A new study from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine claims that you risk permanent nervous system (brain) damage if you regularly inhale water vapor, when showering, which contains manganese.

What is Manganese?

Manganese is one of the most abundant metals in the earth and is used extensively in making steel, welding rods, paints, fireworks, fertilizers, varnish, livestock supplements and so forth. It's also added to gasoline to reduce engine knocking.

Manganese is likely found so extensively in water supplies because it is highly abundant in the earth and because of its use in gasoline.

Most everyone is exposed to small levels of manganese from the food they eat or mineral supplements they take. Low levels of manganese are essential for good health, but high levels of manganese are toxic.

What Researchers Found

Iif your water supply has high levels of manganese, the water company is free to say that it is completely safe — even when it could, in fact, be the exact opposite.

The analysis was conducted by Dr. John Spangler, M.D. and Dr. Robert Elsner, Ph.D.

They analyzed the levels of manganese that caused central nervous system damage in rodents by accumulating inside their brains. They then reviewed medical literature and animal studies to determine how much manganese people would absorb by showering a mere 10 minutes a day.

They found that by taking brief, daily showers over the course of 10 years, children would be exposed to three times the level of manganese that the rodents were exposed to; adults would be exposed to 50 times more.

This also indicates that adults taking "brief showers" for only one year would still be exposed to five times more manganese than those rodents who suffered brain damage.

The doctors felt that even though all individuals could be at risk from manganese toxicity as a result of their water supply, children, pregnant women, the elderly and those being treated for liver disease are at the highest risk, even when exposed to low doses of manganese when showering.

Additional Facts

These doctors are very concerned about your exposure to manganese levels that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently says are safe for drinking water. The EPA standard for "safe levels" of manganese in drinking water supplies is 0.5 milligrams per liter.

But that standard for manganese is a "secondary standard," which means the EPA only considers manganese to be a nuisance and not a health hazard. And because it is a secondary standard, it is completely unenforceable by the EPA.

So, if your water supply has high levels of manganese, the water company is free to say that it is completely safe — even when it could, in fact, be the exact opposite.

Worse, the EPA standard was based on anticipated exposure by ingesting drinking water. But this new study states that "drinking water" is not the hazard for exposure to manganese toxicity. Instead, the danger is absorbing manganese from water vapor inhalation when showering.

By the way, in the years since the EPA standard was set, and before this latest research, other studies have shown that inhaling manganese dust could result in nervous system damage, learning and coordination disabilities and behavioral changes that are very similar to Parkinson's disease. In fact, back in 1993 the National Institute of Health issued a statement that occupational exposure to manganese for periods of just six months to two years could result in a disease of the central nervous system that resembles Parkinson's disease.

Moreover, these researchers feel that inhaling manganese from water vapor bypasses the blood supply and travels directly to your brain. Once there, it can cause extensive nervous system damage.

How Much Manganese is in Your Water?

Whether you are on a public water system or a private well, you really should find out if manganese or other dangerous contaminants are in your water. If you are on a public water system (85 percent of people are), chances are good that you are exposed to some level of manganese, trihalomethanes, haloaecetic acids, chlorine and other harmful contaminants.

Once you determine the type and level of contaminants in your water supply, you can get the right water treatment system to purify it; and you can consult your health practitioner to help reverse any damage you may have suffered from exposure to those contaminants.