Chlorination & Fluoride

Every day our bodies are under constant assault by toxic substances, a great many of which are hard or impossible to completely avoid.

Besides the industries that put known toxins into your air, food and water, there are also synthetic chemicals in most products on your supermarket shelves. ("Better living through chemistry" really has become the accepted standard for our modern world.)

But as we are learning the hard way through the explosion of degenerative diseases in the modern world, many chemicals -- especially man-made ones -- can do much more harm to your body than good!

In our opinion, one of the biggest hazards to your health comes from something you are likely taking for granted: the water you drink and the water you bathe in.

It’s vitally important for you to secure a clean and healthy source of water, and this is easily done by installing one or more types of water purification in your house -- I will talk more about that in a minute, but first let’s discuss your water quality report...

What your Water Quality Report will and will not tell you

Well, your body is mostly water. And it requires a constant daily supply of water to detoxify your system. In other words, to fuel all the various waste filtration systems nature has designed to keep your body healthy and free of toxins. Your blood, your kidneys, and your liver all require a source of good clean water to rid your body of the toxins you come in contact with daily.

When you give your body water that is filled with toxins leached from plastic, or filled with by-products from chlorination, or with volatile organic compounds, or water that is contaminated by pesticides or hormones, or water that is acid, you are asking your body to work twice as hard, because it must first detoxify the water you are drinking -- before that water can be used to fuel your organs of detoxification!

Contaminants Over Guidelines

Your first concern in looking over a water quality report from your municipal district is to look for which contaminants are over established guidelines: for example are there organic chemicals, heavy metals, chlorine which are present in excess of the established guidelines? This is not as uncommon as you may think:

Did you know, for example, that more than 20 percent of U.S. water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act (over the last six years), yet fewer than six percent of the violations were ever fined or punished? This is to say nothing of the violations that go unnoticed in this time of budgetary restraints and lack of regulation and oversight!

Contaminants Under Guidelines

If only we could trust municipal and federal guidelines to protect us.

If you live in a city and rely on the local water processing plant to provide you with clean water, I have some disturbing news for you: You simply cannot trust municipal sources or government agencies to keep your water clean.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg recently told ABC News that there are more than 140 chemical in US drinking water supplies that are not regulated by the EPA. This includes gasoline, pesticides, rocket fuel, prescription drugs, and more.

Governments are more concerned with providing water that doesn't kill you through -- for example -- diarrhea, and they do a good job at that, although some microorganisms (cysts and parasites) do survive the chlorination process (cryptosporidium, Giardia, for instance) and can lead to isolated outbreaks of disease and even death to those with compromised immune systems.

In general, although there are guidelines for many contaminants, there is no conclusive proof of “safe levels” for many of the contaminants found in drinking water, including heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, hormones and the by-products of chlorination.

The truth of the matter is it would cost the government trillions of dollars to provide truly clean water into the pipes of your house.

The resources to provide this just aren't there. It never has been and it probably never will be, especially with the downturn in the economy

The Problems with Municipal Water Treatment

Sewage spilling into waterways is a common occurrence. In fact, the New York Times reported that in the last three years more than 9,400 of the 25,000 U.S. sewage systems have violated the law by dumping untreated or partially treated human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers, lakes and other waterways.

Some natural lakes and bodies of water are now either approaching "dead", unable to support life, or are dead. And these dead bodies of water continue to be the source of drinking water for millions of people!

Male frogs and bass are now found in nature with ovaries growing on their testes, and seven year-old girls are now reaching sexual maturity. Scientists have linked both of these phenomenon to the estrogen mimicking hormones now commonly found in our lakes, streams and drinking supplies.

Nearly every municipal water supply also has fluoride added during water treatment, which despite any dental benefits, can be detrimental to your health

The hazards of chlorinated water.

Not only chlorine, but more importantly its by-products (Disinfection By-products, DBPs) are responsible for the toxic effects of chlorinated water. (such as reproductive disorders and cancers of the bladder and rectum).

The most common disinfectant by-products formed when chlorine is used are trihalomethanes. These “THMs” are Cancer Group B carcinogens, meaning they've been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals.

One such study found that smoking men who drank chlorinated tap water for more than 40 years faced double the risk of bladder cancer compared with smoking men who drank non-chlorinated water. A second study found that rates for rectal cancers for both sexes escalated with duration of consumption of chlorinated water. Individuals on low-fiber diets who also drank chlorinated water for over 40 years more than doubled their risk for rectal cancer, compared with lifetime drinkers of non-chlorinated water.

As the vast majority of the population continues to receive and consume disinfected or chlorinated drinking water, we can assume that North Americans are consuming disinfection by-products every single day, and the number of related cancer cases could be substantial.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Canada Health take the dangers of THMs -- which are measured in parts per billion -- very seriously, and regulate these compounds. The maximum annual average of THMs in your local water supply is not supposed to exceed 80 ppb (parts-per-billion). Even though these levels are allowed, ideally it would be best to have zero. These levels have been regularly adjusted downwards over the years as science progresses and gain a deeper appreciation of their true toxicity.

Drinking Chlorinated Water is not the Only Health Concern

But the sad truth is, the chlorine, DBPs, and toxic chemicals found in your urban water supply also pose a health threat to your lungs and skin.

Why?

Because when you heat the water in your shower or your bath, you are releasing chlorine, DPBs, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), pesticides, herbicides – all of it – into the air you breathe! And onto your skin, your body's largest organ of absorption. Scary but true: by taking a seven-minute shower you are exposed to far more chlorine, DPBs, and VOCs alone than by drinking a gallon of tap water.

And this is significant for two reasons:

• The chlorine that enters your lungs is in the form of chloroform, a carcinogen, and chlorite, a byproduct of chlorine dioxide. These forms of chlorine hit your bloodstream instantly before they have a chance to be removed by your organs of detoxification. 
• The DBPs that enter your body through your skin also go directly into your bloodstream. And the warm or hot water maximizes absorption by your skin. So unless you are regularly taking one minute cold showers, your body is like a sponge for these airborne toxins every second you spend in a shower.
  In fact it's estimated that only five percent of all volatile organic compounds make it down the drain of your shower. The other 95 percent are sent into the air you breathe, or directly into your bloodstream.
  By the way -- bathing in municipal tap water is not a solution to avoiding the damage done in the shower, because the hot water on your skin facilitates absorption, and your skin is drinking in all those harmful DPBs every second that you lay luxuriating in that hot bath.
  Now, this is painful news to a lot of people. Because you don't really want to look at your shower as your home's greatest source of toxic indoor pollution, do you? For some people, that long morning shower or that luxurious night-time bath is one of the highlights of their day!
  Additionally, the chlorine and DPBs are not great for your skin and hair, either. You know how you feel after you swim for even a little while in a chlorinated pool? The dry skin, the red eyes, the damaged hair – all of this chemical damage is going on in your home's shower and bath as well!
  It’s not enough to remove contaminants...your drinking water can actually PROMOTE your health! 

Even if you were to remove the chlorine and common contaminants from your tap water through the usual methods used in the past: carbon filtration, reverse osmosis, distillation and (most) bottled water, you would still be drinking water that is acid and oxidizing (the opposite of an antioxidant). You can see this demonstrated here.

Many people are becoming aware that maintaining a proper alkaline balance in the body is key to preventing chronic disease; and many know that antioxidants are essential to a strong immune system. But not so many are aware that the common water purification methods listed above leave you with water that is acid and oxidizing.

But it doesn’t have to be that way-- your drinking water can actually promote your health. In just a moment, I’ll suggest how.

How You Can Avoid All of These Assaults on Your Health
To summarize my advice, of almost equal importance are: water purification for your drinking water, and a shower filter.

For drinking water purification we suggest a system that will not only remove contaminants through purification, but will also ensure that the water you’re drinking is alkaline and an antioxidant.

Some Final Thoughts about Your Personal Water Consumption

Lastly, the single highest source of calories in America is high fructose corn syrup, primarily from soda. The average North American is now drinking one gallon of soda a week! If you are not familiar with all of the health problems linked to high fructose corn syrup, you owe it to yourself to find out. And diet sodas are no better! Artificial sweeteners are just another poison you don’t want inside your body

The most important health recommendation I can make for most people is to replace soda or diet soda with ionized water – pure, clean, and alkaline, the healthiest water you can find. And to drink LOTS of water, at least 8 glasses a day. If you are spending your money on bottled water, you may be throwing that money away. Bottled water is actually less regulated than common tap water; you can never be certain what will be in it. (That’s not even mentioning the cost and environmental problems!)

The fact is, you need high quality clean water if you are ever going to become healthy, or stay healthy. And the more alcohol or caffeine or soda you take into your body, the more water you are going to need. So cutting down on any of these beverages and replacing them with equal amounts of water is one of the best investments in your health that you can make.

A note about Well Water

Unless you are getting your water from a well that is located 800 feet or more below the ground surface, chances are your well water has been contaminated by some if not many toxic substances that have been dumped into the ground soil over the past many decades.

Some common toxins that are dumped by the millions of pounds into soils every year are:

• Herbicides 
• pesticides 
• estrogen mimicking hormones 
• drug residues 
• heavy metals
  
  In fact, in many areas of the US and Canada, you'd be hard pressed to find a natural well that hasn't been affected by some type of chemical or heavy metal runoff from the surrounding ground soil.
  This is to say nothing of the microorganisms living in well water. No matter how clean or pure your natural ground water looks, this has nothing to do with potential bacterial contamination or toxic pollution in the water. Many of the offenders in well water are just much too small to be seen with the naked eye.

Fluorinated Water