The Harmful Effects Of Clean Drinking Water!

Scientists across the world have been struggling to find a cure for asthma for the past many decades. They are now broadening their horizons and starting to correlate the occurrence of asthma to various other physiological and environmental factors. According to the results of a groundbreaking research study conducted in Canada and Ecuador, access to clean water changes the gut microbiota of newborn babies and increases the risk of asthma.

While drinking clean water is known to safeguard children from many unwanted microbial infections, it seems it also deprives them of the beneficial microbes required for maintaining a healthy state of being. According to experts, absence of beneficial microbes inside the body was concurrent with the presence of a distinctive fungal population, named Pichia (a type of yeast), which was positively correlated with the occurrence of asthma in the future, Free Press Journal reported.

The study also indicated that gut microbial diversity, especially in the first 100 days of children's lives, is crucial in determining their ability to fight diseases in the future. While clean drinking water is known worldwide for its beneficial effects, little is known about the negative impact it may have on gut microbial diversity. Experts are of the opinion that continuous sterilization of water to make it safe and clean has endangered the very existence of many beneficial microbes, Deccan Chronicle reported.

Dr. Brett Finlay, from the British Columbia University, Canada, and the lead researcher of the study, said, "I would say we're suffering from a hygiene hangover. We have cleaned the world up too much."

He further explained that the present methods of sterilization functions like a carpet bomb, which kills all the microbes, both good and bad. He accepted that "hygiene works" and it had helped in the eradication of many diseases. However, that does not justify the killing of friendly microbes, especially after realizing that "these microbes in the gut are setting the immune system up and different parts of the body talk to each other."