I am 47years old and have returned to swimming as a fitness choice. I get 3 workouts of 2500yds/week and feel great. I also have an inground pool that my family enjoys in the summer months. My question relates to the long term consequences of chlorine exposure. Do studies exist that show whether swimmers have an increased health risk to cancers? Has anyone looked at pool chlorine exposure as a health risk in any way? The pools I swim in all use chlorine as a sanitizer and I would hate to think my exercise regimen may be doing me more harm than good!
I can't answer your specific questions (although will be interested in other responses); however, one tip I do have is to always shower right before you swim. I've read and heard this decreases the amount of chlorine your body and hair absorbs. Supposedly the dry body absorbs a large portion of the moisture at the initial time you get wet. I think someone also posted once that showering before jumping in the pool also decreases the amount of chlorine your bathing suit absorbs and hence can help your suits last longer.
If you think the long term health effects of swimming in chlorinated water is bad ...
Long term effects of swimming in untreated water is even worse!
What's better, swimming while exposed to swimming or not swimming?
Ozone pools are a great idea but I'm not convinced on how much of the ozone remains in the water. This in turn makes me wonder about the kill time of ozone treated pools.
This is a serious question and deserves some air time. As a retired coach and pool manager, I feel I have some good ideas. First, let me tell you about the chemical factory I swim in. This is a fairly new 25 yard - 8 lane pool in a High School. It has an Ozone System for sanitizing the water. Unfortunately, no-one seems to know how to run it and so the pool personnel (janitors) just continue to use Chlorine ! Incredible ! After I do my workout in the evening, I must not only shower like a surgeon readying for an operation, I must also completely cover myself with the lotion du jour or else suffer a night of scratching and listening to my wife say " you stink". Even with this, I worked out Thur. night and by the Sat. AM shower at home, Chlorine was still to be smelled coming from my pores. That ain't right, folks !
Now, I have read articles that suggest Chlorine may be hazardous to teeth and I darn sure know that it sets off my allergies bigtime. I take an anti-histamine before and after for this very reason. Don't tell me Chlorine is not an allergen ! By the way, goldfish will not survive in tap water that has 1/100th of the Chlorine in most pools.
In 1986 !!!, I swam in the Worlds at Tokyo, Japan. There was no chlorine in the pool and we could all swim without goggles.
Here's the problem : Many pools in the USA are run or serviced by boneheads who do not have to swim in the soup they create. The standard line is to just add chlorine and then try to cancel it out with Soda Ash. Most of us spend all of our aquatic time swimming in dilute Hydrochloric acid. Anyone else care to weigh in ??? :mad:
If you can smell the chlorine in the air then it isn't right mixture in the pool. I must have it good because at my pool you cannot smell the chlorine, I don't itch if I don't put on lotion, my hair is okay, and the ph isn't so bad that the eyes sting. One of the instructors went to pool school and does all the water chemicals. She doesn't want to be in it if it isn't right. :cool:
Janis,
What's the name of the pool? The chief "chemist"?
I would like to at least give the information to my pool people. Fortunately, I like the smell of chlorine ... warm fuzzies about working out or something. But, it is a major smell and a major eye-stinger. At least I don't itch.
Thanks.
Sometimes the pool water makes my body hair disappear. I call this the 'dilute Nair effect' and makes shaving for big meets easier. It usually means the water is too alkaline. So what happens to the lungs when you breath that stuff? I know of several older swimmers that have developed excercise-induced asthma. I *don't* know the cause, but I wonder . . .
Tens of millions of people have been drinking chlorinated water from their taps for generations. You can smell the chlorine. No one seems to have associated it with any illness
