Does water content affect neurological growth?

[Kryzantine]

I may do this for the Intel competition, in 3 years.

See, I've been thinking. NYC's drinking water has obviously been filled with something that's super good, because we're pumping out Intel finalists like crazy and the Giants have been dominating the whole post-season. And Conan has honestly never been funnier.

But that's not what I want to talk about. You see, the Yellow River in China contains a very high silt content, and it also contains pretty high traces of iron and zinc. What does this mean? This means, in a nutshell, that the area around the river will suffer extreme growth due to the biochemical properties of these two chemicals, since silt containing these chemicals is used for farming.

In India, the Ganges River contains higher levels of selenium than most sources. Since this is used as drinking water, it is a very unlikely, but definitely not improbable way to catch selenium poisoning. The Ganges contains more harmful chemicals that result in a number of very strange growth deficiencies.

Now, does the chemical content of rivers affect neurological growth? Because, some sources may affect the surrounding region positively when it comes to growth, and some areas negatively. Will people generally have their intelligence affected by the very water they drink? To put it this way, are you truly what you drink?

Again, kinda looking to take this for an Intel project.

[Simetrical]

Well, yes, obviously the content of water affects neurological growth. If the water happens to be full of lead or mercury, for instance, you're going to see increases in mental retardation and other serious defects.

I don't know if it will help if it contains more iron or zinc, or whatever, than usual. Certainly too much zinc is poisonous*― actually, my family had a bird who died from zinc poisoning when we used a water dish that contained a galvanized screw. Too much iron is poisonous too, it seems, although maybe that's less of an issue (because iron is less reactive and so less digestible, perhaps?). To be fair, too much water is also poisonous! The poison is in the dose, and sufficiently moderate amounts in the water aren't going to hurt.

Basically I expect that having some vital minerals in the water will help somewhat insofar as reducing deficiencies, but if you're already getting enough iron or zinc, I doubt having it in the water will help you. The logic that if X mg a day is necessary, then twice that much must be even better, is great for parting people from their money and giving them extremely expensive urine, but not very logical or accurate.

[roy34543]

Well i think that terrible water does affect your neurological growth.
But i highly doubt high-quality water would make it better then regular water.

[Kaznecki]

I'd say if we put vitamins and minerals in the drinking water, it could influence neurological growth as well as physical. Anyone want to drink milk, WHO CARES! Drink water instead its got calcium in it.

What about if they put stuff like Omega fatty acids in the water (gross as it sounds)?

[Simetrical]

Well, first of all, fat doesn't mix with water well. Second of all, the amount of fat you need per day is orders of magnitude greater than the amount of vitamins and minerals you need: grams instead of milligrams, in many cases. Any useful amount of fat in the water would be pretty noticeable as far as things like taste. And finally, adding any substantial amount of fat to the water would give it outright nutritional value, i.e., it would have calories, which would throw everyone's diets crazily out of whack. Not to mention I expect free nutrition like that would be happily gobbled up by all sorts of critters. And many other difficulties in that vein.