As a scientist, I know that small changes can make big differences in the long run. Applying this knowledge to my own life, however, does not always come quite as easily. It can be a lot harder to really understand what little changes you can make to improve your health than to understand the principle. You see, I have been plagued by some pretty bad health problems for the last few years, and I have not been able to solve them. I had not imagined that something as simple as activated carbon filters could make a difference, but they did.
You see, I am allergic to almost everything. Fortunately, I am not one of those folks who can die from being in the same room as peanuts. None of my allergies are that sever. What they lack in severity, however, they make up in number and persistence. Because of the allergies, I am always sneezing, my eyes are always itching, and I get sick much more than most people do. I figured that I would just have to live with it. After all, it seemed like there was nothing I could do.
When one of my friends suggested getting activated carbon filters, I thought that she did not know what she was talking about. I knew a little bit about the science behind the activated carbon filter, and I knew that they were not as efficient as you would think. The best activated carbon filters, in fact, usually only remove about 80 percent of pollutants, whether from water or from air. That may seem like pretty good performance, but that is with the top of the line air filters under ideal conditions. In the real world, they do not do nearly that much.
Nonetheless, I finally decided that I might as well try activated carbon filters. After all, I had nothing to lose, and I was sick of always being sick. I started with an activated carbon furnace filter to clean the air being blown in through the ventilation system. I then added a few room filters, and an activate carbon water filter as well. They worked wonders. Within a week, I was feeling better, and within two, I was doing the best I had in years. Apparently, my body had been overloaded by allergens. Once I decreased the contaminants a bit, the ones that were still in the environment did not seem to bother me as much.
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