We all know how important water and hydration is to bodily function. Let’s look closer at how some of the contaminants commonly found in water can affect the brain and learning. Our kids need the best possible start! Insuring that the water they hydrate with is healthy, is a simple, affordable way to give them the best start!
Many things can contaminate any public water supply. Lead, as almost everyone has heard, can and is in some public water supply.
The Franklin Institute web site reports,
The EPA permits our drinking water to have 15 parts per billion of lead, but according to one of their own studies: “Drinking water supplied to 30 million people in 819 cities contains unhealthy levels of lead.”19
Environmental lead exposure from industrial pollution and lead residues in soil further add to the accumulating burden of lead in the body and brain.
Today, acidic chemicals being added to drinking water are magnifying the uptake of lead into the bloodstream and the brain. Acidic chemical added to drinking water leaches lead from plumbing.
More than 98% of U.S. homes have lead in their plumbing systems. It comes from lead pipes and copper pipes connected by lead solder. Chrome-plated faucets are made of brass containing up to 8% lead.
Lead Lowers Intelligence – Study
In 1995, the American Academy of Pediatrics reviewed 18 scientific studies on the correlation between children’s mental abilities and lead in their blood. “The relationship between lead levels and IQ deficits was found to be remarkably consistent,” the Academy said.
“A number of studies have found that for every 10 ug/dL (microgram per deciliter) increase in blood lead levels, there was a lowering of mean IQ in children by 4 to 7 points.” (That’s less than a thousandth of a gram of lead.)
Toxicity Threshold for Lead and IQ Scores – Studies
In the largest study of its kind, data from 4,800 children and adolescents showed that those with blood lead concentrations as low as 5 ug/dL had learning problems. For every 1 ug/dL rise in blood lead levels, their reading scores dropped an average of 1%.
The more data we get, the more we must lower the toxicity threshold for lead. “There is no safe level of blood lead,” says Dr. Bruce Lanphear, an associate professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati. It’s estimated that one in every 30 U.S. children suffers from the harmful effects of lead.
” Until the last decade, we couldn’t find children with levels low enough to study them in this way,” said he study’s author Dr. Lanphear at a news briefing in March 2001, sponsored by the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning and the American Public Health Association.
His research team also measured blood lead levels in 276 New York children – twice a year, from six months to five years old. At age five, the kids were given an IQ test. Those with a lead concentration of less than 10 ug/dL scored on average more than 10 points lower on the Stanford-Binet IQ test, compared to children with concentrations of less than 1 ug/dL.
Levels as low as 2.5 ug/dL were associated with lower scores in tests of reading and mathematics. (The CDC’s threshold of safety established in 1991 is still 10 ug/dL.) Lanphear said the study also found that for every additional 10 ug/dL increase in blood-lead concentration, IQ declined by an average of 5.5 points.
Fluoride is also a danger to your child’s brain. The web site Fluoride and the Brain has some important information.
Key Findings – Fluoride & the Brain:
1) Fluoride’s ability to damage the brain represents one of the most active areas of research on fluoride toxicity today.
2) The research on fluoride and the brain has been fueled by 18 human studies from China, India, Iran, and Mexico finding elevated levels of fluoride exposure to be associated with IQ deficits in children. Fluoride’s impact on IQ is exacerbated among children with low-iodine exposure.
3) The impact of fluoride on children’s IQ has been documented even after controlling for children’s lead exposure, iodine exposure, parental education and income status, and other known factors that might impact the results (Rocha-Amador 2007; Xiang 2003 a,b).
4) In addition to IQ studies, 3 studies (Yu 1996; Du 1992; Han 1989) have found that fluoride accumulates in the brain of the fetus, causing damage to cells and neurotransmitters and 1 study (Li 2004) has found a correlation between exposure to fluoride during fetal development and behavioral deficits among neonates.
5) Several recent studies have found that even adult exposures to fluoride may result in central nervous system disturbances, particularly among industrial workers.
5) The findings of neurological effects in fluoride-exposed humans is consistent with, and strengthened by, recent findings from over 40 animal studies published since 1992. As with the studies on humans, the studies on animals have reported an impairment in learning and memory prorcesses among the fluoride-treated groups.
6) The animal studies have also documented considerable evidence of direct toxic effects of fluoride on brain tissue, even at levels as low as 1 ppm fluoride in water (Varner 1998). These effects include:
— reduction in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors;
— reduction in lipid content;
— impaired anti-oxidant defense systems;
— damage to the hippocampus;
— damage to the purkinje cells;
— increased uptake of aluminum;
— formation of beta-amyloid plaques (the classic brain abnormality in Alzheimer’s disease);
— exacerbation of lesions induced by iodine deficiency; and
— accumulation of fluoride in the pineal gland.
Read the documentation and find more information at http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluoride-dangers/health/brain/index.aspx
These are just 2 water contaminants that could impair your childs learning ability. To insure your child is hydrated and healthy for getting back to school, use only filtered tap water! You want to give your child the best education possible! And the best hydration! Multi-Pure water filters are NSF certified to remove the most harmful contaminants from your home tap water! Your child’s education is worth the expense of purchasing a home water filtration system. Multi-Pure offers many purchase options to fit most any budget! Get yours today! Send them back to school healthy and hydrated!
