Killing Me Softly With Chlorine In Drinking Water

Want an idea of how harmful chlorine in drinking water can be. In the 2000 Olympic games in Australia, the United States swim team shockingly announced that 25% of its members suffered asthma. Research was conducted to find out why in particular, the US swimming team suffered from this illness. The results were shocking.

Whilst it has long been known that chloramines and Trihalomethanes (THMs) worsens asthma symptoms, the studies showed that these harmful contaminants (which are the byproducts of chlorine and is found in tap water) can cause previously healthy individuals to get asthma.

How Does Chlorine Affect You.

For decades, the chlorine in our drinking water has been used as a disinfectant, to get rid of bacteria and other harmful pathogens.

When chlorine interact with other organic substances such as skin particles, hair follicles and water-borne bacteria, they form Trihalomethanes (THMs), a medically proven asthma-inducing chemical. So when you drink a glass of tap water, you are increasing your risk of contracting this illness.

And even if you take a shower, you are at risk. When you take a hot shower, the chlorine turns into steam and is inhaled. This could be even more dangerous than ingesting chlorine via a glass of water.

The U.S. EPA backs this up by saying that just about every American household has elevated levels of chloroform gas indoors. Even when you wash the dishes or flush the toilets, you are elevating the chloroform levels in your home.

By the way, it is not only asthma that chlorine is linked to. In 1986, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that 200 to 1000 people yearly in America may die from cancer, caused by food being cooked in chlorinated water.

Apart from the adverse health effects of this contaminant, have you ever noticed that after a swim in a pool, your skin gets drier and your hair is brittle. That is as a result of chlorine and it is the same things that happens after you have a shower in chlorinated tap water.

Reducing Chlorine In Our Drinking Water

With asthma now the leading illness that causes student absenteeism in the U.S, the response to this illness is still a pharmaceutical one.

More drugs to curb the problem rather than also advocating a way to prevent the problem. If you child has asthma or doesn't have it (and you don't want him to get it), why not improve the air quality in your home.

You can do this by acquiring a whole house water filtration system which will remove chlorine in drinking water. You can also go for cheaper alternatives. You could buy a shower head water filter or a counter top water filter for drinking.

The advantage of the wholehouse water system is that this one unit alone can provide safe, chlorine-free water to every tap in your home as opposed to you buying a different filter for each tap.

What To Do Now

Chlorine in drinking water is a serious matter. Now is as good a time as any to get a quality whole house water filter and give your family safer drinking water. The only question is now is how to determine what water filtration unit is quality and which is not.

Drinking Water Containers & The Dangers They Are Hiding

Ok, picture this for a moment. You acquire a good water filtration unit because you have heard about the terrible contaminants in drinking water. You then proceed to store your clean drinking water into a plastic drinking water container.

Well, you have potentially began the process of undoing the good work that your water filter has done. Glass is the most ideal container to store clean, drinking water unlike plastic bottles which can adversely affect your water.

What Is Wrong With Plastic.

Plastic is cheap and convenient but that is about it. In the production of plastic, BPA or Bisphenol A and other harmful contaminants is used. Over time, as you water is stored in a plastic bottle, BPA is leached into your water especially when exposed to higher temperatures.

Many experts have expressed serious concerns about this. Breast cancer, fertility, thyroid and neurological problems have all been linked to BPA getting into your body.

Not all experts agree on the adverse health effects of BPA though. They contend that only minute amounts of it is released in the water and hence, it is safe to use. But is this a chance you really want to take especially when there are better alternatives.

A study claimed that there are potentially 2100 cancer causing that can contaminate our tap water. And even though those contaminants are in trace amounts, many studies have linked them to serious diseases, as we drink tap water over time. Therefore, the fact that BPA is in trace amounts is particularly comforting.

If you must use plastic drinking water containers, use the ones that are BPA free. You can know BPA free plastic bottles by looking at the bottom of the container and seeing if the the the digit "7" placed in the middle of a triangle. If you don't see "7" but some other digit placed in the middle of the triangle, then it is not BPA free.

Why Glass

Glass is a lot more chemically stable that plastic and won't leach chemicals into your tap water when exposed to heat.

There is also something more aesthetically pleasing about storing water in a glass drinking water container than in a plastic bottle. Seeing a glass of pure drinking water, will encourage you and your children to drink more water, hopefully at the expense of unhealthy sugar-laden sodas.

Glass is also more friendly to our environment. When you think of the millions of plastic bottles that are disposed of daily and the negative impact it has on our environment, you realize that we each have a part to play in making our planet pollution-free.

Using glass to store drinking water is one way you could play a part in making the planet cleaner.

Another great option for storing water is to buy food grade stainless steal bottles, similar to the ones used by campers and hikers. These also won't leach any contaminants in your drinking water and are very durable.

Conclusion.

Getting a water filtration system is a great start to your quest for optimum health and safety. But please also place importance on what you are using for a drinking water container.

Not only could this impact on the quality of your drinking water but on your environment as well.