Health

Cryptosporidium: Urinating in the pool causes health problems

by JeffHuang | May 23, 2009 at 04:53 pm

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Urinating in the swimming pool is a bigger deal than many believes. Although it will not send you to the emergency room, it does cause a respiratory, ocular irritation which produces the red puffy eyes, or coughing and itchy throat. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions says: "A big health message is not to urinate or pee in the water."

In a survey of 1000 U.S. adults, 17% admitted to pee in the pool with most notably, Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps also admitting to relieve himself in the pool.
Many believes that the strange odor, eye and respiratory irritation is from the chlorine, but it is actually a combination of bodily fluids and chlorine which creates chloramines. Chloramines is the key element to the eye and respiratory irritations.

No matter how discreet the act may be, "you're contaminating the pool. Let's face it," said Linda Golodner, the vice chairwoman of the Water Quality and Health Council.

The survey released by Golodner's group, which advises the American Chemistry Council, found that 11 percent of the surveyed adults said they have swum with a runny nose, 7 percent with an exposed rash or cut and 1 percent when ill with diarrhea. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Cryptosporidium is the most common recreational water illness which is spread through diarrhea. It is a parasite that causes diarrhea found in infected stools. It has become the most common causes of waterborne illness over the past two decades.

"With Crypto, if you have diarrhea, it's very watery," Hlavsa said. "It's not a formed stool sitting in the pool or floating on top. It could be very watery, and no one [in a pool] would know."

From 2005-2006, the Centers for Disease Control reported 78 outbreaks of recreational water illnesses caused by swimming pool that infected 4,412 people hospitalising 116 and killing five.