Science
Plain ol' water is out. Hydration supplements are in. But do these top 8 brands really work?
You see them crowding checkout counters at grocery stores — a rainbow of bubble-gum pink, lime green and blueberry packets, slender and upright, like a multicolored chorus line of dancers tempting an impulse purchase. At the gym, they’re dissolved into enormous jugs of cherry-tinted water.
They’re especially prevalent on TikTok. Just search #watertok for a flood of #watergirlies, clutching Stanley tumblers at their #waterstations, which are crammed with neon-bright hydration powders and flavored syrups. #Wateroftheday? How about Strawberry Birthday Cake Water. Or Caramel Apple Sucker Water.
In L.A., water rules everything around us. Drink up, cool off and dive into our stories about hydrating and recreating in the city.
“If your water isn’t turning your mouth blue, you’re apparently hydrating wrong,” one skeptical dietitian observed on TikTok last year.
Hydration supplements in the form of powders, tablets and liquid additives have become a norm among consumers over the last decade, and are more popular than ever. The global electrolyte hydration drinks market was valued at $1.72 billion in 2023, according to Data Bridge Market Research. And it’s growing. The business of boosting one’s H2O is projected to reach $3.26 billion by 2031.
Hydration supplements are sold at most major grocery stores around L.A. The market for these powders has grown in recent years.
Why hydration is important
This bonanza of new hydration products plays to a basic but critical need: More than 50% of people around the globe, including in the U.S., are chronically underhydrated, according to the National Institutes of Health, which cites worldwide surveys. (“Underhydration” refers to people who don’t meet the recommended daily fluid intake, whereas “dehydration” refers to a more severe fluid deficit.)
Those statistics are concerning, considering hydration is the oil to our body’s engine. It aids in muscle repair, digestion, energy and focus. It’s necessary for lubricating joints, regulating body temperature and removing toxins from the body. It carries nutrients to cells and is crucial for hormonal balance, which can affect blood pressure and the menstrual cycle. Our level of hydration also contributes to our hair and skin health.
“Proper hydration keeps every system of the body running smoothly,” says dietitian-nutritionist Vanessa King, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
After years of striving to adhere to a 1945 U.S. Food and Nutrition Board recommendation of eight glasses of water a day, it tracks that we’d want to zhuzh up the ritual. (Some studies, however, suggest we need less water daily and that water requirements vary for individuals.) But is there any actual health value to these water additives? Do they aid with hangovers, enhance our workouts or energize us? Or are they simply there to make plain old water taste like a piña colada?
It depends on what product you’re peppering into your Hydro Flask.
“Hydration supplements can replenish you when your fluid status is down — so after workouts, for hangovers or when you’ve been sick,” says Dr. Vijaya Surampudi, an endocrinologist, nutrition specialist and professor at UCLA. “Depending on their composition, some get better absorbed and improve your hydration. Some are just for flavoring and they can have a lot of sugar or artificial coloring — it can be like drinking a soda.”
Hydration supplements can help replenish your body’s fluid status after workouts, colds or when you’re hungover, according to UCLA professor Dr. Vijaya Surampudi.
She notes that because these powders and tablets are categorized as supplements, they aren’t regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “So you just have to trust what’s on the label.” (To fill this gap in regulation, some sleuthing social media users have even carved out a niche content genre in which they analyze the ingredients listed on the labels of celebrity-backed supplements.)
What’s in hydration supplements?
More often than not, a hydration powder or tablet includes a mix of four main ingredients: electrolytes (such as sodium, potassium, magnesium and chloride), a carbohydrate (such as glucose), vitamins (typically B vitamins, sometimes C) and amino acids. Depending on their quantity, and how they interact with one another, those ingredients may help hydrate your body more efficiently.
How these ingredients chemically interact with one another directly affects hydration. Water follows sodium for absorption, for example, and sodium molecules travel best with glucose molecules across the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, Surampudi says, so carbohydrates like sugar are not a bad thing in your supplements — they’re actually preferred.
Even so, it’s a delicate balance. A supplement with too much sugar may work against your aim to be healthier.
“The body stores excess sugar for energy later, and that’s stored as fat,” Surampudi says. “And if you drink too much [sugary fluids], that can lead to health complications.”
While sugar and sodium help fuel hydration, those with diabetes or high blood pressure should be careful with hydration supplements, paying attention to their sugar or salt intake.
“Use it with caution and discuss with your healthcare provider,” Surampudi says.
Do we need them?
Hydration supplements aren’t unsafe for most people to take daily if the sugar content is moderate — but they’re often not necessary, says Dr. Christopher Duggan, editor of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and a Harvard Medical School professor.
Most adults and children don’t meet daily hydration recommendations, he says, which is currently 13 eight-ounce cups of fluid for healthy men and nine for healthy women, according to the National Academy of Medicine. (Note this recommendation includes all fluids, not just water. And we tend to get 20% of our water intake from food.)
“So if adding a light flavoring gets them to drink more water, that’s probably not a terrible thing,” Duggan said. “But if the expense is high, it’s ultimately not worthwhile. Because unless you’re participating in vigorous exercise or your GI tract doesn’t work normally, water alone is probably an adequate hydration.”
Some hydration supplements even contain ingredients that are not hydrating when consumed in large quantities, such as caffeine. Though caffeine is a diuretic, consuming up to 400 mg of it daily can actually help with hydration, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ King. Other flavored powders contain various B vitamins, which may cause problems in excess.
“B6, if you consume too much of it because you’re getting it elsewhere, there’s a risk for some people of neuropathy, which means damage to the peripheral nerves (which are outside of the brain and spinal cord), and which can cause numbness and tingling, among other things,” Surampudi said.
Surampudi recommends consuming hydration supplements only in moments when your body is especially challenged.
“If there’s a situation where you’re fluid down, or in a high altitude or in an extremely hot climate, that’s where these things can be helpful,” she said.
How 8 top hydration supplement brands perform
So take your hydration boosters with a healthy dose of skepticism. Here’s an analysis of eight hydration supplements — the good, the bad and the meh — according to L.A.-based dietitian Katie Chapmon.
Liquid I.V.’s Hydration Multiplier.
(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)
Liquid I.V.’s Hydration Multiplier. “I would not have someone choose this to use every day because the added sugar is really too much — it’s the first and second listed ingredients. The other thing is: They boast, on their website, that the hydration multiplier has ‘3x the electrolytes of the leading sports drink.’ And that may be wonderful for someone who is doing very high-impact sports or who would require serious electrolytes replacement, but it’s not for the average person. Electrolytes balance out our cells, but if we have too much it throws off that balance and our cells can actually become oversaturated; it can make it harder for that cell to work and to get hydrated. This is why a more moderate amount of electrolytes may be a better option for athletes and heavy sweaters.”
Nuun Sport Hydration.
(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)
Nuun Sport Hydration. “This one has a lower amount of added sugar. It might be for someone who wants to flavor their water — which, alone, would help increase fluid intake and therefore their hydration. It has electrolytes — your sodium, magnesium, potassium, chloride — but I would not have someone use this from a serious athletic standpoint because athletes need to not only replenish electrolytes lost but also sugars lost through expelling energy through exercise. Would it help hydrate cells? Sure, a little bit. But most people will end up drinking this because they like the flavors — and a lot of people like Nuun’s flavors.”
Cure Hydrating Electrolyte Drink Mix. “I like this one as a water flavoring — out of all of them, it was one of my favorites for that. But it’s not a true electrolyte blend. It includes sodium and Himalayan salt. But there’s no chloride and magnesium. This would not be a recommendation for gym-goers or athletes as it doesn’t contain any sugars, which are needed for adequate electrolyte and energy replenishment. It’s just a water flavoring because it contains lower amounts of sodium and potassium than other hydration alternatives. The ingredients are straightforward and clean — it has no added sugar, which is great — but it’s not in the same boat as an electrolyte product, even though it’s advertised as that.”
MIO Strawberry Watermelon Liquid Water Enhancer and MIO Sport Electrolytes + B Vitamins.
(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)
MIO Strawberry Watermelon Liquid Water Enhancer and MIO Sport Electrolytes + B Vitamins. “Out of all of these, MIO is probably one of my least favorites. The first is just a water flavoring, but all these additives — like sucrose acetate and Red 40 — they’re not good for you. Red 40 is a synthetic food dye. It’s considered safe, but a lot of people can have allergies causing headaches. It’s safe but not as good as Cure, which uses a natural additive like beet powder for color. Mio Sport uses Blue 1 for coloring, also a synthetic dye. It does contain B vitamins — B3, B6 and B12 — but not the complete B complex of eight B vitamins. It’s also not as strong of an electrolyte blend. Like Cure, it is missing your chloride and magnesium.”
Ultima Replenisher, Broad Spectrum Electrolyte Mix.
(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)
Ultima Replenisher, Broad Spectrum Electrolyte Mix. “This one is OK from a standpoint that it’s going to flavor water and has the electrolytes that we’re looking for, like potassium, sodium, magnesium and chloride. But they’re relatively low amounts, containing one-sixth the amount of sodium in Nuun and Orgain; therefore, it is not for serious athletes.”
LMNT Zero-Sugar Electrolytes, Raw Unflavored.
(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)
LMNT Zero-Sugar Electrolytes, Raw Unflavored. “This is a clean, straightforward brand and zero calories — just your electrolytes. It isn’t flavored, though, so would not be an adequate water flavoring product. It would be good for a smoothie boost or if someone is on an elimination diet. But you’d need to add in a carbohydrate source, like fruit, for this to be more hydrating. It would have to be a whole lemon squeezed in. Or, if doing a smoothie, add a quarter cup of frozen berries to help absorb the electrolytes and help hydration.”
Water Boy Hydration Electrolyte Drink Mix for Weekend Recovery.
(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)
Water Boy Hydration Electrolyte Drink Mix for Weekend Recovery. “I was nervous about the high sodium content here. Sodium is the first ingredient and it’s almost 50% of your daily value. Compared to the other electrolytes — potassium, magnesium and chloride — the sodium is very high and the others are low. It’s a really odd balance. But it has zero sugar and it has only 1 gram of carbohydrates, which, from the ingredient list, I’m assuming is coming from a natural flavor or potentially the vegetable juice. But it’s not enough carbohydrates to balance out the high sodium content. This product is marketed as a ‘hangover’ cure because alcohol dehydrates the body; dehydration is a major contributor to hangover symptoms. Rehydrating the body using alkaline salt neutralizes the acid from alcohol and dehydration; however, this product would benefit from a better balance of all electrolytes, not just high amounts of sodium.”
Orgain Hydro Boost, Rapid Hydration Drink Mix.
(Rebecca Peloquin / For The Times)
Orgain Hydro Boost, Rapid Hydration Drink Mix. “I like this one for athletes. Sugar is the first ingredient, but for athletes that would help absorb the electrolytes. And it would also replenish glucose storage in the muscles. And I like the balance of sodium and chloride here too. There’s also potassium. It’s missing magnesium, but because the sodium and chloride are so well balanced it outweighs that. There’s also no synthetic flavoring. It’s all things like organic lemon juice and organic monk fruit. It’s not for everyday use because of the high sugar content, but great for athletes for specific use like a long-intense bike training, high energy, intermittent workouts or an event, like a sports game.”
Deaths from drug overdoses and poisoning reached a plateau last year in Los Angeles County — the first time in a decade that such fatalities had not continued a year-over-year rise, public health officials said.
Across L.A. County, 3,092 lives were lost to drug overdoses or poisoning in 2023, a slight decline from 3,220 deaths the year before, according to a newly updated report. County officials welcomed the change after years of devastating increases in overdose deaths but said much work remains to be done to save lives.
Dr. Gary Tsai, director of the substance abuse prevention and control division at the L.A. County Department of Public Health, said that as the county has pushed to expand treatment, prevention and harm reduction efforts, “we’re excited to see the progress, but also recognize that it’s not a win.”
“We’re still in the worst overdose crisis in history,” Tsai said. Still, he said, the new numbers could at least disrupt the “sense of inevitability that comes with trend lines that don’t seem to ever change.”
Earlier this year, L.A. County officials said they were relieved to see that the rate of deadly overdoses had stopped surging among unhoused people in 2022. Health officials credited a dramatic increase in community distribution of naloxone, a medication that can rescue people from an opioid overdose.
The flattening numbers also echo early estimates on the national level, which showed that overdose deaths had fallen slightly last year in the U.S. Experts have cautioned against declaring victory, however.
“It’s too early to tell,” said Dr. David Goodman-Meza, an overdose researcher in L.A. County who works with Wellness Equity Alliance. “On an optimistic side, we would hope that this flattening is related to all the harm reduction activities that we’ve been undertaking” in L.A. County and nationwide, such as handing out more naloxone, as well as making it easier to access medications that help people shake off addiction.
But in the past, the U.S. has seen deadly overdoses dip one year, only to resurge. “It’s hard to know at this point if we’re in the eye of the storm,” Goodman-Meza said.
As drug-related deaths have slowed nationally, health researchers have also raised the grim possibility that fentanyl has had such a devastating effect that there are fewer people remaining to be killed.
Fentanyl and methamphetamine have both played a fatal role in drug deaths in L.A. County, with many overdoses involving a mixture of drugs. The updated analysis from the L.A. County Department of Public Health focused specifically on the toll of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has caused a skyrocketing number of deaths in the county — rising from 109 to 1,970 fatalities between 2016 and 2023.
Among the other findings:
- Death rates from fentanyl dropped for young adults ages 18 to 25 for the second year in a row but continued rising for other age groups, particularly adults ages 26 to 39. Tsai said one possible reason is that for younger people, it may be easier to avoid risky decisions before they have started using drugs regularly. “For them, the decision may be, ‘OK, there’s this bowl of pills at this party I’m at — I’m not going to do it,’” Tsai said. “It’s easier to hold back on that than someone who’s been using methamphetamine for the past 20 years trying to avoid fentanyl-tainted drugs.”
- There is a growing gap in the mortality rate from fentanyl overdoses between Black and white residents: The death rate from fentanyl continued to grow for Black residents of L.A. County, hitting a point roughly twice as high as that among white residents, whose mortality rate from fentanyl fell slightly last year. “We’re beginning to sort of bend the curve in the right way on overdose deaths, but not for everybody,” said Ricky Bluthenthal, a professor of population and public health sciences at USC’s Keck School of Medicine. Harm reduction has had “a historic challenge in consistently reaching Black communities,” he said. In the past, Bluthenthal and fellow researchers found that in L.A. and San Francisco, Black and Latino people were less likely to have received naloxone than white people. In light of the widening gap, he said, the question in L.A. County should be, “What can we be doing different that’s going to make sure that Black folks who are using fentanyl have naloxone readily available to them?”
- Latino residents also saw a rising rate of fentanyl-related deaths. Although their rate remained lower than that of white people in L.A. County, the increase drove the number of Latinos in L.A. County who died from fentanyl above the number of white residents killed by fentanyl for the first time, public health officials said.
- Although fentanyl has taken lives in rich neighborhoods and poor ones, the death rate from fentanyl was at least twice as high in the poorest areas of L.A. County than in areas with lower poverty. The rate of fentanyl deaths continued to surge in the poorest parts of the county. The report also divided L.A. County into geographic regions and found that the rate of fentanyl-related deaths has been starkest in its “Metro” region, which spans from Eastside neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights and El Sereno to West Hollywood and includes downtown L.A., Westlake and Hollywood.
Nearly a year ago, I scribbled “Replace Brita filter” on my to-do list. But the errand perpetually fell by the wayside. There were so many more pressing tasks to complete.
“Oh, it’s fine,” I thought. “How bad can it be?”
Let’s just say that a day into reporting this story, I ran out to the market and bought a three-pack.
We reach for our water taps more than almost any other object in our homes — to brush our teeth, wash our faces, make coffee or tea in the morning. To cook meals, rinse dishes and wipe countertops. To water the plants, do laundry and fill our pets’ bowls. To shower and shave. And most often for a drink.
In L.A., water rules everything around us. Drink up, cool off and dive into our stories about hydrating and recreating in the city.
But how much do you really know about what’s in your tap water? And if you filter it, are you using the right technology? Many of us may not be fully aware of where our water even comes from.
That’s because the water that flows into our homes in the L.A. area can be surprisingly different, ZIP Code to ZIP Code. The level of arsenic found in Compton’s tap water may differ wildly from that found in Glendale. Malibu’s tap water may have more hexavalent chromium while Pasadena’s doesn’t have any. One tap does not fit all.
“Where you are, the location, it really makes a difference in your water quality,” said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy group focusing on environmental health.
We went to the source, so to speak — experts in the realms of science, academia and water filtration — to help you navigate the often complicated, ever-fluid world of residential tap water, so that you can make smarter and more informed choices about how to purify your H20.
L.A.’s water sources | Federal and state protections | Determining your water quality | How to test | How to filter | The bare minimum
L.A.’s water sources
Like most major cities, the Greater Los Angeles area is served by a dizzying number of community water systems. In California, there are 2,913 of them to serve about 39.025 million people — and those are just the larger ones that operate year-round, according to the EWG’s Tap Water Database.
Each utility company treats the water in its assigned municipality differently before it flows through consumers’ faucets. That’s because each draws from different water sources. One area’s tap may be coming from rivers and lakes (otherwise categorized as “surface water”) while another’s could be pumped from wells from beneath layers of rock and sediment (categorized as “groundwater”).
Depending on where the water travels, it may pick up different undesirable contaminants. Surface water, for example, could have runoff that includes nitrate used to fertilize land in agricultural areas. Groundwater could have naturally occurring chemical elements, such as arsenic, that come from bedrock.
More often than not, L.A. area tap water comes from a mix of these sources. Our utility companies draw from different aqueducts, those large, often concrete ditches or canals that extend from the source to the water treatment plant. From there it flows through pipes, underground, to your home.
In 2023, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — which serves about 4 million people throughout the city of Los Angeles — sourced its tap water from the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the California Aqueduct and the Colorado River Aqueduct as well as from local groundwater, according to its most recent drinking water quality report.
The specific geographic location of a water source also determines what ends up in your tap water. A lake near a highly industrial area risks containing more pollutants than water coming from a lake in the High Sierras.
Another reason the water might be different between ZIP Codes: Utility companies have different resources at their disposal.
“The size of the drinking water system can be an indicator of the drinking water quality,” Stoiber said. “It’s based on economy of scale. The larger ones have more resources for treatment. Smaller systems can be at a bit more of an economic disadvantage.”
Federal and state water protections
There are federal regulations that require utility companies to stay below maximum contaminant levels for more than 90 pollutants in drinking water. They’re also required to publish an annual consumer confidence report with information about contaminant levels and water sources.
“But many of our drinking water regulations were set in the ’70s and ’80 and are not as protective as they should be,” Stoiber said. “There are contaminants in your drinking water that don’t have regulations around them.”
How harmful these contaminants are, and how much you’d have to ingest over time to affect your health, is contested. But in general, however many pollutants you might find in L.A.’s tap water, there are not enough to make you seriously ill in one gulp.
Some good news: In April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized new regulations around a family of about 15,000 chemicals known as PFAS. They’re often referred to as the “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment. California also voted in April to finalize a limit for hexavalent chromium, or “Chrome 6,” which many people know as the carcinogenic chemical that the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. contaminated residents’ groundwater with, from 1952 to 1966, in Hinkley, Calif. — the legal upshot of which was depicted in the film “Erin Brockovich.” But those changes won’t be immediate.
“Upgrading water treatment plants is expensive and takes years,” said USC’s Daniel McCurry, who researches water supply and treatment. “Most smaller utilities, especially, just won’t have the money to make the upgrades in the initial time frame.”
2027, McCurry notes, is the deadline for utilities to complete their “initial monitoring” before the new regulations for PFAS go into effect in 2029.
(Henry Hargreaves / For The Times)
How to determine your water quality
So where to start? It’s easier than it might seem. First, search for your consumer confidence report on your utility company’s website. You can then cross-reference that information with EWG’s free Tap Water Database, which allows you to type in your ZIP Code (look for the prompt “Is your water safe?”). It then will populate your water utility company and the number of people it serves. From there, you can click on “View Utility” to produce an easy-to-decipher report listing the source of your water and contaminants detected in it.
When I typed my own Silver Lake ZIP Code in for a water quality analysis, the results did not put me at ease. It listed nine contaminants detected in my water, among them bromate and uranium. Some of these were found at levels that far exceeded the standards of the EWG but were still below the legal limit.
I called the LADWP to make sense of what I’ve found.
“There’s no health concern,” LADWP’s director of water quality, Jonathan Leung, said of my findings, stressing that the contaminants were far below the federally mandated legal limit. “That’s where, collectively, all the toxicologists and water quality specialists and scientists have worked together to set national standards. As a water quality utility, that’s what we set our sights on. The public should take confidence that the legal limits are protective of public health — and we strive to do better than that.”
McCurry added that the EWG and EPA have different standards for the amount of contaminants found in water.
“When the EPA sets a water contaminant limit, it’s a balance between protecting public health while staying realistic about the treatment technology we have and how much it costs,” McCurry said. “Everyone’s perception or tolerance of risk is different, but for me, personally, I drink water straight from the tap and don’t worry about it. It’s very unlikely you’ll get sick from tap water, assuming the tap water meets federal regulations.”
How to test your water at home
Whatever your personal tolerance level, you can improve both the quality and taste of your tap water by choosing the right filter, experts say.
But, given the array of filtration products and techniques on the market, that’s easier said than done. Choosing from options like “ion-exchange demineralization,” “ultraviolet sterilization” and “chemical feed pumps” can be intimidating.
Take a breath. Then step back. Filtering should be a tailored approach, said Brian Campbell, founder of Water Filter Guru, which lab-tests and reports on residential water treatment methods and products.
“There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all water treatment solution,” Campbell said.
He added that even after reading utility consumer reports and nonprofit chemical analyses, you still may need to know more.
“[Those reports] will give you a general sense but not the whole picture, Campbell said. “Because water can be recontaminated after it leaves the treatment plant — like if your home has old plumbing with lead piping. But it’s a start.”
You can test your home’s water quality yourself using fairly affordable water test strips, available for about $15 in stores such as Home Depot. These, Campbell said, will “give you an indication of a handful of the most common 12 to 15 contaminants like lead, arsenic, chromium, nitrate possibly.” However it will only give you a range of those aforementioned contaminants, not the exact concentration in your water.
If you want specific information about the chemical levels, you can run a more in-depth test. The best way to do that, Campbell said, is through a certified lab, where the cost ranges from roughly $100 to more than $1,000 depending on how comprehensive you want to get.
How to choose a filter
Once you know what’s in your water, you’ll be able to choose the right filter technology to treat it, Campbell said. Here’s what he suggests using for some of the most common issues.
PFAS. This is the family of about 15,000 chemicals used for their water repellent and oil repellent properties, such as in nonstick pans or fast food packaging. “The most studied filtration method for this is activated carbon adsorption,” Campbell said. “It’s the most common technology used in pitcher filtration. Even the most simple water pitcher filters should theoretically reduce PFAS.” Reverse osmosis filtration systems also will address PFAS — it’s one of the most thorough techniques and includes activated carbon as one of its stages. Historically, these pricy systems were installed directly into sink pipes, but countertop versions now are available for renters.
Microplastics. “They get into the environment and break down into smaller and smaller pieces — so small you’d need a microscope to see them,” Campbell said. The best technique to address those — because they are suspended particles, floating in the water and not dissolved — is mechanical filtration, he said. The technology removes suspended particles, like pipe rust or sand and grit coming from a hot water heater. Reverse osmosis also would work. Distillation would be effective as well and is, per Campbell, one of the best to get rid of nearly all common contaminants. But, Campbell warned, “It requires a massive amount of energy and time to treat and distill a relatively small volume of water — so not the most practical.”
Disinfection byproducts. This is a group of chemicals created when common water disinfectants — typically chlorine — interact with organic matter (such as dirt or rust) that’s already present in the pipes that run from the distribution plant to your home or office, Campbell said. “Activated carbon adsorption is the best way to deal with this. Reverse osmosis will also deal with them because a component of that [technique] is activated carbon.”
Pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer. “This is more of an issue in agricultural areas,” Campbell said. Typically, he added, they can be treated using activated carbon and reverse osmosis.
Fluoride. Tap water is fluoridated in many areas because of its dental health benefits. But recent research suggests that prenatal exposure to fluoride may be linked to increased risk of neurobehavioral problems in children at age 3. “Reverse osmosis would be the best treatment for this, but there are a few adsorption media that can reduce fluoride, like a filter using bone char carbon (activated carbon that comes from animal bones) or a filter using activated alumina media, another adsorption media,” said Campbell.
Heavy metals. Lead is obviously the most infamous heavy metal water contaminant, but consumers also should watch out for arsenic (primarily from groundwater) and chromium 6 (which comes from industrial manufacturing). “Typically, for metals, reverse osmosis is the best option,” said Campbell. “Activated carbon works for chromium 6 but not for arsenic. Distillation, again, gets rid of everything but it’s not practical.”
Hard water. Hard water is caused by mineral buildup, which isn’t bad for your health but can create limescale on appliances like your water heater. It also can affect your beauty routine. “Soap doesn’t lather as well with hard water,” said Campbell. “Your hair might feel brittle and it can irritate skin issues like eczema.” He recommends treating the issue at the water point of entry to the home with cation exchange resin, a type of ion exchange.
The best way to know if a product is actually capable of doing what it claims to do, Campbell said, is to look up its performance certifications. “You can do that in databases through the Water Quality Assn., the National Sanitation Foundation and the International Assn. of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials.”
The bare minimum
If nothing else, Stoiber urged consumers to peruse the EWG’s guide to countertop filters — and to purchase one.
Though McCurry is content drinking from the tap, he agreed it couldn’t hurt. “If you have reason to believe there are, say, PFAS above the future regulation target, then yeah, get a Brita filter,” he said.
Needless to say, that task is no longer on my to-do list.
You made it , longer than about percent of readers so far.
The Painting
As you may recall, the painting you just spent time with is “Nocturne in Blue and Silver,” by the American artist James McNeill Whistler. (You may be familiar with one of Whistler’s more famous paintings — a portrait of his mother.)
The one you just spent time with currently hangs on the second floor of the Harvard Art Museums:
Lauren O’Neil for The New York Times
The painting, part of a series that Whistler started in the late 1860s, shows the industrial banks of the River Thames in London in hazy blue tones.
In an 1885 lecture on the interaction between nature and the artist, Whistler spoke of the transition from day to night, “when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night.”
That mark we just saw is Whistler’s “signature,” and we see a version of it in many of his paintings. It is derived from the form of a butterfly; he iterated on the symbol throughout his life.
And the second reflection? Well, this is where things get fun. You may crave a definitive answer, but the painting itself doesn’t really provide one.
Kate Smith, a senior conservator of paintings and head of the paintings lab at the Harvard Art Museums, has looked at infrared photographs of the painting. She has a theory of her own.
She believes Whistler may have started the painting one way and then simply changed his mind, flipped the panel upside down and started over.
Ms. Smith explained that this mystery reflection could be what’s called a pentimento — a change to a piece of art that slowly emerges over time. It’s possible that when this painting was finished, this reflection wasn’t there — by design. It may have emerged only decades later.
Or Whistler may have intentionally left the ghostly reflection in for us to see. He described the paintings in this series as arrangements of “line, form and color first.” Once, he was asked to confirm if figures in another painting were people. He wouldn’t say one way or another.
“They are just what you like,” he said.
(If you want, look again now that you know more.)
The Point
This painting was well suited as a subject of our experiment: It has mysteries revealed upon close inspection. But the point of the exercise was not exactly for you to notice the mysteries. It was just to get you to notice at all.
The act of focusing is both possible and valuable, researchers say, no matter how intimidating or pointless it might seem. That’s particularly important in a world where typical office workers spend an average of less than a minute at a time on any one screen, according to research by Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “Attention Span.”
When you’re used to a manic social media feed, “it’s hard to pay attention to content that doesn’t change,” she said.
Think again about the time you spent looking at the painting.
At first, you may have felt that it was too dull to hold your interest for even 10 seconds, much less 10 minutes.
When Professor Roberts at Harvard first conceived of this assignment — the three-hour version — she saw it as a launching point to help students write an art history research paper. But these days she also sees it as a way to teach patience. (She recommended this Whistler painting for our exercise.)
Many of her students, she says, react to the assignment with “horror.” (This may have happened to you, too.)
“It’s a combination of, ‘Oh, my God, that’s impossible,’” she said. “And also at the same time, the sense that it’s remedial.”
But they usually find the experience, as you may have, neither too difficult nor too simple. The students see that they did not notice everything worth seeing in the painting at first glance, she said. And they find that by being a little bored, and a little outside their comfort zone, they can see something new.
If you liked the way you felt, try the exercise again with any piece of art. Or, if you’re feeling bolder, print out Professor Roberts’s original assignment. Then go to a museum, pick a work of art and settle in.
Consider also a song, or a poem. Or skip art altogether.
“You can just go look at a tree,” she said. “You can look at a rock.”
Your attention is a product of a lot of things, said Professor Mark, not all of which are in your power. But a little practice can help. “We do many behaviors that are automatic,” she said. “Becoming aware of such automatic behaviors is a skill, and we can then better control where we place our attention.”
And with that skill honed, you may linger more, and better.
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