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Next to chlorine, lead is the most common contaminant found in tap water. Lead in drinking water usually originates between the water main in the street and the household faucet, so treatment from a central point is not logical or practical.
Most lead in drinking water comes from lead lined pipes, lead solder and brass plumbing fixtures inside your home.
All chrome-plated brass and brass plumbing fixtures contain 8% to 15% lead.
The biggest tragedy of lead contamination from drinking water
is that it is completely preventable. By taking a few simple steps, beginning with point-of-use filtration of our drinking water, we can virtually eliminate
the crippling effects of lead on our society, and most importantly on our children.
Essentially every household with indoor plumbing has some level of lead in the plumbing structure that may represent a health risk. One study done in Baltimore MD showed that children with high blood-lead levels had a significantly higher rate of problem behaviors than children with low blood levels and concluded that "this study lends support to the belief that undue exposure to lead in childhood years may have a pervasive influence on the prevalence of juvenile delinquency in this country." |
Other than just being smaller, children‘s bodies are really quite different than that of an adult. Because many of the crucial defense systems that help protect adults from disease are not fully developed in children, they are much more sensitive to carcinogens, lead and water-borne parasites than adults. Just as medications and other chemical compounds effect children differently than they do adults, so do contaminants in our air, drinking water and foods. Unfortunately there is little we can do about toxins in the air or chemicals in our foods, which only makes the purity of our water even more important. Water is the body‘s only way to flush out these toxins and the purer the water is to start with... the higher its capacity is to collect and cleanse these harmful compounds from the body. Pure water helps a child‘s defenses grow stronger and perform better; giving them the protection they need during those fragile developing years.
A child‘s immune and detoxification systems are still developing into and throughout their early teens. Exposure to trace levels of chlorine, toxic chemicals & lead in drinking water during childhood years has been linked to increased risks of disease and learning disorders in later years. A recent Baltimore study showed that children with higher blood-lead levels have a significantly higher rate of problem behaviors than children with low blood-lead levels. "This study lends support to the belief that undue exposure to lead in childhood years may have a pervasive influence on the prevalence of juvenile delinquency in this country." A mixture of chemicals such as chlorine, lead, herbicides, pesticides, and a host of other contaminants are commonly found in our water supplies and in many bottled waters. These trace levels of water borne chemicals have been documented to have adverse health effects on humans, and especially on small children. Unfortunately the health standards that determine how much and what levels of these toxins are permitted in our drinking water are all based on the potential effects on adults. These "Maximum Contaminant Levels" (MCLs) are also based on the false assumption that we are only exposed to one chemical at a time. We commonly find traces of several dozen different toxic chemicals in tap water. A recent report by the Environmental Working Group, called "Into The Mouths Of Babes," found that of 29 Mid Western cities tested all had at least one agricultural chemical present and that most had 5 or more in a single glass of tap water! The report also points out that 45,000 mothers in these 29 cities were unknowingly making infant formula with tap water containing three or more toxic chemicals. Read More Water Quality Report Information. Often there are out breaks of chlorine resistant parasites like Cryptosporidium and Giardia in city water supplies, as was the case recently in Milwaukee WI, when over 100 people died and 400,000 became sick in less than a month, mostly children and the elderly, when the water system became contaminated with Cryptosporidium. This intestinal parasite causes flu like symptoms, but can be fatal to small children and older adults... and is not controlled by chlorine. Childhood Asthma Cancer Leukemia and immune disorders have all risen in the last decade. Many experts and studies suggest that this is partially due to children‘s increased exposure to environmental toxins and their decreased ability to detox. Water plays a major role in a child‘s exposure to toxins and in their body‘s ability to get rid of them. A child consumes 3 times as much water per pound of body weight than an adult does, so they get a bigger dose of the chemicals in their water, and they‘re developing bodies are simply much more sensitive to the harsh effects... An increased intake of clean healthy water is one of the easiest and best ways to help promote good health for our children. Childhood asthma and many other illnesses have been directly linked to a child's level of exposure to chlorine and other chemicals from drinking and showering with tap water. Home water filtration products are a great investment in the health of our families."While water is not an absolute cure-all‚ we must recognize it as the base and primary ingredient to every preventive and healing process inside our body. We are truly a magnificent creation capable of preventing and curing even the worst of disease and illness. Understanding how our body works is the first step towards achieving optimum health. Once we have this understanding‚ our actions begin to work in harmony with our body‘s natural instincts‚ creating the perfect internal environment." - Charles Strand‚ Water Quality Specialist/ Editor
It is important to drink HEALTHY water. Is all water healthy? No, unfortunately it is not. There was once a time when water was for the most part naturally pure, but that is not the case today. Today, we live in a society that consistently uses pesticides, household cleaning products and many other harmful chemicals that ultimately end up in out water supply. Our local governments use chlorine to kill diseases before they reach our home plumbing systems. This is good and bad news. It is obviously good news that chlorine kills harmful these diseases, but the bad news is that science is now finding that chlorine is linked to cancer and other problems. Also, chlorine does nothing to eliminate many of the other pests that still reach us in our homes. Now more than ever we must be diligent about purifying our water before we drink it and even before we shower in it. Thankfuly, there are wonderful water filtration systems available so that we can protect ourselves and our families from harmful chemicals and toxins such as VOCs, pesticides, chlorine herbicides and solvents. There are so many water filters available now, they can be placed on the kitchen counter top or they can be tucked neatly away under the kitchen sink, there are shower filter systems that prevent the inhalation of chlorine and other chemicals in the shower, and there are systems that simply purify the home's water at its very source so that we can have pure and safe water flowing from every outlet in the home.
There are so many systems available that the average person has a hard time choosing the right system. How often should you change the filters? Which system filters the most of these unwanted substances? How much can you expect to spend? How do you choose the right system? All of these questions are valid, and if you find yourself asking these questions you are not alone. We recommend a wonderful site by a company called "Water Filtration Systems, a division of Cyber Goods." At that site they only sell Aquasana water filters, because they believe they outperform the competition. Aquasana makes the ONLY certified whole house water filter system for the small home and is certified to filter out thousands of gallons of water at a really cheap price. But this web site, called Water Filtration Systems, sells Aquasana products at prices that are CHEAPER than the manufacturer can sell them to you. Not only do they sell excellent water filters at great prices, they will give you the up and up on water contaminants, and will even give you a comparison chart so you can see exactly how much their systems filter compared to their competitors, and they show you the TOTAL cost including the cost to replace filters! Their comparison chart will break it all down for you so you can see exactly how much you end up spending per gallon of water, and all the bad stuff that gets removed. You can find them by going to the links below.
For other WaterWays articles please go to:
WaterWays: Self-Healing With Water Water Filtration Systems Products (Recommended!)
To find water filtration products for your home, check out: