context: im going camping and may need to purify water on the mountain. Im looking at chlorine dioxide drops and chlorine tablets. My first concern is: will this affect gut bacteria or anything else in the body? are there any studies on this?
Secondly, if these are unsafe, are there any safe and effective alternatives for purification?
please note i will be filtering my water with a specialised filter made by sawyer. it gets rid of all loose material and particles, but it cannot kill viruses in the water. This is why purification may be necessary.
Get iodine tablets. I’ve used them for multiple month-2 month trips in the boundary waters. Ive consumed thousands of the tablets and have never had an issue. Usually do one per nalgene, but some people do two. I never used a hard filter on those trips, just the tablets.
Chlorine tablets should be safe if used according to the instructions. Most municipal water supplies are purified, in part, by some type of chlorine. If you want to get away from chlorine, there are also iodine tablets that you can use. You can buy a second neutralizer tablet that gets rid of the iodine taste. REI sells these.
You can boil the water, use UV light purifier, or you can use a portable purifier that’ll eliminate most bacteria and protozoa. If you’re not around lots of people or areas where lots of people, say, defecate openly, you’re not as likely to catch viruses from water. Otherwise, drinking water is more important than your gut bacteria in the wilderness, so in that respect water purified by chlorine is preferable to nothing (but there are other options). Besides, if you become ill the antibiotics/antiprotozoals will destroy your gut bacteria. If you live in a city with a modern water processing infrastructure you probably already drink water treated with chlorine anyway.