Cheap Shower Filters
Shower filters don’t have to be that expensive. As celebrity physician Dr. Oz said on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, you can take advantage of the great effects of a shower filter for less than nine cents a day. In fact, you can buy a shower filter for as little as twenty dollars, and even the most expensive of them don’t cost much more than two hundred dollars.
And even the most inexpensive shower filter will protect your skin and hair from moisture-removing contaminants that will sap them of their strength. Plus, tap water can contain all kinds of contaminants that can cause allergic reactions and aggravate skin conditions. For example, it often has chlorine that, when heated, can create clouds of harmful gas right in your bathroom. There are also pathogenic microbes and metals in there. And even if you think you’re not being exposed to such things because you do not drink tap water, what you don’t realize is that your skin will absorb shower water and thus the effect is almost the same as if you were drinking your shower water!
A couple items to keep in mind: if you’re concerned about the price when you’re shopping for a shower filter, don’t just look at the price of the filter itself but also see how much money the cartridges will cost. And remember to replace those cartridges as often as they need to be replaced–otherwise you’re not getting the real effects of the filter and thus you’re not getting the value for your money.
By: Jared D. Ingram
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Categories: Shower Filters Tags: Drinking Water, How Much Money, Shower Filter
Cryptosporidium – How Does it Affect Your Health and Why is it So Hard to Destroy?
It’s hard to say for sure how many Americans are infected by cryptosporidium per year. This is so because many are infected without consulting a doctor and because the cysts are so hard to detect in the laboratory. A small quantity of cysts in water can be hard to find in a laboratory. Yet a small number of cysts can infect the person who drinks them.
The fact that it resists disinfection and that it can even get through well-operated water treatment systems, means that it is a very big problem facing the clean water industry. What then are the symptoms of the disease known as cryptosporidiosis?
How Can Cryptosporidium Affect My Health?
It only takes a relatively few cysts to infect a person. The incubation period of the illness, cryptosporidiosis, is about one week but can be anywhere from 2 to 25 days. The cyst germinates and reproduces causing symptoms such as severe diarrhea, gas, stomach cramps, nausea, headaches and even slight fever. The degree of intensity varies with the person. Some people in fact have no symptoms. On the other hand, for those with low resistance (HIV/Aids patients, transplant patients, cancer patients) or those vulnerable to dehydration (as small children and pregnant women), the attack of this parasite can be life threatening.
The symptoms last normally a week or two but can last up to a month or longer. There are really no good drugs to cure cryptosporidiosis. Some drugs help with the symptoms. What is important is to replenish your body fluids through drinking water or receiving intravenous fluids, if necessary.
Why Is The Cryptosporidium Cyst So Hard To “Search and Destroy”?
The cysts are so small that they are difficult to find even under a microscope. They are particularly hard to find in water where it takes only a relatively few cysts to infect a person. The Environmental Protection Agency set new standard for this parasite to be met by 2001, for water systems serving the majority of U.S. populations (those serving surface water to 10,000 or more). The new standard says that the parasite should be totally disinfected (killed) or removed by filter from the water. Water treatment systems are required to report the presence of cysts in your tap water.
The cyst is hard to destroy because it is extremely hardy and durable. It can get through chlorine disinfectant treatment in city water systems and make it to your tap. The cyst is encased in a shell-like cover which once in the stomach, is dissolved by the stomach acids and in turn reeks havoc with the intestines and multiplies itself to be discharged in the stool.
The best way to remove it is using the right kind of filter. A filter that is certified to remove cryptosporidium by NSF International is recommended. NSF International has a useful search tool on their web site where you can indicate the contaminants that you want to remove from your drinking water. They will then tell you which filters they have certified to remove those contaminants. The contaminant to check is “Cyst Reduction”.
By: David G Langford
Categories: Water Borne Illnesses Tags: Cysts, Drinking Water, Stomach Cramps
Does Boiling Really Purify Your Drinking Water?
When camping, traveling overseas, or even following some malfunction at your local water treatment plant, you are urged to boil water before drinking it. How effective is boiling – does it really make the water safe to drink? And how long do you boil the water for?
Why Boil Water?
The main reason boiling is recommended as a water treatment is because it can be done simply and because the disease causing organisms are destroyed by heat. Holding the water at a high enough temperature for long enough will destroy pathogens. The organisms of interest are cysts such as cryptosporidia and giardia, and bacteria such as E.coli, typhoid etc. Although the boiling does not remove them from the water, it does kill them and thus they will cause no illness.
How Long Should Water Be Boiled?
There are many times suggested: 1 minute, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes etc. Some advocates even suggest adding a minute to the boiling time for each 1000 feet of altitude. So which of these times is correct? After all, the amount of time the water needs to boil determines the amount of fuel needed (to boil 1 liter of water requires about a kilogram of wood). As it turns out, none of them. You do not even need to boil it for one minute – you just need to bring it to the point of boiling. Let’s consider why.
According to the Wilderness Medical Society, water temperatures above 70° C (160° F) kill all pathogens within 30 minutes and above 85° C (185° F) within a few minutes. So the higher the temperature, the less time is needed to kill the micro-organisms. Bringing the water to boiling point raises it well over the 85°C mark. Not only that, but the water must then be allowed to cool (unless you are making a cuppa). So the total time the water spends above 85°C is significant and sufficient to kill pathogens.
If it is sufficient just to bring water to 85°C for a few minutes, why are you told to boil it? Basically because that is a foolproof way of guaranteeing the water will be the right temperature. Most people, do not carry thermometers with them when camping so it would be difficult to determine when the right temperature was met – once it reaches boiling you know what temperature it’s at within a couple of degrees.
How Effective is Boiling Water?
Boiling water is an effective method for destroying bacteria and other pathogens. If the water is turbid, filter it through a clean cloth, or coffee filter to remove particulate matter before boiling as that will improve its appearance.
Boiling will not provide any safeguard against other things such as heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals etc that may contaminate a water supply. It may remove chemicals which have a lower boiling point than water but what about the others? Neither does it remove turbidity, foul tastes and odors.
In short, boiling water does not purify your water. It is certainly effective at eliminating the target pathogens but will not be effective against other contaminants – you really need a decent water purifier for that. However, drinking boiled water is certainly better than dehydration.
With the growing number of toxic substances and the increase in sources of contamination, purified water is more important than ever for continued good health.
More information on water purifiers can be found at http://www.crystalclearwater.com.au/
Categories: Water Borne Illnesses Tags: Disease Causing Organisms, Drinking Water, giardia
