Eddy Gilmore: Drink to your health
Eddy Gilmore: Drink to your health
Eddy Gilmore Budgeteer News
Published Thursday, April 03, 2008
Eddy Gilmore is a freelance writer, father of twins, and husband of one. Gilmore writes once a month for the Budgeteer.
This week I got back into my habit of biking to work. In the morning, everything is frozen solid. By the afternoon, large quantities of water, along with myself, race down the hill toward the lake.
Water looms large on our horizon, with 10 percent of the world’s freshwater supply just outside our doorstep.
Brief trivia factoid: Duluth uses approximately 0.0003 percent of Lake Superior each year. Unfortunately, the big drink for many years has served as both a sewer and water source.
For example, even though it’s 2008 and everybody knows it is very important not to flush old medications down the toilet, I have recently heard of a very large institution that flushes all unused narcotics into the sewer system as a matter of policy. There are frequent medicine cabinet clean-out days, such as one this coming April 26, that are publicized so people will learn to dispose of their drugs in a safe manner.
However, it seems that our individual use pales in comparison to the quantity sent down the drain on a daily basis in at least one of our major hospital systems. Granted, they just dispose of unused narcotics in this fashion — and not antibiotics — but the sewer system is not designed to remove these powerful drugs from the effluent pumped back into the lake following wastewater treatment. Over time, these can build up and could be very harmful to the ecosystem and also to all of us who must drink this water.
My mole in the organization, a nurse, advises they must dispose of the unused drugs in this fashion or they could face trouble due to being in violation of a policy meant to thwart the efforts of drug addicts looking for a quick fix. This is a problem, indeed. Still, if we can put a man on the moon, there must be a way for large hospitals to dispose of unused drugs in a safe manner that doesn’t put the surrounding environment and public at potential risk.
Once the water is drawn into our system for consumption from Lake Superior, it undergoes intensive treatment to ensure its safety. It seems this is becoming increasingly more intense in recent years, as the aroma of chlorine in the tap water appears to have increased markedly. My interest was recently piqued regarding the practice of adding fluoride to the water supply by a letter to the editor in the daily paper March 11.
I’m honestly not working on behalf of Big Dentistry in an effort to sell more dental work, but the writer made some excellent points. We need to consider carefully whether the side effects of this byproduct from fertilizer and aluminum factories outweigh the alleged benefits.
If you google fluoride right now, you will discover that the first few items made available are giving well-reasoned arguments against its use. I’m shocked to learn this, frankly. There are several studies out there indicating that, while the topical application of fluoride is beneficial for teeth, the constant ingestion of it may cause long-term health problems.
After all, you’re supposed to call poison control if you swallow a pea-sized amount of toothpaste due to the amount of hazardous fluoride it contains. Yet this same amount of fluoride is contained in a single glass of water. I’m no scientist, but there is enough evidence out there that really should be carefully weighed in the balance.
We shouldn’t keep doing something just because our forefathers decided it was OK.
Many of the chemicals and substances used today will end up being banned tomorrow as carcinogenic or otherwise harmful. Our bodies only flush out about half of our daily intake of this substance, and the rest accumulates over time and can be very detrimental. Perhaps it would be best to just use topical fluoride treatments (such as toothpaste), and not ingest it all day long for no good reason.
That being said, the massive quantity of water in these parts is one of many reasons most of us like it here. Enjoy the spring thaw, and, as you are refreshed by the awakened streams or observe a steady flow pouring into a storm sewer, be thinking about how we treat it both for drinking and also for placing back into the environment when we’re done with it.
Eddy Gilmore Budgeteer News
Published Thursday, April 03, 2008
Eddy Gilmore is a freelance writer, father of twins, and husband of one. Gilmore writes once a month for the Budgeteer.
This week I got back into my habit of biking to work. In the morning, everything is frozen solid. By the afternoon, large quantities of water, along with myself, race down the hill toward the lake.
Water looms large on our horizon, with 10 percent of the world’s freshwater supply just outside our doorstep.
Brief trivia factoid: Duluth uses approximately 0.0003 percent of Lake Superior each year. Unfortunately, the big drink for many years has served as both a sewer and water source.
For example, even though it’s 2008 and everybody knows it is very important not to flush old medications down the toilet, I have recently heard of a very large institution that flushes all unused narcotics into the sewer system as a matter of policy. There are frequent medicine cabinet clean-out days, such as one this coming April 26, that are publicized so people will learn to dispose of their drugs in a safe manner.
However, it seems that our individual use pales in comparison to the quantity sent down the drain on a daily basis in at least one of our major hospital systems. Granted, they just dispose of unused narcotics in this fashion — and not antibiotics — but the sewer system is not designed to remove these powerful drugs from the effluent pumped back into the lake following wastewater treatment. Over time, these can build up and could be very harmful to the ecosystem and also to all of us who must drink this water.
My mole in the organization, a nurse, advises they must dispose of the unused drugs in this fashion or they could face trouble due to being in violation of a policy meant to thwart the efforts of drug addicts looking for a quick fix. This is a problem, indeed. Still, if we can put a man on the moon, there must be a way for large hospitals to dispose of unused drugs in a safe manner that doesn’t put the surrounding environment and public at potential risk.
Once the water is drawn into our system for consumption from Lake Superior, it undergoes intensive treatment to ensure its safety. It seems this is becoming increasingly more intense in recent years, as the aroma of chlorine in the tap water appears to have increased markedly. My interest was recently piqued regarding the practice of adding fluoride to the water supply by a letter to the editor in the daily paper March 11.
I’m honestly not working on behalf of Big Dentistry in an effort to sell more dental work, but the writer made some excellent points. We need to consider carefully whether the side effects of this byproduct from fertilizer and aluminum factories outweigh the alleged benefits.
If you google fluoride right now, you will discover that the first few items made available are giving well-reasoned arguments against its use. I’m shocked to learn this, frankly. There are several studies out there indicating that, while the topical application of fluoride is beneficial for teeth, the constant ingestion of it may cause long-term health problems.
After all, you’re supposed to call poison control if you swallow a pea-sized amount of toothpaste due to the amount of hazardous fluoride it contains. Yet this same amount of fluoride is contained in a single glass of water. I’m no scientist, but there is enough evidence out there that really should be carefully weighed in the balance.
We shouldn’t keep doing something just because our forefathers decided it was OK.
Many of the chemicals and substances used today will end up being banned tomorrow as carcinogenic or otherwise harmful. Our bodies only flush out about half of our daily intake of this substance, and the rest accumulates over time and can be very detrimental. Perhaps it would be best to just use topical fluoride treatments (such as toothpaste), and not ingest it all day long for no good reason.
That being said, the massive quantity of water in these parts is one of many reasons most of us like it here. Enjoy the spring thaw, and, as you are refreshed by the awakened streams or observe a steady flow pouring into a storm sewer, be thinking about how we treat it both for drinking and also for placing back into the environment when we’re done with it.
posted by Bill at
9:55 AM
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