Dr. Jeon's Blog

Children at Risk

About 5 million children die each year due to environmental issues, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Environmental causes include climate change, disease factors, indoor quality, contaminated water, and exposure to toxic chemicals. In particular, atopic dermatitis and asthma are commonly known environmental diseases such the number of patients is continuously increasing in children. The social burden due to the quality of life is very large. Recent reports show results on harmful chemicals affecting children's health based on the children's health projects such as asthma, atopy, childhood developmental disorder, and congenital malformation performed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

The environmental hazards affecting children's health are inorganic arsenic, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, dichlorvos, methyl mercury, phthalates, vinyl chloride, fluorooctane sulfonic acid/perfluorooctanoate, and residual organic pollutants.

Arsenic Hazards

When oral exposure is done through food, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and vomiting are caused and skin cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, and liver cancer are caused. When contact with the skin, skin discoloration, trauma, and excessive pigmentation occur. In case of exposure through breathing, mucosal inflammation is caused and lung cancer generation is increased.

Children have relatively greater exposure than adults due to their unique hand-to-mouth activity and are mainly exposed through exposure, drinking water, and food intake through contaminated soil. The risk of lung cancer increased when the inorganic arsenic was exposed during pregnancy. High exposure to the children's brain may cause low intelligence, memory loss, and skin damage. According to recent studies in India, exposure to inorganic arsenic breathing or drinking water intake has increased the chromosome and DNA damage of lymphocytes in children and adults, and moreover, increased premature birth, stillbirth, and infant mortality rate.

Consideration

For the health care of children, exposure through various media such as food, indoor air, and other factors should be carefully considered. And the cause and correlation of harmful substances affecting children's health should be examined. Especially in the field of drinking water, it is necessary to supply clean water by removing pollutants such as inorganic arsenic from water using a reverse osmosis filter. It seems that various efforts in the living environment related to children's behavioral development are needed. In order to supply healthy water, it is better to supply necessary alkaline minerals by installing Biocera Antioxidant Alkaline water filter cartridges on reverse osmosis system and supply balanced alkaline water.