Water Education - Water and Health

Breast Cancer and Drinking Water

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Being ill is problematic enough without compromising your illness treatments from unsafe or contaminated drinking water. Trying to find a connection between contaminants in drinking water and breast cancer formation is no easy task. There are some studies that have looked at specific contaminants like Nitrates in drinking water in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, that has the highest incidence of breast cancer reported. Given the complexity, the studies there could not find a conclusive connection between the contaminant Nitrate N and breast cancer.

Pollution in drinking water has been studied and over 206 drinking water contaminants have been identified. Some of these contaminants are actually regulated like fluoride and chlorine. To find drinking water that is free of pollution is not as simple as one can hope since even bottled water can have contaminants and even boiling water can intensify the concentration of certain contaminants.

While a conclusive connection cannot be established through studies, some people have begun to see a correlation between breast cancer and the suspected cancer causing properties, i.e. fluoride and chlorine in drinking water. Finding drinking water that is not chlorinated or fluoridated is very important since both fluoride and chlorine affect the functioning of bodily organs. The water that you drink is involved in every process undertaken by your body like digestion and circulation. In addition, the water supply in your body is the conduit of nutrients vital to the existence of your body.

Fluoride is actually a regulated contaminant in your drinking water. The latest findings on fluoride made by the National Academies Research Council were published in March of 2006 and were a criticism of the EPA's 4 milligrams of fluoride allowable in a liter of drinking water. According to their research, 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter of drinking water risks children's dental health. The Council found that fluoride at high levels not only caused discoloration and pitting of children's tooth enamel but that accumulation through the years caused a weakening of bone making the adult who has spent a lifetime of drinking water containing fluoride more susceptible to bone fracture. Although no study has claimed that either fluoride or chlorine are definitive causes of breast cancer, some people have begun to search for drinking water that is neither fluoridated nor chlorinated.

Further material against fluoride was introduced stating that fluoride has cancer causing possibilities by the Research Council that is attacking the EPA for its allowance of fluoride in drinking water. According to their research, people who drank water containing the maximum amount of fluoride approved by the EPA were more likely to develop a rare cancer of the bone called osteosarcoma.

The complicating situation is searching for cancer causing contaminants in drinking water is that incidences of breast cancer vary from state to state regardless of the contaminants found in their drinking water. The high incidence of breast cancer found in women in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is said to be caused by contamination from wastewater. Drinking water contaminated by wastewater is thought to be a cause of breast cancer since wastewater contains compounds from the manufacture of products that contain both natural and chemically prepared hormones.

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