ExamineHealth

Most developed countries have mastered safe drinking water.  The disinfecting practices on our drinking water is a huge victory over water borne illnesses like typhoid fever and cholera, and countries who treat their water suffer from extremely low numbers of illness and death due to water contamination.  The breakthrough in the disinfectant process was the treatment of the water with chlorine.  Chlorine kills many harmful water-borne contaminates, parasites and disease-causing pathogens that would otherwise make us sick.  The EPA requires a concentration of 0.2 ppm (parts per million) of chlorine in all tap water in the United States, with the average being closer to 4 ppm.

Of course there is a price to pay for disinfecting our water, chlorine is responsible for many harmful affects.  It's same harsh nature that allows it to kill the bad things in our water has the same effect on our hair and skin.  Attacking our cells like the poison that it is.  More importantly, it binds to organic material in the water to create something called disinfection byproducts (DBP).  These byproducts have been linked to birth defects and cancer and count in the thousands of different types of compounds.  Chloroform is a known toxin that is a trihalomethane (THM), a type of DBP that is linked to liver and kidney cancer, as well as miscarriages and birth defects.  Now, water treatment professionals are constantly detecting, tracking and monitoring these DBP's in our water supply and looking for ways to reduce them.  However, the disinfecting of the water itself with chlorine far outweighs the dangers of DBP's.  The fact is that chlorine is here to stay.

Bottled water is the fasted growing drink choice in the United States, spending billions of dollars per year on it (Beverage Marketing Corporation, 2004).  Some people prefer the taste, while others think it is safer than drinking out of the tap.  All drinking water (tap and bottled) can be expected to contain at least a small amount of contaminates.  This does not necessarily mean it is a health risk.  For example, magnesium and calcium give water a distinctive flavor and are essential to the body.

The primary difference between bottled water and tap water is not the source, but the disinfectant methods.  Tap water tends to be treated with chlorine because it continues to disinfect as the water is in transit through the pipes.  Bottled water will often use ozone, reverse osmosis, or distillation to purify the water because it doesn't need to be continually disinfected once it's been bottled.  The chlorine used in the tap water gives it a distinctive taste.  At the end of the day however, tap water is much more heavily regulated (by the EPA) than bottled water, which is regulated by the FDA only.  Therefore, a lot of times, the tap water you get at your house is of higher quality than the water you buy in the bottle, except for the chlorine.

If you are interested in the quality of your tap water, you can review the annual water quality report (sometimes called a consumer confidence report) that is required by the EPA for any community water system that serves more than 100,000 people.  If you get your water from a private well, or another source, you can test your water yourself.

The good news is that you can purchase filter systems for your taps that will remove the chlorine, DPB's, heavy minerals, and other contaminates from your water.  In fact, chlorine specifically is one of the easiest things you can remove from your water.  So it only makes sense that chlorine is used to keep our water disinfected up until the time that we drink it.  This in fact is the major reason that public water plants use chlorine disinfecting systems as opposed to the alternatives.  4 out of 10 Americans today use at-home filtration for their drinking water.  Carbon-based filters are particularly effective at removing most if not all of the chlorine and chlorine by-products in tab water.

And for those cost conscious who cannot afford filters, patience will also work.  By simply placing an uncovered pitcher of water in your refrigerator for 24 hours all of the chlorine and by-products will make their way out of your tap water.  This will accomplish both the health benefits and the taste alterations.

If you have an older house, another concern is lead, not because it is in the water, but because it is in the pipes.  Up until 1987, even newer houses that used copper pipes often have lead solder at the joints.  Children are particularly susceptible to lead, which has been linked to retarding neurological development.  If your house was built since 1987, no lead products are allowed in any of the drinking water pipes.

One of the most shocking dangers is regarding your shower water.  Studies show that over two-thirds of our harmful exposure to chlorine is due to inhalation of steam and skin absorption when showering.  Hot water opens up the pores in your skin, which allows more absorption of chlorine into your skin, primarily through the top of your head.  Chlorine is especially dangerous in your shower water as it is unstable and evaporates into the surrounding air very easily.  Inhaling shower water also exposes you to volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) that are incredibly dangerous to the delicate tissues of the lungs.  The steam that we inhale while showering can contain up to 50 times the level of chemicals in tap water due to vaporization.  Also, inhaling the chlorine gas goes directly into the blood stream, where water contaminates are filtered by our kidneys and digestive system.  Breathing in the steam of a shower with chlorinated water is much more severe than drinking 10 glasses of the same water. 

There are additional cosmetic benefits to filtering your shower water as well.  As anyone who has gone swimming in a chlorinated pool can relate to the harsh effects that chlorine has on the skin and hair.  It robs our skin of it's natural moisture and elasticity, resulting in a less vibrant and youthful appearance.  Once you're only showering with de-chlorinated water, you'll find relief from dry and itchy skin, and that it makes your hair silky and easy to manage, as well as stopping the fading of hair color or highlights (think about it, you're rinsing your hair with bleach each time you shower with chlorine!).  Not only that but the water will smell better, be softer to the touch and won't leave soap scum on your shower.

A good number of the US municipalities have switched to Chloramines, which is a combination of Chlorine and Ammonia.  Chloramines reduce the level of disinfecting byproducts in the water due to the bonding of ammonia to the chlorine molecules, thus not allowing for the organics to bond and cause DBPs.  It's a relatively new development in water treatment, but has been adopted well across the US.  The problem with chloramines is that the same properties which cause them to be immune to creating DBPs cause them to be extremely hard to filter out.  If your water supplier is using chloramines, it's not going to affect your shower water, as chloramine is stable at high temperatures and therefore doesn't turn into vapor and get inhaled.  However, hardly anyone is using strictly chloramine for disinfectant, in fact the EPA's minimum requirements for chlorine in tap water remain.  So a filter is still important to use.

For reasons mentioned above, I truly do recommend getting a shower filter before you get a drinking water filter, if you have neither.  You are much more susceptible to the harmful effects of chlorine from your showers than from drinking cold tap water.

I recommend the Sprite Royale Hand Held Filter (also comes in chrome) or the Sprite Original Hand Held Filter (also comes in chrome).  Both of these filters are NSF Standard 177 certified, which is the only way that you can obtain an objective performance comparison between water filters.  They test for the filtration of chlorine and pressure tests the filter housing for integrity.  They also raise the height of the shower head, which can be a problem, especially when looking at shower filters, as they sometimes lower the shower head height.  They are both removable wand-style shower heads and they don't reduce the power of the flow, in fact they have several massage settings that are actually very good.  These filters contain a KDF - Copper/Zinc compound that virtually eliminates chlorine.  It also helps to reduce and filter Iron Oxides, Hydrogen Sulfide, Lead and odors.  The cartridges are easy to install and typically last 3 months each.  You can get replacement cartridges from Amazon as well.

Of course, you should definitely filter your drinking water as well.  The easiest to install is the Brita Faucet Filter and works great.  This is what I use at home.  It has an indicator light that lets you know when it's time to change the filters, it's inexpensive and can be found almost anywhere.  To me, filtered tap water is a better choice than bottled water, not only is it cheaper, but it's better regulated, and doesn't involve plastics production, transportation and disposal.  For a more comprehensive faucet solution, I've heard good things about the Aquasana AQ-4000 Countertop Water Filter, although I haven't tried it myself.  I am thinking of getting one however, and once I do I will update you with my thoughts on it.