Beneficial Effect of Sustainable Magnetic Treatment of Tap Water Investigations with Cultivated Intestinal Epithelial Cells

(Electro)magnetic fields have been used as a tap water treatment since more than 60 years to prevent water pipe walls from the unwanted deposition of calcium carbonate. In the meantime a lot of research has been done on the effects of magnetic or electromagnetic treatment of water. Most of them deal with physiochemical aspects and only a few report on biological effects on prokaryotes or cultured mammalian cells. Intestinal health plays a key role in respect to systemic health and the intestinal epithelial barrier comes directly into contact with drinking water, the effect of magnetic tap water treatment on the integrity of the intestinal epithelial barrier was investigated by measurement of the transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER). Moreover, the sensitivity of the intestinal epithelial barrier against oxidative stress was investigated. Since the regeneration process of intestinal epithelial cells is essential for the reconstitution and maintenance of the barrier integrity after injury or traumatization in vivo, this aspect was also examined with water ± magnetic treatment. The animal cell line IPEC-J2 was used for the investigations. Local tap water (= initial source water) was obtained before and after magnetic treatment with water core magnets which show a very weak field strength with high magnetic gradients as a special characteristic. TEER increased by 28.5 ± 6.8% after incubation with the tap water with magnetic treatment when compared to the initial tap water (mean value ± standard deviation; p ≤ 0.01 by the two-tailed Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney rank sum test). Measurement of TEER after oxidative stress showed no marked difference between both tap water samples ± magnetic treatment. In both experimental series there was a significant reduction in TEER by more than 90 % representing a leaky intestinal epithelial cell layer due to oxidative stress. Despite this fact the number of cells in the initial tap water sample was largely decreased whereas the cell density in the treated water samples was much higher. The magnetic treatment of the tap water improved the regeneration of the intestinal epithelial cells by 17.4 ± 7.2% (mean value ± standard deviation; p ≤ 0.05 by the two-tailed Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney rank sum test) when compared with the initial tap water. The results of the study demonstrate that the water core magnets as used here are able to influence tap water and, subsequently, induce beneficial cellular effects on cultured intestinal epithelial cells. Thus, the tap water with magnetic treatment might be able to promote and maintain intestinal and systemic health in vivo.