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Water And Infections:
What We Drink…
There's been debate
over the years about whether drinking water coming into
our homes can be a source of bacteria, viruses, and
other germs that can lead to infections of the
intestinal tract. It's known that malfunctions of
municipal water supply systems can result in
contamination of drinking water, but those problems are
few. The unanswered question is whether typical drinking
water can be a problem.
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To see just how often
gastrointestinal illnesses might result from drinking
water provided by a municipal system, researchers
compared rates of these illnesses among people in the
Davenport, Iowa, area. This population is served by a
well-run water utility that uses high-standard
purification techniques to assure that tap water is
safe. Volunteers from 456 households used water from a
device that provided either regular tap water (direct
from the municipal water supply) or water that came
through a special filter (that was highly effective in
removing bacteria, viruses, and other germs from water);
for six months, they used one kind of water, and for the
next six months they used the other. The volunteers
recorded symptoms of gastrointestinal illness (diarrhea,
nausea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps) during the two
6-month periods; none of the volunteers, which included
about 1,300 adults and children, knew which water they
were using at any time during the study.
When the authors
compared the number of gastrointestinal illness episodes
between people using tap water and those using
specially-filtered water, they found no differences.
They conclude that in communities with high standards of
purity for their tap water, the municipal water supply
is an unlikely source for gastrointestinal illnesses. (Colford
JM et al: American Journal of Epidemiology, March 1,
2005, pp. 472-482)
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