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Donβt use unsterilized tap water to rinse your sinuses. It may carry brain-eating amoebas
(www.sciencenews.org)
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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I have been doing it for quite a while now though I filter it via brita. But I imagine if the chlorine in the water is not killing that mf, no brita is gonna stop it either.
That being said, I am not %100 sure about how deeply this is researched though. For instance what is the mechanism by which this fella gets in the brain? Does it need to pass thru the blood brain barrier or is there a shortcut? Does this more commonly occur in people with immunodeficiency problems? The news quotes for instance
"All 10 of the people in the CDC study had one or more conditions that weakened their immune systems, including cancer or HIV/AIDS."
Seems like I may have been snorting brain eating amoebas into my nose wo knowing.
Boil the water, and then let it cool
cooling takes too much time, I usually do this like 5 mins before going to bed
Use distilled - someone else already did the boiling and cooling.
I think Kurzgesagt made a video about how these guys sneak into the brain, they follow the olfactory nerve I believe. They didn't evolve to eat brains, it's just an unhappy coincidence.
I rinse my sinuses with water from my RO system. My well produces barely-drinkable water, so it takes two membrane passes to knock the minerals back. Ain't nothing getting through that, by the time it's in the product tank it's around 5ppm TDS and I have to run it through calcite to add enough solute back to drink it.
If you're really concerned a cheap single pass RO would be more than adequate for town water but make sure you have a carbon prefilter, chlorine eats up the membranes.
well I put two packets of salt in about a glass of water which is about %1.5 salinity level. studies have shown that above this level the mf is basically non viable:
"Salinity exhibited a significant effect on the growth of N. fowleri in both dH2O and environmental water. In general, increasing salinity concentrations decreased growth but significance differences stopped once salinity reached 1.5% NaCl. This likely occurred because growth and replication of N. fowleri were minimal past this salinity level, with the amoeba encysting at salinity concentrations above 1.5% and ultimately losing viability"
between high salinity, chlorine in the water and my super mucus filled nostrils, I hope I am fine.
I don't think the risks are really significant:
Like it's a thing that can happen but... barely worth worrying about.