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The researchers believe that harmful gases trapped indoors from the chlorinated pools are to blame for the airway damage. The main culprit: trichloramine, or nitrogen trichloride, is created when chlorine reacts with ammonia, which can be found in the sweat and urine from swimmers.
Pediatrics 2007 Jun;119(6):1095-103
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
I previously ran articles about the problem of trichloramine in chlorinated pools. Asthma is just one of the many forms of airway damage that can be caused by nitrogen trichloride.
This is the reason that swimming instructors are more than twice as likely to suffer frequently from sinusitis or sore throat, and more than three times as likely to have chronic colds. Swimming pool employees are at a 40 percent greater risk for tightness of the chest, and are over 700 percent more likely to suffer breathlessness while walking.
What's more, the chlorine in swimming pools can cause other problems as well. Pregnant women exposed to chlorinated pools can experience spontaneous abortions and stillbirths, and their children can have congenital malformations.
Chlorinated water may also increase your risk of bladder cancer.
Swimming is both a great form of exercise and a vital life-saving skill for little ones. However, I don't recommend swimming in swimming pools, whether indoors or out, since your body absorbs more chlorine by swimming in a chlorinated pool than you would by drinking tap water for one week.
If you don't have access to a lake, ocean or other natural body of water, you could consider a swimming pool. Just be careful to frequent one that uses chlorine or bromine.
I just purchased a home recently and "inherited" a swimming pool. After much research I concluded that using an ozone machine was the best way to go.
Related Articles:
The Dirty Little Secret Behind the Chlorine in Your Water
How to Avoid the Top 10 Most Common Toxins
Chlorinated Water Can Affect Cancer Risk
I'm sorry, but the days of swimming in lakes or other natural bodies of water are mostly over. The last time I went swimming in a river (1980's) I ended up with a virual infection in my ears. And I have seen dirty syringes that have washed up when at the coasts of oregon. The only thing worse than drinking the public water from the faucet here is swimming in the lakes and rivers. Than there's the pools.
I don't swim in public swimming pools or hot tubs. Where you aware that the MRDD individuals that I and others care for go into those pools and eventually have "accidents" of the 2nd kind. They have to shut down the pool or hot tub.Clean it and reopen it. Wonder how many people are aware of that.