While many know that there are bacteria and other compounds in their tap water, there is one thing coming from your tap that you wouldn’t expect. Trace amounts of dissolved pharmaceuticals have been detected in some water supplies.

Tiny amounts of pharmaceuticals (specifically antibiotics, hormones, steroids, mood stabilizers, and more) could make their way to your tap and infiltrate your drinking water. These dissolved pharmaceuticals get there from two main sources: People taking medication, absorbing most of it, and passing any non-absorbed medication through their urine or feces; and flushing unnecessary or old medication down toilets.

Conventional water treatment isn’t designed to remove every pharmaceutical compound.

Research on pharmaceuticals in drinking water is ongoing. The EPA considers them contaminants of emerging concern, and there are no federal drinking water limits for most of them. If you have health questions, talk to your doctor.

One thing that is agreed upon is that the problem is not going to naturally get better. To prove this claim, many point to one piece of information in particular: with people living longer, the aging demographic grows every year. This has led to more medications in circulation.

While there is no cut and dry solution to removing the pharmaceuticals from our water, scientists do agree that they need better strategies for how to treat public water supplies on a grand scale. One thing that you can do is get a Culligan Reverse Osmosis System. Carbon filters and reverse osmosis systems can reduce some pharmaceuticals; look for certification to NSF/ANSI 401.