If you have been a Health Alert reader, you’ve read for years about potential danger in prescription drugs. Now, I’ve come to realize that your doctor may not be the only source for these drugs.
You may get a dose of pharmaceuticals every time you drink a glass of water.
This is no joke. The water that comes out of taps across the country has recently been found to contain antibiotics and other prescription medications. In today’s Health Alert, we’ll look at how this is happening and how to deal with it.
The Health Risk No One Knows About
In message 324, you read about hormone look-a-likes. These chemicals and antibiotics are so similar to hormones; your body can’t tell the difference. But the messages they send to the cells in your body can have a devastating impact on your health.
A few days ago, my research department came across an article from the Washington Post. In it, researchers reported the huge amount of prescription drugs turning up in city water supplies around the country.
Eighty percent of the water they tested in thirty states came up positive for two or more drugs. Overall, they found ninety-five different drugs – both prescription and non-prescription.[1]
How do drugs get into your water?
Over forty percent of all antibiotics go to cows and cattle. Their manure – which contains traces of antibiotics, as well as hormones – is used as fertilizer on farms, lawns and gardens.
When it rains, these drugs and chemicals make their way into underground water supplies.
The other way drugs get into your water comes from the practice of flushing old or unwanted drugs down the drain or toilet. In hospitals, this happens every day. People who take the drugs will excrete them into human waste as well.
Unfortunately, wastewater treatment plants do not remove these contaminants from the water. So all of it goes back into the environment and back into the water cycle. Just how much? Estimates run as high as 888 million pounds of drugs a year.
The Battle for Clean Water
Doctors today are still debating the effect of hormone and drug pollutants on humans. In my own practice, I can see the effects very clearly. Men and women with increased incidence for breast, ovarian and prostate cancer – girls hitting puberty as young as seven – men developing female characteristics…
The consequences are deep and far-reaching.
To really get a handle on your own tap water, I suggest having it tested. There are home testing kits available, or you can have it done professionally. The best approach is to get on the Internet and find out what’s available in your area.
Once you know what’s in your water, take steps to filter out the specific elements that are posing a threat to your health. Then have your water tested again.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
[1] Eilperin J. Pharmaceuticals in Waterways Raise Concern. The Washington Post. June 23, 2005; A03.