Everything Goes With Green

So you think those who buy bottled water are frivolous and somewhat paranoid? Well on the surface, it seems like we should have the best world living in a first world country with high safety standards, but when you get right down to it, even if your tap water is devoid of flouride, chlorine is still extremely dangerous.

Firstly, if your tap water has both fluoride and chlorine, stay away. These two substances in water are extremely dangerous and cancer causing. No I’m not paranoid, it’s a known fact but water treatment has added these chemicals for so long that it’s become the norm.

Www.mbschachter.com/dangers_of_fluoride_and_fluorida.htm states that according to the handbook, Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, fluoride is more poisonous than lead and just slightly less poisonous than arsenic. It is a cumulative poison that accumulates in bone over the years. According to the Physicians Desk Reference, “in hypersensitive individuals, fluorides occasionally cause skin eruptions such as atopic dermatitis, eczema, or urticaria. Gastric distress, headache, and weakness have also been reported. These hypersensitive reactions usually disappear promptly after discontinuation of the fluoride.”

From 1990 to 1992, the Journal of the American Medical Association published three separate articles linking increased hip fracture rates to fluoride in the water. In the March 22, 1990 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Mayo Clinic researchers reported that fluoride treatment of osteoporosis increased hip fracture rate and bone fragility.

A study by Procter and Gamble showed that as little as half the amount of fluoride used to fluoridate public water supplies resulted in a sizable and significant increase in genetic damage. Epidemiology research in the mid-1970′s by the late Dr. Dean Burk, head of the cytochemistry division of the National Cancer Institute, indicated that 10,000 or more fluoridation-linked cancer deaths occur yearly in the United States. In 1989, the ability of fluoride to transform normal cells into cancer cells was confirmed by Argonne National Laboratories. Results released in 1989 of studies carried out at the prestigious Batelle Research Institute showed that fluoride was linked to a rare form of liver cancer in mice, oral tumors and cancers in rats, and bone cancer in male rats. Since 1991, the New Jersey Department of Health found that the incidence of osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, was far higher in young men exposed to fluoridated water as compared to those who were not.

In addition to the well documented toxic effects of fluoride, fluoride even at dosages of 1 part per million, found in artificially fluoridated water, can inhibit enzyme systems, damage the immune system, contribute to calcification of soft tissues, worsen arthritis and, of course, cause dental fluorosis in children. These are unsightly white, yellow or brown spots that are found in teeth exposed to fluoride during childhood. In 1993, the Subcommittee on Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride of the National Research Council admitted that 8% to 51% and sometimes up to 80% of the children living in fluoridated areas have dental fluorosis. Malnourished people, particularly children, usually targeted for fluoridation, are at greater risks to experience fluoride’s harmful effects.

Surprisingly, the most recent studies do not even show that water fluoridation is effective in reducing tooth decay. In the largest U.S. study of fluoridation and tooth decay, United States Public Health Service dental records of over 39,000 school children, ages 5-17, from 84 areas around the United States showed that the number of decayed, missing, and filled teeth per child was virtually the same in fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas. Dr. John Colquhoun, former Chief Dental Officer of the Department of Health for Auckland, New Zealand, investigated tooth decay statistics from about 60,000 12 to 13 year old children and showed that fluoridation had no significant effect on tooth decay rate.

Given all of this scientific information, what is behind this push for universal fluoridation? Prior to 1945, fluoride was properly regarded as an environmental pollutant. It was responsible for many lawsuits against industries, such as the aluminum industry and the phosphate fertilizer industry, whose waste products contain large quantities of fluoride. This fluoride destroyed crops and animals, leading to the lawsuits. The limited public view was that fluoride was an environmental pollutant that needed to be reduced or eliminated from the environment.

As a result of clever public relations campaigns, fluoride was transformed from an environmental pollutant to an essential nutrient necessary for producing healthy teeth. The science was poor, but the P.R. campaign was great. Being against fluoride was like being against motherhood or apple pie. Industries not only made millions from selling this environmental pollutant to water companies and toothpaste companies, but more importantly, it saved billions of dollars that would be required to clean up this environmental pollutant.

You’re thinking, well I live in a city that just removed flouride so I’m good. Think again. Chloride is equally dangerous to drink and shower in. Chlorine will scratch your arteries and causes LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) to attach to the artery  wall and cause plaque damage. Even more concerning though is showering in chlorinated water, tests show that your body can absorb more chlorine as a result of a 10 minute shower than if you drank eight glasses of the same water because a warm shower opens up your pores causing your skin to act like a sponge.

In terms of cumulative damage to your health, showering in chlorinated water could be one of the greatest risks you take every day. In the short term, chlorinated shower water irritates your eyes, your sinuses, your throat, your skin, and your lungs. Long-term risks include excessive free-radical formation (which makes you age faster!), higher vulnerability to genetic mutations, difficulty metabolizing cholesterol, and hardened arteries.

Showering in chlorine-treated water is a serious risk-but it’s also one of the very few risks you can erase, immediately. And it’s up to you to protect yourself. The good news is, it’s cheap and easy to get a filter at your local hardware store that removes chlorine. Filters range from a chunk of carbon filters to high end filters that clip onto your shower head or kitchen sink. These filters are vital to ensuring that you are removing a large amount of toxins from your daily life including both drinking water and showering.  Filters range from $10 and up and are vital to ensuring you are removing all kinds of dangerous toxins from your life.

Filtering your water is one of the easiest and most beneficial things you can do for your longterm health. If you want to go one step further, pour your bottled water into a Santevia Water Flask to make it alkaline (see alkaline water).

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