"Swimming in a chlorinated pool may increase your risk of developing cancer, suggest a new suite of studies, which identified more than 100 chemical byproducts in pools that use chlorine as a disinfectant.

The work is too preliminary to suggest that people should stop swimming, said Manolis Kogevinas, an epidemiologist at the Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona. The studies were small, and they found a rise in blood markers that have been associated with cancer -- not a rise in cancer itself.

Still, Kogevinas said, the findings suggest that people need to work harder to reduce everyone's exposure to chlorine."

Emily Sohn reports for Discovery News September 12, 2010 [2]