IS YOUR DRINKING WATER INCREASING YOUR RISK OF CANCER?

Both conventional and alternative health experts emphasize the importance of drinking at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water every day because of how important water is for good health and the proper functioning of your body. Unfortunately, if you are drinking unfiltered tap water, you may be increasing the odds that you will develop cancer. That’s because it’s very likely that the water you are drinking is polluted!

It’s a sad fact that tap water from municipal water sources throughout the United States is increasingly becoming a health hazard. Part of the reason this is so is due to pesticides and other toxic runoff from “factory farms” that produce the lion’s share of our nation’s food supply. Additionally, toxic residues of pharmaceutical drugs are increasingly being found in municipal tap water due to our nation’s dependence on such drugs.

Frightening as these facts are, they are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg!

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the tap water consumed by tens of millions of Americans likely contains hazardous levels of lead. In addition, 25% of all public water systems in the U.S. have been found to have violated federal standards for tap water.

Overall, municipal tap water is likely to contain at least one of the following cancer-causing contaminants, and often many of them in combination:

• Disease-causing bacteria

• Heavy metals

• Gasoline solvents

• Synthetic chemicals (benzene, trichloroethylene, etc)

• Industrial waste by-products

• Disinfectant by-products

As if that isn’t bad enough, many municipal water systems may also contain radioactive substances known as radionuclides. Such substances include uranium, radium, and radon, all of which can leech into water supplies. A radionuclide is a decay product, called an isotope, that is naturally-occurring in underground rock beds and various geological formations. Over time, these substances, as they decay, release harmful particles that can enter into groundwater and from there enter into municipal drinking water supplies.

Thanks to the nuclear power industry, there are now also over 800 man-made radionuclides. Of these, some 200 are considered to be potential drinking water contaminants. According to William L. Lappenbusch, PhD, an expert water toxicologist and author of Contaminated Drinking Water and Your Health, “Radionuclides in drinking water cause more cancer than any other stressor in that medium [water], challenged only by pesticides.”

Another source of polluted tap water can be water lines into your home. Unless your home has new copper water lines, lead and other heavy metals can leach out of the older water pipes and plumbing to get into your water supply. These heavy metals, when consumed, accumulate in body tissues where, over time, they lead to a condition of chronic toxicity which, in turn, interferes with your body’s ability to detoxify itself and fight off disease, including cancer.

It’s also important to realize that drinking tap water is not the only risk to your health. It can also affect you in your bath and shower. In fact, approximately 70% of the cancer-causing toxins found in tap water enter the body through the skin during bathing and showering.

What You Must Do To Protect Yourself

The information I’m sharing with you in this article is not new. Dr. Lappenbusch published his book in 1988. In addition, in 1995 the Natural Resources Defense Council surveyed 100 municipal water systems and water suppliers across the United States and found significant levels of cancer-causing arsenic, radon, and other carcinogens in all of them. Despite such findings, little has been done to ensure the safety of municipal water supplies. In addition, many major water suppliers and agencies are not forthcoming about providing consumers with information about the quality of their tap water.

Nor can you depend of state and federal health agencies to put an end to this serious threat to your health. Such agencies, including the EPA, simply do not have the funds and manpower they need to comprehensively keep track of all the pollutants that can potentially be in your home’s water supply. In addition, the standards imposed by the EPA and other health agencies on municipal water suppliers are considered by many health experts to fall far short of what is needed, in part due to the influence that corporate polluters have on these agencies.

Given all of these facts, the bottom line is that it’s up to you to do all that you can to protect yourself.

Here’s what you need to do:

Don’t drink water straight out of the tap. Instead, invest in a high-quality reverse osmosis water filtration system. Reverse osmosis is the most effective way to filter out the harmful toxins that tap water can contain. Although such units may seem expensive, their cost pales in comparison to the harm that is caused by continuously drinking unfiltered tap water.

In addition, reverse osmosis systems are both a healthier and more cost-effective solution than drinking bottled water. Studies have shown that many brands of bottled water are no healthier than tap water, and in many cases are actually less healthy. In addition, the plastic bottles now pose a serious threat to our environment. Over the long run, you’ll also pay far less for a reverse osmosis system and replacement filters compared to the accumulative cost of buying bottled water.

If you are on the go a lot and like to have pure filtered water available to you away from home, invest in a non-disposable, eco-friendly water bottle so that you can take your pure, filtered water from your home with you.

Invest in a shower filter. As I mentioned above, showering and bathing in unfiltered tap water accounts for 70% of all the water-borne toxins you and your loved ones are exposed to. To prevent this, you need to install a quality shower filter inside of your shower head. This is easy to do and can go a long way towards minimizing your exposure to water-borne toxins.

Help your body detoxify itself. Exposure to environmental toxins is sadly unavoidable these days. All of us are constantly exposed to toxins each and every day, which is one of the reasons cancer is far more prevalent in the 21^st century than it was at the dawn of the 20^th. Environmental toxicity is far more prevalent and dangerous today than at any other time in history. Therefore, it’s important that you do all you can to help your body cope with its task of detoxification. To do so, I recommend you eat only organically produced foods whenever possible. Ideally, your diet should be primarily plant-based and rich in whole foods that contain lots of fiber, which helps your body to eliminate toxins. I also recommend that you supplement your diet with antioxidant and detoxifying nutrients. These include beta carotene and other carotenoids, vitamins B3 (niacin) and  B6 in conjunction with other B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E (in its natural, not synthetic, form), garlic, magnesium, zinc, and liver-cleansing herbs such as milk thistle (your liver is your body’s main internal organ of detoxification). In addition, be sure to drink adequate amounts of pure, filtered water each day, along with detoxifying beverages such as organic black or green tea, both of which have anticancer properties.

Finally, get in the habit of using a dry brush to rub down your body from head to toe. Dry-brushing is an excellent way to improve the ability of your skin—your body’s largest organ of detoxification—to eliminate toxins, as well as boosting the function of your body’s lymphatic system.

Next time I will tell, you about two other highly toxic substances, both of which are commonly used as additives in the vast majority of municipal water supplies throughout the U.S. Both of these substances are highly carcinogenic, yet the EPA and other health agencies insist they are perfectly safe. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Stay tuned.

God bless,

Burton