Most reverse osmosis home systems will not protect you from the life threatening pollutants present in your tap water.
Unless the company adds additional filters such as activated carbon and micron filters, reverse osmosis water is no safer than what ordinarily comes through your tap.
One of the immediate threats to your health is a microscopic organism known as cryptosporidium.
It's basically a parasite and several years back, it was responsible for over 100 deaths in Milwaukee.
During the early stages of its life, the parasite is so tiny that it would pass right through reverse osmosis home systems.
During that earliest stage, it is referred to as a cyst or an oocyst.
The only thing that can block it is a micron filter.
Most microbes are killed by chlorine, but cryptosporidium is resistant to chlorine disinfection, particularly during the cyst stage.
Only a few water filters can protect you from it and reverse osmosis water filters are not among them.
Chlorine is added to the water at the treatment facility to disinfect and kill biological contaminants that can cause immediate illnesses like dysentery, cholera and diarrhea.
The FDA says that even the best facilities cannot guarantee that cryptosporidium is not present in the water supply.
They say that detecting the parasite is not feasible.
So, in other words, there is no way for you to be sure that the parasite is not present in your tap water.
Most good treatment facilities include a reverse osmosis water filter in one step of their process, but they work by forcing water through a porous membrane.
The pores of the membrane are simply too small to trap the cysts.
The same is true of the membranes used in reveres osmosis home systems.
Another reason that treatment facilities add chlorine is to protect the reverse osmosis water filtering membranes from rot and algae growth.
So, it's obvious that chlorine passes through the membrane, along with the water.
The only way to trap chlorine is with an activated carbon filter.
While cryptosporidium and other cysts can pose immediate threats to your health, drinking and/or showering in chlorinated water poses future threats to your health.
Several different types of cancer have been linked to drinking or showering in chlorinated water.
If you already have health problems, showering in chlorinated water can aggravate them.
In the bathroom, during a shower, chlorine vapors build up and are inhaled.
We know that chlorine vapors trigger asthma attack, but the vapors can aggravate any respiratory illness.
Some companies advertise that their reverse osmosis water filter blocks chlorine, but it's simply not true.
For the majority of people, reverse osmosis home systems are really just a waste of money.