Tap water safety

[FRx]

Well, we know that alcohol consumption messes with gut microbiome so it is logical that chlorine (and similar) consumption would do the same. The question is whether the tiny amounts cause problems. The study suggests that it might. It seems prudent to avoid drinking bleach if possible. That's what I believed I was doing by filtering my water, but I learned that my filter only eliminates the taste and smell of chlorine, not the chlorine itself, nor the other disinfectants. So, for me, that is a problem.

The way such studies in rats, mice, and humans are designed is that they can show you from a lab test how the gut microflora are behaving but they aren't actually telling you what your microbiome is doing. It's a placeholder for what's really happening and such studies are notoriously of little clinical value. Just as stool biome testing doesn't tell us which bacteria is doing what in what part of the intestine at what time in the day, we can't rely on animal studies or even human studies for shifts in microflora.

Instead, if your intestinal biome is off it's fairly easy to tell because you'll have symptoms and problems from energy, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, cramping, indigestion, mood changes. If those are chronic, it's worth to revert back to the kind of diet you think is best for your intestinal flora and see if things get better. If not, it's worth looking into other causes.

The surrogate markers we use in medicine are notoriously sending a lot of noise and very little signal. In only rare cases are they actually quite effective.