Last Updated on April 17, 2022 by TODD FRANZEN
We all know that water needs to be treated. It needs to be purified. What is the byproduct of purification? Today, we are going to talk about Endotoxins. What are endotoxins?
Water is life. Water is essential for all living things on this planet to survive. If you don’t have clean water, you are at risk of disease and sickness. So what does “clean water” mean? Let’s talk about the byproduct of purification – Endotoxins!
What are endotoxins? They are toxins that can get into your body through drinking or being immersed in untreated, polluted water. Here are some ways that they can make you sick: intestinal diseases like cholera, typhoid fever, amoebic dysentery; liver diseases like hepatitis A and E; respiratory infections like pneumonia caused by various bacteria; skin disease/infection from fungi or parasites.
You might not know about these diseases, but some of them are super dangerous. And if you get sick with them, it won’t be good at all!
How can you protect yourself?
The best solution is to use a personal water filter rather than drinking polluted water. That’s right – your tap isn’t the only source of harmful chemicals in your water!
“A toxin produced by certain bacteria and released upon destruction of the bacterial cell”. –Medical Dictionary
So when the bacteria cell explodes from disintegration, all the remaining “toxic stuff” that the cell is made from is released into the surrounding liquid.
“Toxins are closely associated with the living cytoplasm or cell wall of certain microorganisms, which do not readily diffuse into the culture medium, but are released upon lysis of the cells”. –Pubmed
These Endotoxins are and become present in water treatment. They are normally found in membrane filters that use endotoxin-removing resins to remove these contaminants from water. The endotoxin removal process is most effective when it occurs after the purification process, rather than before.
Endotoxins are a type of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). LPS is a molecule found in the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. Two good examples are Salmonella and Yersinia(responsible for the Plague). Endotoxins aren’t limited to water treatment, it’s also in other industries including food and pharmaceuticals.
How to remove Endotoxins
There are a few ways to remove endotoxins from water:
– Use an endotoxin-removing resin in the membrane filter. This is the most common way to remove endotoxins from water.
– Or by an activated carbon filter after the purification process. This will help remove any remaining endotoxins from the water.
Endotoxins can cause health problems in people who drink the water. They can also cause problems for people who work with the water.
The health of your family relies on it! Ridding the water you plan to drink from endotoxins will give a fresher, cleaner flavor.
What is the size of Endotoxins? Generally speaking…
If we take the coronavirus, its size is around 0.125 microns with a molecular weight of 22 million daltons. And if we look at the salmonella bacteria, it’s much bigger in size. 2-5 microns long and 0.5-1.5 microns wide. To put that into perspective, that would be something like 40 endotoxin molecules to fit across a human hair! That’s small!
So, Why haven’t I heard about endotoxins?
Endotoxins are not something that we talk about a lot, at least I haven’t heard much about them. Water treatment plants do not need to test for endotoxin on purified water. So even if you’re drinking treated water from somewhere, there is a chance endotoxins could be present in the water.
Sure, the purification process makes water safe to drink, making these organisms unable to replicate. But the thought of something that is toxic coming from the bi-products of the purification process frankly grosses me out!
One of the side effects can be sepsis. I had a little bit of sepsis going on during my recovery from my second stem cell transplant in my fight against lymphoma.
My two cents…
Obviously, there is a lot of other factors that contributed to this. The importance of clean water in recovery is was a critical key. When a person’s immune system has trouble fighting off infection from toxins, they can become severely ill and even die. This makes it harder for them to recover from those illnesses.
By installing a carbon filter after purification, you are ensuring the removal of endotoxins.
There are two common ways of removing endotoxins: using an endotoxin-removing resin in membrane filters or by adding activated carbon after the purification process.
Either way, remove all endotoxins before drinking or consuming clean water!
See this post about Exotoxins.
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