Why you (really) have to filter your drinking water!
Quite frankly, everyone needs to be filtering their drinking water. It’s something I’ve been doing for nearly 20 years. Why? Well, to be blunt, the stuff that comes out of your tap includes water that has come out of other people. Our bodies can only metabolise a fraction of most drugs we swallow, so the rest will end up being excreted in urine or faeces, and therefore entering into the wastewater system. On top of that, unfiltered drinking water also contains traces of numerous industrial chemicals.
Unfortunately, as they stand, public water treatment facilities are incapable of removing all the legal (pharmaceutical) and illegal drugs that people are taking and then excreting in their urine. They are also incapable of taking out numerous industrial chemicals from the water.
One UK study in 2011 found trace amounts of cocaine (benzoylecgonine), epilepsy medication (carbamazepine), ibuprofen, and a strong anti-inflammatory called Naproxen in tap water. Other studies have shown that traces of chemotherapy drugs and hormones like oestrogen are also finding their way into our drinking water.
The official line is that, although these drugs are present in our water, they are at such low levels that they are not dangerous to our health. However, it’s an under-studied area, leading one 2017 research paper to comment;
“…the potential effects of low dose, but chronic exposure to pharmaceuticals and personal care products through wastewater are an evolving concern, especially because there exist no reliable long term toxicological studies for these compounds”
So that’s the bad news, but the good news is that you can filter these nasties out of your water effectively and cheaply by getting a reverse osmosis (RO) filter system. These systems come in various designs, and prices start at around £125.
Most systems are designed to be installed under your kitchen sink with a small extra tap mounted on the kitchen top to dispense the purified water. They are usually designed to be installed without the need for a plumber.
A quick search for ‘reverse osmosis undersink system’ will give you plenty of choices.
It’s worth noting that RO systems strip nearly everything out of your water, including beneficial minerals (e.g. calcium, magnesium etc..) so you should regularly use pink Himalayan Salt or put the odd drop of multimineral solution into your filtered water to make sure you are getting everything you need. Here’s the one I use.
Using clean, uncontaminated drinking water is one great thing you can do for your health.
Cliff Russell
Registered Osteopath - East Grinstead - Forest Row
