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Anti-Bacterial Soap No Better Than Plain Soap
eldavojohn writes to advise us to stop buying antibacterial soap, as it's no more effective than the regular stuff. And, using it introduces a risk of mutation of bacteria. From the article: "The team looked at 27 studies conducted between 1980 and 2006, and found that soaps containing triclosan within the range of concentrations commonly used in the community setting (0.1 to 0.45 percent wt./vol.) were no more effective than plain soaps. Triclosan is used in higher concentrations in hospitals and other clinical settings, and may be more effective at reducing illness and bacteria. Triclosan works by targeting a biochemical pathway in the bacteria that allows the bacteria to keep its cell wall intact. Because of the way triclosan kills the bacteria, mutations can happen at the targeted site... a mutation could mean that the triclosan can no longer get to the target site to kill the bacteria because the bacteria and the pathway have changed form."
what is a soap?
Anti-Bacterial Soap Sells Better than Plain Soap
Hurray for marketing!!!
Over the last few years it's become harder to find hand soap (at least the liquid type) that isn't antibacterial. The fad has pushed the added chemicals into all the major brands.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I've been saying for years that plain soap is good enough, and that it's bad for us as a species to use anti-bacterial soap. I have "body wash" in my soap dispenser in the bathroom, because all the "hand soap" is anti-bacterial these days.
Just goes to show that even an uninformed, loud-mouthed, opinionated jerk is right sometimes.
-Peter
But "IF I DID" murder my wife, and I am not saying I did, for nagging me about being online all day, which would be best to clean my hands so the CSI people can't catch me ?
From: Mayo Clinic Article 05 Dec 2005
It has been known for quite some time that it's the mechanical action that does an important part of the work for disinfecting your hands. The water and soap just help the process by carrying dirt and bacteria away. This is part of the reason that you don't see hand sanitizers allowed as a replacement for proper hand washing at restaurants and other commercial food prep areas.
I'm flabbergasted that people still buy antibacterial soap. For years I've known that antibacterial soap isn't any more effective then normal soap, and I fear the super-bacteria being created by this soap.
Here's an article from consumer reports in 2004:
Don't bother with antibacterial cleaners
I went to Target last week to look for bulk containers of liquid hand soap. It was **all** antibacterial soap, normal soap didn't exist.
I, for one, welcome our new mutant bacteria soap overlords.
parasight.de
Soap, a surfactant, kills using physics. It turns lipid membranes inside out. Also by reducing surface tension it creates other havoc (e.g. it suffocates garden insects who drown when their air-pores are blocked ). It's essentially impossible to evolve away from this without immense changes to the very design of the but. Sure it can be done but it's an enormous burden on the germ.
Chlorine kills with chemistry. It tends to react with a lot of things and even create radicals. It's a little easier to deal with for bugs since they encounter oxidizing environments naturally and have learned to adapt, but it's still so generic an attack that in high concentration it's very lethal and almost impossible to mutate away from.
Bacteria-cide works by biology, targeting some very specific feature of the bug that is mutable. The difference between antibiotics and "bacteria-cide" is largely the degree to which the target is mutable. Target the ribosome machinery and it's unlikely the bug can mutate in time--antibiotic. Target something less unique and primitive and the bug mutates eventually.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Some years ago, I read an article about a study that Johnson & Johnson did. In a third will country with wide-spread dysentery they gave 100 families anti-bacterial soap and 100 families plain soap. And there were 100 families that got no soap at all. Instructions were given as to when to use the soap. They found that there was no difference in the cases of dysentery between the families with the two different kinds of soap, but a huge difference between the soap and non-soap families. The families with soap had almost no cases of dysentery.
I always wonder if these companies ever feel for their study groups and actually try to relieve a little suffering by making the knowledge and in this case the soap easily available in these countries.
is that they tend to dry and irritate the skin more than plain old soap. This makes the skin actually more vulnerable to pathogens. I, too, have been advising folks to just use plain old soap and water and avoid antibacterial soaps. My grandmother used to make her own lye and lard soap. Maybe not such a bad idea. Being a germophobe isn't necessarily a good idea.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I recommend a strong bleach solution ...not so strong that it hurts but as strong as you can toler.... oh a what?... a joke.. oh.. yea of course.
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Trying to fix or change something only guarantees and perpetuates it's existence
When I trained as a nurse in the early nineties we were taught to fear the germ. They piled on so much shite about asepsis that you could end up paranoid about bacteria. I am not exaggerating...
On the wards we had anti bacterial soap, and cleaning alcohol dispensers, and there was a strict routine, wash with the soap, then the alcohol, and do so many, many times throughout the day.
The result was nurses with awful skin, and screw the patients, *we* were getting infections.
Within a year someone with a brain dumped the routine, and our soap/alcohol dispensers were replaced with non scented, ordinary liquid soap. Amazingly enough the much espoused explosion of infections because of the mighty germ failed to materialize.
Then they buggered it all up by replacing in house cleaners with minimum wage contract workers, and we got a whole new set of problems, but that's another story.
What surprises me is that this is news now. as far as I'm concerned, this was all sorted out fifteen years ago. I guess different hospitals have different standards.
It's always been my contention that attempting to sterilize the environment is what's going to get us killed off eventually. Call it "War of the Worlds" Syndrome -- eventually we wipe out most bacterial life, with the possible exception of those most beneficial to us, which have been genetically altered. We move out into the universe to claim our rightful place and are felled by some bacteria from another planet that we cannot acquire an immunity to since our immune systems are so weak from not having to fight off bacteria/viruses.
The fact is our immune systems have to be exposed to these things in order to give them a chance to build up resistance/immunity. I've actually never thought of a cold as a bad thing, if it increase the armament that my immune system has available to fight disease. I used to be pretty immune to colds, though over the years stress and lack of rest have compromised my ability to fight things off like I used to.
The other scary part of the equation is, if this is killing off 99.9% of bacteria, what about that last .1%? Aren't we really creating super bacteria this way?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
just use the alcohol based ones. No mutations!
Not only that, but when you're camping, the sanitizer gel makes for a good fire starting paste.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
For cleaning vegetables anyway, a mild vinegar solution killed more bacteria on the surface of vegetables than did soap. The food scientists at the magazine explained that lowering the pH interferes with many kinds of biological processes inside bacterial cells. A quick Google search turned up this interesting site that recommends using hydrogen peroxide as well.
That being said, I think we should trust our immune systems more. Unless the immune system is compromised in some way, it does a bang up job fighting off most bacteria. When I was a kid, I played in the dirt and ate bugs. Now, I never get sick and I have no allergies. I think over-protecting the immune system not only weakens it, but causes it to focus on the wrong types of things, creating more allergies.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
my fiance is a med student and has been saying this to me for years (the negative effects of antibacterial everything in the household). It makes perfect sense if you stop and think about it. As for the dry skin thing, she can attest to that too.
And she is completely right. I work in computational biology, working for a microbiology professor who specializes in bacteria. Never get her started on antibacterial products, she's said more then once she wishes she could rip them all off the shelves of stores because of the risk they pose for mutations.
Antibacterial is bad, m'kay?
Seriously... just lay off the stuff.
It's just as bad that your children don't develop a resistance to everyday germs.
My sister's got this weird OCD thing going with alcohol based antibacterials... she's beginning to sound like a heroin addict.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I've read several months back in a hydroponics gardening magazine that some green houses are now staying away from bleach and other chemicals when flushing their systems between crops. Seems the constant bombardment of flushing agents is mutating pathogens that attack plants. What they are doing now is actually flushing the system with water and then introduce beneficial microbes into the system. Once those are established they replant the greenhouse. Now there is a protective layer or beneficials that out number the pathogens and make it harder to them to get established on/in the plant.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
When you're looking for antibiotic resistant, tough-as-steel and unkillable bacteria, you don't go to a biology lab. You go to a hospital.
When you hear that some hospital has a problem with bacteria, stay away. Far away. Preferably you're on another continent. Yes, even if it's just some "normal" bacteria strand that causes something like a mild sneeze or something else that's usually harmless and goes away in a week or two of rest.
Simple reason: There's nothing in the world that could kill those critters. Those are the descendents of the bacteria that survived the onslaught of the toughest anti-bac crap that's available to mankind.
That is btw also the reason why taking antibiotics for harmless junk illnesses is about the worst thing you can do, surpassed in stupidity only by taking them only 'til the symptoms end. If you accomplish anything that way, it is to toughen the bacteria, but not yourself. They'll be back with a vengeance, and then those ABs won't hit them anymore. They adapt amazingly quickly. Kill them all, ok. Kill 99.999% of them and you're in for trouble.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You're right. If it's alcohol based, it will just dessicate the bacteria and there's no chance of developing resistance. That's why you see little purell containers around the hospitals now. Alcohol based cleaners are also (surprisingly) easier on your hands than the old water-and-soap method.
(I've got a degree in cell biology, and I'm a med student, so that's where my info is coming from)
I work in computational biology
So, you're studying the germs on your keyboard? They say your toilet seat is cleaner, but I don't think I would eat off of either one of them.
What?
i think i remember reading somewhere that chemical derivatives of triclosan are endocrine mimics. which means they mess with things like amphibian reproduction (amphibians are on the decline around the world). triclosan is found in 60 percent of American stream and rivers now
i cleID=024FEAE8-E7F2-99DF-323D8E02C4E48BF6&pageNumb er=1&catID=9
and you can even find triclosan in breast milk now too: it gets in our food via fertilizer. hey, when you flush it down the drain, it has to go somewhere. sometimes it comes back to you
now normally, a slight level of this chemical or that chemical is no big deal. for example, chloroform and dioxin are chemical byproducts of triclosan reacting with chlorinated water. but that doesn't matter, as the levels of those scary sounding chemicals are the same as normal background readings, meaning hysterically mentioning them has no real scientific basis for alarm (but is effective propaganda for the scientifically uninitiated)
but endocrine mimics are different, as the slightest of levels really can have an effect on biological processes. but i guess that's ok, because between all of the birth control, propecia, viagra, and xanax we're also pissing and flushing into our waterways, yes, our animals and children will all be hermaphrodites, but they will have a full head of hair, a hard on, and be strangely blissful about it all
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa029&art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triclosan
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Will she trade sex for Purel ? My kind of addict - ready to do anything to get her fix AND completely germ free !
No matter what kind of soap you use, it is not useful unless you give it time to work. Most people wash their hands for 3-4 seconds. This is nowhere near long enough to kill or remove bacteria. You need to wash your hands for a good solid minute.
We taught our kids to sing the Alphabet song while washing. When they were done they could rinse
My wife and I buy "soap base" in bulk and use it. It's intended to be mixed with fragrances and coloring (and I suppose resold) but we use it straight. It's very inexpensive, though you have to buy empty dispenser bottles to use it.
Here's the site we order from. There's no "anti-bacteria" chemicals in it, and for people like me who hate fragrances, it's hypo-allergenic without the boutique price. For a gallon, it's 25 cents an ounce. And it should last about two years per person. If you want something with an interesting label, go with Dr. Bronner's.
For those chemists (cooks) out there, soap is easy to make yourself.
Meh, I grew up with dogs and cats. Today, I'm allergic (extremely so, in the case of cats). Childhood exposure doesn't seem to do a damn thing, unfortunately...
Get some help for your OCD. Seriously. Living germ-free is dangerous - it compromises your immune system, often with nasty long-run consequences. If you've got kids, for goodness' sake don't impose your OCD on them. Ultra-sterile environments in developmental years are what cause asthma and other immunological disorders. We are expressly designed to function in conjunction with microbial ecosystems - both inside our bodies and outside.
A-Bomb
Of course being exposed to some bacteria over your life is a good thing anyhow - it builds the immune system. That's why parents should let their kids go out side and play/eat the dirt, they'll be better for it in the long run.
There's absolutely no evidence that a lack of exposure to bacteria reduces the efficacy of the immune system.
In fact, it seems that the reverse is true. As we've become more hygenic, the immune system, strong as ever, goes looking for soft targets to beat up. It becomes hypersensitive, creating conditions like allergies and athsma.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Once more,marketing gives us a product that cost's more, does no good, and may ultimately harm millions all for the sake of the almighty buck.
Once again, they face no sanctions for blatantly lying to the public for years.
Why don't you back some of your outrageous claims up with some facts? I have OCD, and I've got serious problems and worries about money from time to time. Besides that, I'm a student and until recently I had a job in the weekends to support my hobbies and social life, but I had to quit this job because of my disorder. I'm on medication and I'm seeing a psychologist for this. Before saying such idiotic things again, you should know that I know of a person who has OCD, because she has repressed her memories from a childhood rape, and her OCD is a way of dealing with these memories. I wish you could explain to her your ignorant theory, I'm sure she could use your insight..
I am suprised that the government hasn't banned non-bacterial soap yet.
Killing all bacteria is utterly impossible. It's a bacteria world and we and all other multicelled organisms are just scum floating on a thin layer of the planet to them. There are more bacteria cells in "your" body than there are your cells. Up to ten percent of your body weight is bacteria. Bacteria live from the tops of the highest mountains and float in the upper atmosphere to miles and miles underground -- we have no idea how deep. They live under miles of glacier in Antarctica and in boiling hot water. Humans and every other multicelled life form will be long dead and bacteria will go on and on and on. You may have a fantasy that humans will "move out into the universe to claim our rightful place" instead of going extinct like every other species does, but when the sun finally goes red giant, bacteria deep inside rocks will probably be tossed out and begin a journey across the galaxy. Don't kid yourself that humans are the pinnacle of evolution, bacteria always were and always will be.
This is a good example of why the free market fundamentalists are so often wrong. Most soaps are anti-bacterial because of marketing hype which causes consumers to prefer buying them, when the long term consequences are clear. It's clearly in the public interest to ban or tax or otherwise de-insentivize the purchase of such soaps, but that would violate the holy precepts of the free market.
No that is not true. OCD occurs in the same percentage of the population, independent of the culture. See
this.
Yes, but by the same theory of evolution shouldn't the bacteria that are more resistant to dessication be passing on more genes?
Whenever I hear about human products and chemicals killing 99.99% of something, I wonder if we are truely doing ourselves a favor?
...something like 27 different times.
Hans, is that you?
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Washing with soap basically washes off the dirt and oils, which hold the germs, down the drain. Are you afraid you'll develop germs that stick to you hands and soap won't get them off ?
No, you didn't.
The common cold is a virus, and every one is different. It's exceedingly rare to develop immunity to a virus by any method other than infection with that exact virus, or immunization. It's possible that your immune system used to do a better job of fighting the virus off before you developed noticeable symptoms, but you certainly weren't immune.
...it probably doesn't kill everything
Exactly. The mechanics of washing your hands -- rubbing them together under running water -- kill 99.9% of the germs on your hands. Adding soap to the equation is only an aid in getting stuff off your hands. Adding anti-bacterial soap, as witnessed in TFA, is fscking pointless.
My blog
If the lye in soap kills organisms anyway, how much damage is the anti-bacterial element really doing? Isn't it just redundant, since if you use soap the bacteria will die anyway?
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
But that's so wrong it's not even stupid.
Because washing with soap and water (with or without triclosan, etc) is harsh on your skin, it makes the users (i.e., doctors and nurses), resistant to doing it, which increases spread of bacteria because on a whole they're not washing their hands as often because of the PITA factor.
The detergent component is what trashes your skin, because it gets rid of the oils on the surface of your skin (which most of the bacteria live in...), which results in them drying out and all that stuff if you wash your hands too much. Triclosan does nothing to help your skin.
The triclosan enhances the inherent, but limited, antimicrobial action of the soap (due to the pH of the soap), and the mechanical action of scrubbing one's hands, binding the oil-soap-bacteria mix together, and rinsing it all off with water is what actually produces the desired end state.
Which is why clinics and hospitals are starting to use hand sanitizer instead. It is gentler on the skin, actually works better at killing bacteria. Because it's gentler, it is going to get used more frequently.
When my daughter was in the NICU for 10 days, scrubbing with the povidone-laced sponges and scrubbers, once or twice a day going to see her got harsh on the hands... can't imagine doing it multiple times a day, all the time, like a nurse or doctor does.
"(the negative effects of antibacterial everything in the household)"
Tricosan is bacteriostatic, but so is soap. One of the points of washing is to get rid of bacteria. Every time you do anything against bacteria, you encourage bacterial evolution to find a new pathway.
The article has fraudulent elements, or at least sleazy elements, in my opinion. This is just a Slashdot comment; the subject warrants a lot more investigation, which I plan to do.First, the Slashdot story only references a press release on Physorg.org, an organization that apparently exercises little oversight over the articles it runs.
Second, read this article by the same author, which says exactly the opposite of the present article: Antibacterial Cleaning Products and Drug Resistance.
Quote: "... we did not observe a significant impact on antimicrobial drug resistance during the 1-year period..."
NO development of drug resistance or Triclosan resistance has been shown as a result of use of Triclosan, apparently, although people have been speculating about that for at least two decades. There are some chemical pathways that bacteria cannot abandon.
The story is not new, but is apparently chosen only because it easily excites the popular imagination.
The sloppiness and over-valuation of the work suggests either: 1) The University of Michigan does not deserve our confidence, or possibly 2) Allison Aiello is allowed to be sloppy because she is attractive.
This quote from the U. of M. press release is pure, wild speculation, not supported by theory or experiment, apparently: "Because of the way triclosan kills the bacteria, mutations CAN happen at the targeted site. Aiello says a mutation COULD mean that the triclosan can no longer get to the target site to kill the bacteria because the bacteria and the pathway have changed form." [my emphasis]
Yes, Triclosan may not prevent bacterial or virus infection. But no one said it did. The purpose of Triclosan is to prevent or reduce skin fungal infections, and it does that very well, in my experience.
I beg to differ.
When you have two other room mates and the three of you are in the room, back out, 15 minutes to get ready in the morning, sweating in the California sun, and hydrating all day, then I'd eat off of my keyboard any time! If only you could see the stuff we eat -- Hot Pockets aren't the worst of it!
Mutations? -- Anybody else kind of offput by the use of "mutations by the way it kills the bacteria." -- I'm quite sure they are just talking about very simple evolution. I doubt attacking my leg is going to bounce back and have any effect on the DNA that codes my leg, in fact the entire article doesn't make any sense outside of an evolutionary context. Not only is a low dose it not effective, but in so far as it is effective it just kills the bacteria that the real stuff would have been effective against and lets the more resistant strains take the space they would have occupied. Really the basic "use some antibiotics in low dose over long time in a petri dish" experiment is pretty much exactly what we are doing in the large scale.
If we want better evolved bacteria, immune from our nice antibiotics... we are doing a perfect job.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
About 20 years ago my grandfather who was a pathologist told me to wash my hands as little as possible in order to keep my immune system strong. To this day the only time I wash my hands is after pooping and before cooking for others. Since then my body has been able to fight of hepatitis B without me even knowing that I ever got it. The only way I found out that I ever had it was when I tried to give blood the blood tests returned that I was a hepatitis antibody carrier. Also with the out break of encephalitis in this area and the sheer number of the mosquitoes it would not surprise me one bit if I have been bitten by an encephalitis carrying mosquito. Basically small weak germs are good for your body, they gives your immune system a work out and keeps it in shape so when it does encounter that really nasty germ it has the strength to fight it off.
sorry for my comments, I'm drunk
Gimme a break. No clinician worth their salt would "resist" keeping their hands clean by either scrubbing or washing or sanitizing, regardless of whether the hands were irritated. It's a basic protocol. Not following the protocol puts human life in jeopardy. Skin can get parched, but there are moisturizing lotions and soaps that help. I work around doctors and nurses all day, and have one of each in my immediate family. There's no exception to the protocol, except, I guess, if someone wanted to put patient safety (and their own safety) at risk, and that person would not be in health care for very long.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Not only do I boost my immune system, it's also awesome for the skin!
Also, when I get out of my backyard mudhole, I look like a scary mofo, as a bonus, the 'hood kids won't hang out anywhere near my lawn...
The other scary part of the equation is, if this is killing off 99.9% of bacteria, what about that last .1%? Aren't we really creating super bacteria this way?
That is exactly how antibiotic resistance develops
"Antibacterial soap isn't any better than normal soap"
and
"Antibacterial soap may cause mutations that help bacteria resist Triclosan"
The article you linked says:
"Antibacterial soap doesn't cause drug resistance"
and
"We don't know if it affects Triclosan, further research is needed"
This is hardly the opposite. In fact, I believe this new article is the "further research". If you put these together you get: "While antibacterial soap does not cause drug resistance, there is a small risk it will mutate bacteria to cause resistance to Triclosan. You're better off not using it since it's not any better than normal soap" NO development of drug resistance or Triclosan resistance has been shown as a result of use of Triclosan, apparently This is patently incorrect. The article states that they found resistance when soaps with higher concentrations of Triclosan were used.
Hmm
So
Here's a link discussing it, circa 1999.... AKA the "Hygiene Hypothesis".
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Thanks for telling me that. I have a lot of bacteria in my mouth and throat I need to take care of all of a sudden. And maybe some more down in my stomach. Now, is beer or wine sufficient or will I get the best effects from scotch?
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199