Water Education - Water and Health

Food Digestion and the Effects of Contaminants in Water

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Nutritionists will tell you that food digestion actually starts in your mouth. While this may sound surprising, it is obviously true. Food is taken into the mouth and chewed which is called mastication. This is the first step of digestion and it allows for a more efficient breakdown of enzymes.

If you have fillings with mercury or other metals, trace parts of these metals could conceivably become part of your food in your mouth and be taken down the esophagus into the stomach. There are other possibilities of mixing toxins with your food, like if you eat food that has been rinsed with water that contains pollutants. Arsenic, barium, mercury, lead, and many other metal, chemical, and microbial contaminants are often found in the drinking water of many states. These toxins get into the drinking water through dumping by industrial companies, deteriorating public water delivery systems, and hundreds of other potential contamination methods and channels. Another serious contaminant in drinking water is nitrates. Nitrates are serious health hazards to people and are linked to the blue baby syndrome in newborns and are considered a possible carcinogen.

These health-damaging toxins in a person's drinking water may affect their food digestion by causing more aggravation to the mouth, esophagus, and stomach. The combination of natural, man-made, and bacteria contaminants found in water can seriously affect human health in general and is being researched as a possible cause of cancer, acute food poisoning, and other health issues.

Food that has been broken down is sent to the stomach where natural stomach acids work on the food and nutrients are sent out into the digestive system to be used to repair cells. Fiber is sent to the colon and is worked through the final stage of the food digestive system. Fiber is necessary to absorb much of the acids found in the stomach and is also very important to clean the intestines as it is pushed out to the colon.

Between the time when food is placed into your mouth until it is processed and left from the body, the digestive system has managed to absorb not only important nutrients but also dangerous toxins. Many of these toxins are introduced into the body through the drinking water which may carry foreign contaminants like pesticides used by a farm 10 miles away, or even closer if toxins are actually a stationary part of your mouth like your tooth fillings. Some of these toxins are not easily expelled out of the body. They manage to stay in the digestive system and lodge in bodily organs that are a major part of the digestive system like the liver, pancreas, intestine, or stomach. It is these toxins found in drinking water that are suspected to cause cancers in body organs needed for food digestion.

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