Healthylifefriend.com

I really like to swim and occasionally I accidentally swallow some of the swimming pool water. It kinda makes me wonder if it is dangerous. We all know that there are many people swimming in the pool before or at the same time and who knows what disease they have, not to mention if they pee or poop a little in the pool. Thinking about it is enough to make me feel yucky. Not to mention that the water has chlorine in it which can be dangerous to human body.

First let’s talk about chlorine and what it do to your body if you swallow it. If chlorine accidentally enters the body from swallowing, it reacts with the water inside your body to produce acids. The acids are corrosive and damage cells in the body on contact.

So its dangerous to swallow water in swimming poll then? Well chlorine is there for a reason. First of all, even though chlorine is dangerous the amount that are given in the pool are safe enough for us to accidentally swallow it. The purpose of chlorine in the pool is to kill the germs and bacteria that are in the pool. So all those nasty bacteria other people might have are being killed before it reach you.

So its safe to swallow swimming pool water then? Not really. There are many bacteria and parasite that laugh at the face of chlorine. Parasite  like cryptosporidium is hard to be killed by the chlorine and if it infect you it can cause nasty diarrhea. That is just one of the parasite and there are many more that are hard to kill.

In the end, the best way to keep it safe is to avoid swallowing any swimming pool water.

Sources:

http://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/emergency/chemical_terrorism/chlorine_general.htm

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002772.htm

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=50298

posted: 11 November 4
under: Things you might not know