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So often in life it’s simple little steps taken by many that produce the greatest results.  I have to wonder if this isn’t one of them.  Various sources are more frequently reporting on the impact of prescription & non-prescription medications, as well as personal care products on our drinking water.  Less is known about the direct impact on human health at this point in time, but in a recent University of Colorado study, Dr. David Norris reported finding male fish turning into females as a result of estrogen in our rivers - five times more females than males in certain species.  How many people could be taking estrogen?  Well, as it turns out, it’s not only estrogen itself, but it’s certain chemical compounds in soaps and detergents that can mimic estrogen.  So they pass through our waste water treatment plants, which can’t remove or treat them, and back into our rivers and our drinking water.  Eighty percent of streams tested in 30 states in the US tested positive for estrogen or it’s mimicker.

I’m not an alarmist, but I tend to think about the what if’s?  If there is something I can do that’s simple, but effective, just in case? What if those same results do prove, over time, to have the same impact on the human population?  And this particular study talks only about estrogen, although others have identified the presence of anti-depressants, cholesterol, aspirin, etc in drinking water, in fish species, etc all over the globe.  For most things like this, the impact over time is the unknown element.

So let’s just say - just in case - that we want to take some simple steps to reverse this possibility?  What can we do?  Well first:

Disposal - no more flushing or putting prescription or non-prescriptions drugs in the trash as once was advised.  The Harvard Heart Letter offers these suggestions:

1. Ask your pharmacist if he or she can take back medications.
2. Call your city or state to ask about disposal programs like those mentioned above.
3. If you need to put your medications in the trash, keep them in their original childproof and watertight containers. Leave the label on, but scratch out your name to protect privacy. Add some water to pills, and put some flour in liquids. Conceal the vials by putting them in paper bags before throwing them out.

Yes, I know it might take a phone call or two, but once you have the information, it’s a simple matter of changing the habits we have around medication disposal.  Not any more difficult, just different. The other thing we can do is to rethink the purchase of personal care products and cleaning products and switch to products that don’t contain toxic chemicals.  You can even same money by making your own.  Again, once you start doing it, it doesn’t take more time, other than taking the time to develop a new habit.

But even more intriguing to me, and much more effective, would be if we reduced the amount of medication we needed.  Not used, but needed.  There’s a distinction here.  I’m not suggesting that people who are helped by certain medications should not take them, I’m suggesting that we seriously consider lifestyle changes that prevent us from needing the medications in the first place.  One simple strategy:  Nature.  Researcher Roger Ulrich, in a landmark study in 1984, found that hospital patients recovering from surgery, showed faster recoveries and less use of pain medication when they simply had a view of nature outside their hospital window as compared to those with non-nature views.  Over 100 studies show a connection between Nature and reduced stress as well as nature and reduced depression.  So what if the prescription your doctor provided was to spend an hour out in nature?   Wouldn’t a small simple step like this, done by many, reverse the trend in our drinking water?  Yes, I’m not naive, there are certainly more issues with agricultural chemicals, etc.  but adopting a healthier lifestyle by connecting to nature, causes you to rethink other consumer and lifestyle habits. More on that later…