Background: The purpose of study was to evaluate and compare chemical quality of Iranian bottled
drinking water reported on manufacturer's labeling and standards.
Methods: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive study and done during July to December 2008.
The bottled mineral water collected from shops randomly were analyzed for all parameters address on
manufacturer's labeling and the results were compared with the manufacturer's labeling data, WHO
Guideline Values, USEPA Maximum Contaminant Levels and the maximum contaminant levels of drinking
water imposed by the Iranian legislation. Statistical analysis on data was done with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov
test for normal distribution, the paired t-test to compare the data with manufacturer's labeling
and the one-sample t-test to compare with standard and MCL values at P < 0.05 of confidence level.
Results: The results showed a statistically significant difference with manufacturer's labeling values,
however there was no significant difference between the values of magnesium and pH and manufacturer's
labeling values (P> 0.05). In addition, pH and calcium values were significantly higher than
their proposed values indicated by Iranian National Legislation and international MCLs (P< 0.05).
Conclusion: Our results are extremely important for the health supervisory agencies such as Ministry
of Health and Institute of Standards & Industrial Research of Iran to have more effective controls on
bottled water industries, and to improve periodical the proposed standard values
