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Showers 'may damage your
brain'
21/07/2005
15:19 - (SA)
Washington - Traces of magnesium found in household water
could be sufficient to cause permanent brain damage to those
who take a regular shower, according to a report published in
the US journal Medical Hypotheses.
John Spangler of the Wake Forest University School of
Medicine in North Carolina and his team suggested that
breathing in vapour containing manganese salts could be
dangerous over the longer term.
"Inhaling manganese, rather than eating or drinking it, is
far more efficient at delivering manganese to the brain. The
nerve cells involved in smell are a direct pathway for toxins
to enter the brain," Spangler wrote.
The team used animal studies aimed at showing how much a
person who showered for 10 minutes a day would absorb.
The effects are dependent on the levels of manganese in
household water. In the United States, a limit of 0.5
milligrams a litre of water is imposed by the Environmental
Protection Agency, while in the European Union, an upper level
of just a 10th of that was set only in 1998.
Spangler suggested that even levels below the US upper
limit could lead to brain damage.
Ten years of showering in water containing concentrations
of manganese around the US limit would expose young people to
levels three times higher than that found to leave deposits in
rats' brains.
The longer the exposure, the worse the risk.
Manganese poisoning leads to tremors in sufferers - much
like Parkinson's disease.
Apart from natural sources in ground water, manganese is
sometimes added to petrol. This also finds its way ultimately
into drinking water.
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