Mineral water

According to the American Dental Association, bottled mineral water does not contain sufficient levels of fluoride to prevent cavities, especially in young children. Studies have shown that drinking fluoridated water can reduce caries by as much as 40%. Even though adding fluoride to tap water is a cost-effective public health measure, in the UK, only 10% of the population receives fluoridated tap water, as opposed to more than 50% in the US. Although many children now take bottled water to school, few bottled waters contain sufficient levels of fluoride to be effective against tooth decay. Under British law, fluoride in natural mineral water must be labelled where it has exceeded 1.5 mg per litre, with a maximum allowed fluoride limit of 5 mg/l. A study published in the BDJ in 2003 concluded that bottled water is unlikely to make an important contribution to total fluoride intake in British diets.

Quinine

Quinine was a lifesaver. The beneficial compounds are found in the bark of the cinchona tree (a genus of some 24 trees), which grows on the slopes of the Andes Mountains. For centuries, the bark was stripped from the tree, dried and powdered, then mixed with a liquid and drunk. The tree was given its name in 1742 by the botanist Linnaeus, who named it after a Countess of Chinchon, wife of a Spanish viceroy to Peru. As the story is told, the countess contracted malaria in Peru in 1638, was successfully treated with the local remedy made from the bark of the tree and then introduced it to Europe in 1640. It took 177 years, until 1817, for medicinal quinine, used to treat malaria, to be isolated and extracted from the bark by French researchers Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou. The name is derived from the Quechua (Inca) word for the cinchona tree bark, quina or quina-quina, which translates to “bark of bark” or “holy bark.”
A tonic flavored Water. An odorless, tasteless, colorless liquid made up of a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Water forms streams, lakes, and seas, and is a major constituent of all living matter.