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In this article, we explore how everyday water exposure — not just through drinking, but also through showering, cooking, and even vapour inhalation — can introduce harmful contaminants into the body.
We’ll explain how to identify the most common sources of contamination and provide solutions to help you reduce your exposure and protect your long-term health.
Water contaminants are particularly challenging to address for two key reasons. First, we consume water constantly — not just by drinking it, but by showering, cooking, and even breathing in shower vapour. Second, contamination can occur at multiple points from source to tap, including water treatment facilities, aging pipes, and even your taps.
These contaminants are real and widespread — we routinely find severe issues in the homes we test. We regularly detect significantly elevated levels of arsenic, uranium, THMs, lead, PFAS compounds, and more in residential water supplies.
We'd say it's pretty much impossible to write a newsletter that covers all the angles on water. But today, we want to give you our top four actionable recommendations for reducing toxin exposure from water.
The easiest way to make sure you're drinking good water is to get it straight from a well-tested, pure source (in glass jugs!). Thankfully, there are a couple of great companies that do deliveries. We personally recommend Hallstein water.
Alternatively, you can use a Reverse Osmosis System.
We recommend the APEC ROES-PH75 6-stage system, which effectively removes up to 99% of contaminants, including fluoride and THMs.
When choosing any reverse osmosis system, make sure it includes a remineralization component. Demineralized water can cause dietary mineral deficiencies and tends to be more acidic, since the filtering process removes alkaline compounds.
Even if you're drinking great water, there are plenty of other ways for contaminants to get into your system. One of the most concerning to us: inhaling vapours from a hot shower, or absorbing them through your skin.
The best way to deal with this is to install a good whole-house filter. It's impossible to recommend a perfect whole-house filter for everyone, because the contaminants in each person's water are different.
But by and large, we really like Springwell filters. They've done a great job in every situation we've tested them. Plus, they're less expensive than many other systems out there.
Installing one of these will likely reduce contaminant load significantly when you're using water from the tap, shower, laundry machine, and everything else. Springwell filters also do a good job with PFAS, which not many other whole-house filters do.
If you're not quite ready to bite the bullet on a whole-house filter, at least get a shower filter and use that to wash your face as well (even if you’re not showering at the same time). We recommend the Pristine Hydro Ultimate Dual KDF Shower Filter.
This is an easy one: don't use toxic cleaning products on your faucets. (Of course, you shouldn't use bad cleaning products at all!)
We've run into a situation where someone's tap water tested positive for several disinfection byproducts, and it turned out that it was because they were disinfecting their faucet — there was no upstream issue!
Last but not least: just stop drinking from plastic bottles. It's hard, but it's worth it to avoid the forever chemicals leaking into your water from the packaging. Always drink from glass — or at least whenever you can.
During our home health assessment, we’ll test multiple water sources within the home, including drinking water taps, showers, and pre-filtration points. Our methodology differentiates between exposure pathways — such as ingestion, inhalation, and dermal absorption — allowing us to deliver targeted remediation recommendations based on each client’s unique contaminant profile.
We also compare contaminant levels to Health Guidance Levels (HGLs) — the most protective benchmarks available from public health agencies — rather than relying solely on regulatory limits. This ensures that meaningful health risks are identified even when contaminant levels comply with legal standards.
In a recent home assessment, we found an an expensive custom water filtration system incorrectly installed, allowing arsenic and uranium to pass through untreated and exposing the household to carcinogenic and neurotoxic compounds.
In another home, drinking water was found to be contaminated with lead, PFAS, and heavy metals, significantly exceeding health guideline levels and posing long-term risks to immune function and developmental health.
We know that was a lot. But water matters, and making just a couple of changes can dramatically reduce your toxin load.
Get some spring water delivered and get a whole-house water filter, and you'll be in good shape.
Have questions? Feel free to email us hello@universehealth.co.uk
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EMFs are a complex topic, we'll briefly explain what they are, examine the evidence of their health impacts, and share simple ways to reduce your exposure.
We’d love to understand your needs and see how we can help.
Click the link below to learn more about our home testing service.
We have active locations in London — but we also travel to service homes across Europe.