Can Home Water Purifiers Remove Prescription Drugs?
Andrew Putnam Conclusion Home water purifiers can be your best defense against various contaminants, including prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Before purchasing a system, one should always do due diligence, and compare home water purifiers for the appropriate features, including nano-filtration and reverse-osmosis. Background You might have heard news stories recently about a little known problem in our water supply. News reports have surfaced as recently March 2008 about a wide variety of pharmaceutical drugs in our drinking water supplies. This result is due to a combination of factors: (1) increasing numbers of Americans taking prescription drugs (2) the fast pace at which new drugs are developed (3) lack of governmental standards (since the pharmaceutical industry is not regulated by the EPA). The technology to remove many of these pharmaceuticals from our water supply is readily available. Yet, for years, due to financial considerations (keeping taxes low) and the aforementioned lack of governmental standards, cheaper alternatives, most notably chlorine has been used to disinfect water. Even chlorine, a toxic, poisonous chemical in large quantities, is present in everyday drinking water. What this means is that after ingesting and excreting these medicines, water treatment plants are not filtering them out, leaving the residual in your drinking water. Solution Research strongly suggests that utilizing water filtration systems to improve these impurities improves overall health and better skin complexion. But which home water purifiers are the most effective? The following criteria should be taken into consideration: Good Systems - these systems are better than no filtration * Distillation * Ozonation * Activated carbon * Advanced Oxidation Best Systems * Nano-filtration * Reverse-Osmosis The Colorado School of Mines has shown these systems to be most effective in completely removing many of the contaminants, including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, in our water supply. When comparing home water purifiers, those with nano-filtration and reverse-osmosis perform the best. The other systems, while effective, also remove calcium, magnesium, and potassium, minerals that are important for the human body. Summary When evaluating and comparing home water purifiers, we recommend nano-filtration or reverse-osmosis systems, since they are most effective at eliminating the impurities while also preserving the minerals needed by the body. Distillation, ozonation, advanced carbon, and advanced oxidation systems--while better than no filtration--also remove important minerals that should be apart of our daily diet. About the Author
Andrew Putnam may be contacted at http://www.water-filtration-guide.info. Click here to view more articles by Andrew Putnam. Reprinted with Permission from IdeaMarketers.com
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