One of the strangest things about tap water is that its quality can be affected by many seemingly unrelated issues. One such example of this is endocrine disruptors, a type of contaminant whose presence in tap water can be traced to things like farming, industrial plants and an increased use of pharmaceutical drugs in America. Today we're going to talk about the effects of endocrine disruptors in drinking water and what you can do to remove them from the water in your Carolina home!
What are endocrine disruptors?
Endocrine disruptors is a term used to describe a group of chemicals that affect human hormones. In particular, these chemicals mimic or interfere with the functions of hormones (http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2010/02/t20100225a.html) by turning on, shutting off or modifying the signals that hormones carry throughout our bodies. As a result, endocrine disruptors can significantly affect the functioning of various tissues and organs. We'll talk more specifically about the health effects of endocrine disruptors below.
How do endocrine disruptors get into drinking water?
There are a variety of ways that endocrine disruptors can get into our drinking water, because the chemicals are present in man-made products and also occur naturally in nature.
- Man-made sources of endocrine disruptors: Pharmaceutical drugs, dioxins, PCB's, DDT, BPA, pesticides and other chemicals.
- Naturally-occurring sources of endocrine disruptors: Lead, arsenic and mercury
These endocrine disruptors get into drinking water via runoff from agricultural and industrial activities as well as from wastewater that contains traces of the chemicals and pollutes source water. It should be noted that water treatment plants do not treat for endocrine disruptors, and the endocrine disruptors that are removed during the treatment process are purely incidental. The treatment plants that are able to remove small amounts of endocrine disruptors are still unable to remove a large enough percentage of the chemicals, because endocrine disruptors affect humans at very small quantities.
What are the health effects of endocrine disruptors in drinking water?
There are many negative health effects associated with consuming water that's contaminated with endocrine disruptors. Some of the most common health effects include:
- Increased risk of breast and prostate cancers
- Reduced fertility in men and women
- Reproductive abnormalities during pregnancy
- Early puberty in children
- Interference with the reproductive system, nervous system and functionality of organs
How can you remove endocrine disruptors from drinking water?
Because water treatment plants are not able to effectively treat for endocrine disruptors, the best way to remove them from your home's water is to install a water filtration system. North Carolina Water Consultants offers a variety of treatment systems that can remove endocrine disruptors and other chemicals from your home's water. We offer both point-of-use systems, which will remove endocrine disruptors from a single tap, as well as point-of-entry systems, which will remove the chemicals from every single tap in your home.
If you have any questions about endocrine disruptors in drinking water, or if you'd like a water system serviced or installed in your home, contact North Carolina Water Consultants, your water softener and water filtration system dealer in North and South Carolina. We provide service all over the Carolinas, including towns like Cornelius, Huntersville and Charlotte, NC.