Symptoms of dehydration, water contamination & more
News and Current Events, August 2009, pg 2
Summaries of articles on symptoms of dehydration including symptoms of dehydration news, pediatric dehydration, water contamination, bottled water facts follow. This is page 2 of a 2 page water news for August, 2009.
Click for page one dehydration symptoms news, August 2009
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Is It Safe for Babies to Drink Water?
Is it safe for babies to drink water? I heard there’s a 1 percent chance they could get encephalitis.D.J., New York, N.Y. Dr. Alan Greene responds:
Even though water may be the safest and healthiest everyday beverage for older children and adults, water can be dangerous for young babies.
We have a page devoted to the topic of giving babies water. Certainly, on this issue, you must work with your baby’s doctor in formulating a plan for introducing water to your baby. The information in the following link is for general informational purposes.
The following item addresses the issue of dehydration in kids. I would guess that an awful lot of kids simply do not drink water. My years in schools led me to conclude that many children simply do not look to water as the main drink for hydrating. Following is an excerpt from the article and link to entire item.
Once summer hits, many kids want to spend all day, every day playing outside. In addition to wearing cool clothing, sunscreen, hats and sunglasses, it's important to send kids outdoors with enough water to drink to avoid becoming dehydrated.
Dehydration is a condition that occurs when someone loses more fluids than he or she takes in, and in the hot summer heat, this loss usually occurs through excessive sweat. Sweating is a great cooling system, but on a hot summer day, your child could be losing too much water through their skin.
Labeling won't make bottled water safer, Angela Logomasini
I rarely get angry at dissenting views when researching water issues. Well, the following item got me angry at the author and her positions on bottled water. The entire article is reprinted followed by an article we wrote on bottled water which dissents strongly from the author’s position. Read them both and you decide.
The news is depressing these days as people fear losing their homes or jobs and worry about family members deployed in military operations overseas. So what are members of Congress worried about? They fear the "grave" threats posed by -- bottled water. Now that's crazy.
Supposedly consumers are at risk from, or are being duped about, bottled water quality. Lawmakers think the solution is more detailed labeling mandates that include listing the traces of chemicals that water might contain.
We don't ask other food producers to list every possible contaminant in their products. In fact, Food and Drug Administration regulations allow a certain level of impurities, including rodent hairs, cockroach parts and fly wings in foods like flour.
You don't read that on the label. Why? Because absolute purity is impossible and unnecessary from a public health perspective.
And when you are talking about trace level chemicals in bottle water, it's even more irrelevant. These contaminants exist at such low levels that they pose negligible risks, which is why the FDA does not fuss over them.
Yet government officials rant and take up such "causes" to gather green political points. In this case, they enlisted the help of their very own "independent" research arm: U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The same day of the hearings, GAO released a conveniently timed report on bottled water to buttress the lawmakers' alarmism.
The GAO report recommends increased labeling of bottled water to report chemicals that appear in the parts-per-billion range. But GAO's recommendation is a policy judgment. It is not supported with data proving that bottled water poses significant risks under current regulatory practices or that more bureaucratic reporting of essentially meaningless data would matter.
The GAO study did not assess bottled water's safety. Instead it compared Environmental Protection Agency regulations of tap water to FDA regulations of bottled water, which it found to be basically the same, except that FDA also applies food safety and packaging regulations. It suggested that FDA implementation was weaker than EPA, but it did not assess performance -- the quality of bottled water verses tap.
Lawmakers used GAO value judgments to suggest that bottled water was no different than tap water and that it might even be less safe. The Competitive Enterprise Institute's study (found at enjoybottledwater.org consumer web site) does not support that contention.
In terms of safety, both tap and bottled water are generally good, yet available data indicates that bottled water has a better safety record. If you compare health-related problems that have been connected to both bottled and tap water, tap water has more documented health-related incidents by factors in the tens of thousands.
For example, one EPA study documents a total of 207 waterborne-disease outbreaks producing 433,947 documented illnesses and 73 deaths between 1991 and 2002. Most of these cases were the result of a major outbreak of the pathogen cryptosporidium in Milwaukee's tap water during 1993, which produced 403,000 illnesses and 50 deaths.
The study also notes that waterborne illnesses are increasingly linked to distribution of tap water via pipes, where it becomes contaminated. In contrast, bottled water is distributed sanitary packages that ensure quality during distribution.
In contrast, "there has not been a documented major outbreak of illness from bottled water in the U.S.," says Amy Simonne, assistant professor for food safety and quality at the University of Florida.
The fact that there hasn't been a major outbreak does not mean there are no isolated cases of individual problems or small-scale outbreaks. The Centers for Disease Control reports a handful of cases during the past several decades. There are also, periodic recalls of bottled water because of trace chemicals found, but few health problems.
And according to EPA, the risks of tap water are underestimated. In fact, agency officials believe that millions of Americans suffer from acute gastrointestinal illness (diarrhea) every year from drinking tap water. Not surprisingly, the CDC recommends bottled water for people with compromised immune systems.
As a result, government mandate labeling won't make the water safer, and it won't educate consumers on the risks. However, new bottled water labeling regulations will increase paperwork, bureaucracy, and waste money. But then Washington specializes in those things.
Angela Logomasini is director of risk and environmental policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute and editor of Enjoybottledwater.org.
Health Tip: Why You Should Drink Water, Cells and organs need it to function
The following article reinforces what we often assert. The reason why chronic dehydration is implicated in so many health disorders is that dehydration effects every cell in our body. When dehydrated, all cells are dehydrated to some extent. Following is the link to article.
US Drinking Water and Watersheds Widely Contaminated by Hormone Disrupting Pesticide, Atrazine: Analysis of Water Data Reveals Broad Contamination
Much of the concern of Healthy Water is the problem of water contamination. The following article is reprinted to help inform concerned citizens.
CHICAGO - August 24 - A widely used pesticide known to impact wildlife development and, potentially, human health has contaminated watersheds and drinking water throughout much of the United States, according to a new report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Banned by the European Union, atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. waters and is a known endocrine disruptor, which means that it affects human and animal hormones. It has been tied to poor sperm quality in humans and hermaphroditic amphibians.
"Evidence shows Atrazine contamination to be a widespread and dangerous problem that has not been communicated to the people most at risk," said Jennifer Sass, PhD, NRDC Senior Scientist and an author of the report. "U.S. EPA is ignoring some very high concentrations of this pesticide in water that people are drinking and using every day. This exposure could have a considerable impact on reproductive health. Scientific research has tied this chemical to some ghastly impacts on wildlife and raises red flags for possible human impacts."
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Why cats need wet food
The following article addresses the issue of pet dehydration, in particular cat dehydration.
Note: the article advises against one of our recommendations of adding a little water to dry cat food. “Adding water or milk to dry food does not solve the problem; and the fact that there are always bacteria on the surface of dry food means that adding moisture can result in massive bacterial growth--and a very upset tummy.” However, adding water right before eating should not lead to any bacterial growth. You decide.
Articles on dehydration while engaged in sports are always compelling to us. That’s because the effects of dehydration during exercise is the best suggestive evidence we have of what even a little dehydration can wreak on the human body. Exerpt and link ti entire article follows.
Dehydration is a common problem among athletes and can potentially be a life-threatening situation. With the fall school sports seasons once again underway, it is important to understand how to stay adequately hydrated to prevent dehydration and to optimize performance levels.Advertisement
Dehydration is critical when exercising in the heat, but dehydration can occur in any type of exercise setting, including exercising in cool weather or in water.
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