics aren’t inert; their surfaces can attract chemical residues or act as endocrine disruptors. And because the human body can’t break plastic down, these particles tend to build up over time, becoming part of the biological burden we carry. 

The Purity Threshold of the Human Body

The purity gap doesn’t just exist between water sources; it also exists between your biology and the water you consume.

Your body does its best to eliminate unwanted substances. That’s why most contaminants (other than PFAS and nanoplastics) tend to get filtered out straight away by the liver, kidneys, or immune system, as your biology doesn't take any chances. But as we mentioned before, every effort to remove contaminants costs energy.

So while your body tries to maintain its internal purity, it can only do so up to a point — a point we’ll call its purity threshold. Once exceeded, the biological cost begins to climb.

"Remove the Impurities, and the bliss of essence is revealed" ~ Adapted from Eastern philosophy

How To Permanently Close the Purity Gap

If your biology works so hard to remove contaminants, why not help it out?

Reverse Osmosis is the only widely accessible water filtration technology that mirrors the same zero-tolerance standard your body instinctively follows to protect you from any potential threats.

It’s not new. In fact, Reverse Osmosis has been available in the UK since the 1990s. With more people becoming health-conscious, awareness around water quality continues to increase. This has resulted in a growing popularity in Reverse Osmosis technology, as more households are choosing not to leave their health to chance.

Most Reverse Osmosis systems have three distinct stages:

1. Sediment filters (similar to those used in public water treatment) to catch larger particles.
2. Activated carbon (like pitcher filters) to remove chlorine and improve taste.
3. Most importantly, it adds a semi-permeable membrane, which forces water through microscopic pores as small as 0.0001 microns (about 0.1 nanometres) under high pressure.

To put that in perspective, many contaminants like PFAS and nanoplastics are in the 10–500 nanometre range, meaning they’re too small for most filters, but too large to pass through a Reverse Osmosis membrane.

This allows it to remove up to 99.9% of all known contaminants, including:

✅ Chlorine

✅ Heavy metals

✅ Pharmaceutical traces

✅ PFAS ("forever chemicals")

✅ Nanoplastics

And because of this, Reverse Osmosis is the go-to system for any organisation that refuses to take chances with water quality, like hospitals, laboratories, space agencies, and elite-level sports teams.

Just like your biology, these organisations don’t gamble with what gets through. 

Reverse osmosis doesn’t guess, it removes everything that shouldn’t be there to close the Purity Gap permanently.

Why Purity Always Comes First

Purity is the baseline your biology expects, and that's why we believe it's the primary pillar of hydration, with everything else building on top of its pristine foundation. 

It reduces immune burden, protects cellular energy, and creates the cleanest possible starting point for anything beneficial you'd like to add to your water: Electrolytes, tea, coffee, protein powder, or simply a squeeze of lemon.

Just like an artist begins with a blank canvas or a writer starts on a fresh sheet of paper, your water should begin clean. Only then do you have the clarity to produce your best work.

Purity reflects more than just water quality; it reflects standards and values.

It’s a decision to respect your biology by removing everything that doesn’t belong. A quiet rejection of compromise in a world that normalises it.

It’s the kind of choice made by:

• Parents who understand that the immune system is most vulnerable in infancy, and are committed to giving their children the healthiest possible start.
• Or by others who are striving to push the limits of human potential, whether that's mentally, physically or through longevity and living past 120 with as little slowing them down as possible to preserve peak output for decades to come.

In all cases, the same principle applies: minimise the burden now to maximise resilience for longer.

If water makes up the majority of your body (over 60%), shouldn’t it be the cleanest input?

Explore our Reverse Osmosis Systems

For those who care what they put into their body, starting with the thing they consume more than anything else.