The Right Water Filter Can Save Your Family's Health

Here's proof that with the right water filter, the safest and tastiest water can be had right at home and installation of an effective filter is easier and cheaper than you think.

I'll bet you didn't know that about 1/4 of bottled water sold in stores is bottled tap water!

We'll show you why a home water filter may be the best protection for your family from e-coli, chlorine, fluoride, cryptosporidium, arsenic, mercury, viruses, PCB's and on and on...

It's a sad fact of modern life that we must worry about the quality of something as essential as water. The tragic deaths and illness caused by drinking from the Municipal water supply in Walkerton, Ontario strikes too close to home for me. Had everyone been using a home water filter, this frightening situation could have been avoided. Unsafe water is obviously not just a third world problem.

To be sure that you are removing 99.9 percent of the above-mentioned contaminants, plus many more (the list is long!) you will need a 3 part water filter system. Each component on its own will remove certain types of contaminants effectively, but together you get them all. A reverse osmosis water filter, an ultraviolet filter, and an activated carbon filter in combination will protect you from just about every contaminant. This is the water filter we opted for.

Not to worry! These water filters are available in do-it-yourself kits at prices that will make you wonder why you haul those large bottles or put up with poor tasting, possibly contaminated tap-water.

You will also wonder why you paid so much for so long for the bottled stuff when you can make your own crystal clear, perfectly safe drinking water right at your sink with your own water filter for pennies a glass.

Yes, an under-the-sink water filter can be hooked up to your fridge water dispensers and ice makers too.

Water is the essence of life. Making up roughly 65 percent of our muscles and brain tissue, it is the most important nutrient in our body. Only oxygen is craved by the body more than water.

Unfortunately, most North Americans do not consume enough water every day to meet their bodies' most basic requirements, leaving them dehydrated. Dehydration itself is responsible for a wide range of common ailments experienced by just about everyone in today's busy world, including headache and fatigue. Just breathing releases moisture to the air every time we exhale - as much as two cups a day! Our bodies lose water through evaporation from the surface of our skin even without rigorous exercise, and of course, we also pass water in our urine. During the course of an average day, a healthy adult can lose eight to 10 cups of water. If you are exercising, and this number rises considerably.

If we fail to replenish the water we lose through these natural processes, we set off a physiological reaction that can have serious health effects. The following is the natural progression of dehydration and its effects on the body (symptoms):

Mild

• Because your kidneys will begin to conserve water, your urine will become concentrated and will be amber colored as opposed to a normal light-tinted yellow color.
• Constipation and/or bloating may be noticed
• Dry skin, mucous membranes, and lips
• Thirst, sometimes extreme, but strangely enough, as adults we don't always feel thirsty, even when mildly dehydrated.
• Flushed face

Moderate

• Fatigue
• Sunken eyes or sunken fontanelle (soft spot on head) in infants
• Lack of tears in crying infant
• "Doughy" skin that doesn't bouce back when pinched
• Dizziness / vertigo / lightheadedness
• Up to 30% decline in physical labor capacity, muscle cramping
• Headache
• Cold hands and feet
• Problems concentrating
• Drowsiness
• Fainting
• Impatience and extreme irritability
• Major reduction in urine production

Severe

• Weak irregular heart beat (often racing) and low blood pressure
• Rapid breathing
• Failure of body's heat regulation systems (sweating, for example)
• Confusion
• Vomiting and/or diarrhea
• Shock, collapse or unconsciousness
• Seizures
• Coma and death

To prevent dehydration, experts recommend that everyone drink at least six to eight glasses of water a day. Sales of bottled water in the U.S. and Canada have exploded in recent years, largely as a result of a public perception that it is pure, uncontaminated water, and an increased awareness of the health effects of common water contaminants.

But bottled water sold in the United States is not always filtered and not necessarily cleaner or safer than most tap water, according to a four-year scientific study recently made public by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The NRDC's study included testing of more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water. While most of the tested waters were found to be of high quality, some brands were significantly contaminated. About one-third of the waters tested contained levels of contamination including synthetic organic chemicals, bacteria, and arsenic (at least one sample exceeded allowable limits under either state or bottled water industry standards or guidelines).

In fact, about a quarter of all bottled water is actually bottled tap water, according to government and industry estimates (some estimates go as high as 40 percent).

Unfortunately, all sources of drinking water, including municipal water systems, wells, lakes, rivers, and even glaciers, contain some level of contamination.

Contaminants range from naturally-occurring minerals to made-made chemicals and by-products, to biological agents such as bacteria, viruses, and cysts. While most contaminants are found at levels low enough not to cause immediate severe health consequences, it is well documented in scientific journals that even low-level exposure to many common contaminants can, over time, cause severe illness including liver damage, cancer, and other serious ailments.

Even some of the chemicals commonly used to treat municipal water supplies such as chlorine and fluoride are toxic and are known to have significant adverse effects on the human body.

So what do you do?

Cindy and I recently purchased an under-the-counter, reverse osmosis water filter system. We had been drinking bottled, reverse osmosis filtered water for years and got tired of lugging and storing the bottles and having to refill a canister in the fridge for cold drinking water.

When we finally enquired as to the cost of an under-the-counter water filter system, we found out it would pay for itself within a year. I wish we had acted sooner. It was an easy job to install it ourselves and any do-it-yourselfer could do it. If you are not the do-it-yourselfer type, just call your friendly plumber for professional installation.

The purchase of a drinking water filter system should be viewed as a long term investment. A quality water filter system will last for many years with a periodic filter catridges changes, the only ongoing cost. Bottled water, however, is an ongoing expense - whether you lug water home from a store or have it delivered to you.

Health Risks of Unfiltered Water

Chlorine keeps water bacteria-free. But it reacts with organic material creating chloroform, trimethohalanes (TMHs) and other "chlorination disinfection by-products" (CBPs), all strongly linked with cancer.

A Health Canada Position Paper, Safe Drinking Water: A Public Health Challenge, states: "14-16% of bladder cancers may be attributable to water containing CBPs. The paper links CBPs with spontaneous abortions, low sperm count, birth defects, respiratory problems and spina bifida. It's amazing the things that a simple water filter can prevent!

Did you also know?... (I sure didn't), that more chlorine is absorbed through the skin during the average shower than by drinking six to eight glasses of tap water!

Skin is highly permeable - it is the body's way of excreting toxins and regulating temperature. Hot showers cause the pores of the skin to dilate, allowing chlorine and other free radicals to be rapidly absorbed. Further chlorine from unfiltered water is contained within the vapor that enters the air as steam, and is breathed into our lungs as we shower.

Consider also getting a shower head filter to overcome these problems.

We found a well established and reliable company with reasonable pricing at Aquasana.

Drink up!