I did some reading and calculations and was surprised to find out about the levels of daily fluoride, chlorine, and bromine exposure an average person is subjected to everyday.
A liter of tap water with "ideal" levels of fluoride has between 700 to 1200 micrograms of fluoride per liter.
White table wine, listed as the highest of the wines at 297 mcg per 5 oz serving. This same site listed potatoes at 49 mcg per potato, although it only lists chicken drumsticks at 15mcg so I am sure it is biased and lower than actual given how much pesticides are sprayed all over and fed to chickens.
"The average child using the typical amount of fluoridated toothpaste will swallow or absorb 0.5 to 1.0 mg. of fluoride per brushing."
Of course they claim that "98%" of this fluoride will leave through the urine... but...that is a HUGE amount from brushing! 500 to 1000mcg per brushing!
This is bad... butlook how much bromine people are consuming!!
"Brominated vegetable oil, or BVO, which acts as an emulsifier in citrus-flavored soda drinks, is found in about 10 percent of sodas sold in the U.S.
“After a few extreme soda binges — not too far from what many [video] gamers regularly consume – a few patients have needed medical attention for skin lesions, memory loss and nerve disorders, all symptoms of overexposure to bromine,” according to a recent article in Environmental News.
PepsiCo., owner of Mountain Dew, declined to comment on the brand-specific issue....
The Food and Drug Administration limits the use of BVO to 15 parts per million in fruit-flavored beverages."
since the density of soda is 1.1 times water, 15ppm is 16,500 micrograms per liter!!!!!! For those like myself who drank 1-2 liters of sodas like mountain dew and sprite a day... that is INSANE poisoning! 16.5 to 33 MILLIGRAMS a day!
Not to mention the amount of mercury in the high fructose corn syrup from the soda, which I calculated to be somewhere along 43mcg consumed by the AVERAGE american from 12 teaspoons a day.
..don't even mention chlorine. Actually, let's mention it :)
Federal standard for tap water: 4ppm or 4,000mcg per liter. Taking a 10 minute shower makes your absorb ten times this amount, or 40mg. Taking 2, 20 minute showers a day yields 80mg. Drinking 3 liters of water a day yields 12 mg. So that's 92mg a day already...
Okay, if you put your hand under tap water you absorb 80% of the chlorine passing by it within 15 seconds. If you swim in a pool with 1 to 2ppm chlorine added, that is an exposure of 1 to 2 mg for every liter of water that comes in contact with your skin, which has a surface area of 1.8 square meters. A liter of water covers about 9.2 square meters with normal surface tension, so if you are swimming around breaking the surface tension you are looking at about 160-320mcg chlorine absorbed every 15 seconds or so. So playing in a pool for an hour gives you 39-77mg chlorine absorption. Needless to say:
"THE WASHINGTON POST
"The EPA has raised skin absorption of chlorine to its top 10 carcinogen watch list."
June 1994"
Foods processed in fluoridated and chlorinated water like cereals (cheerios anyone?) have about 4ppm or 4mg for every kg. So eating a kilogram of foods prepared with tap water gives you another 4mg a day. Already you are looking at 173mg of chlorine entering your body.. a DAY!!!
Tally this up and you could potentially be getting:
Fluorine: 4mg from food + 2mg from toothpaste + 3mg from water
Bromine: 16.5mg from soda
Chlorine: 12mg from tap water + 80mg from showers + 77mg from swimming pool + 4mg from food
Total: 196.5mg toxic Halogens a day
And...think about how many of us take 1 hour showers, guzzle down liters of soda, use huge globs of toothpaste, play in the pool for 4 hours a day...
Now keeping these numbers in mind, a dose of iodine of say 200mg a day doesn't sound so "mega" after all, does it?