Travelling abroad is often exciting and rewarding, but there is nothing worse than coming down with an acute bout of diarrhoea. An incredible ten million people a year are afflicted according to the US-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, good news is on the way. A new bottled water, designed to help travellers combat Montezuma's Revenge, has been developed by Nautilus Mineral Waters of America. The company's Mile High Natural Spring Water uses colloidal silver as a bacteriostatic agent as a preventive agent against diarrhoea.
According to the World Health Organisation, silver salts can be used to maintain the bacteriological quality of drinking water. Levels of silver up to 0.1 mg/litre can be tolerated without any risk to health.
Most water filter companies in Canada use silver salts in their carbon water filters as a bacteriostatic agent. The activated carbon in Brita Filters, for example, is impregnated with silver to inhibit bacterial growth within the filter. Over a half million silver-impregnated carbon filters where sold in Canada last year.
The development of Mile High Spring Water should ensure that travellers are afforded the same level of protection.
"The use of silver as a bacteriostatic agent in an ozonated bottled water can be an effective prophylactic if you forget and brush your teeth with airline tap water; a quick oral rinse should do the trick," said Jeff Weiss, president and chief executive of Nautilus Mineral Waters of America.
Nautilus Mineral Waters of America's Mile High Natural Spring Water is ozonated and packaged in a unique PET bottle and comes in 500ml, litre and 1.5-litre travel size. The firm's products are bottled at strategic locations throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.