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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.
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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, 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.
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?
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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
You can also sterilize cuts with it.... although it does burn like a hell. Yes, I've done it. Have the scars from landing in 6" of water on top of an oyster bar. Purel and electrical tape was all we had....
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?
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?
Will she trade sex for Purel ? My kind of addict - ready to do anything to get her fix AND completely germ free !
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.
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
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.
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.
There was a post on slashdot just a couple of days ago about this. With less stuff for our immune systems to fight, autoimmune diseases are more common. Here's a link to check out, just for one reference.
I don't know if it's been proven and tested yet, but it's definitely a thought at least some medical professionals are having.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
One of those diseases (Polio, I think) in the first half of the last century was often referred to as an "upper class" disease, because the people living in the upper crust of society weren't as unwashed and surrounded by filth as their lower class counterparts at the time. Therefore, the lower class kids were infected and died less frequently than the upper class kids because their immune systems were worked harder earlier in life.
Method of processing duck feet
"(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.
This may not be exactly wrong, but it is certainly misleading:
"There's absolutely no evidence that a lack of exposure to bacteria reduces the efficacy of the immune system."
the immune system (for lack of a better word) learns from the bacteria, viruses, etc. that it has been exposed to, lack of exposure leaves the system less able to defend then it might be against anything new that it encounters, resulting in much greater risk of damage or death from new diseases.
In other words, the efficacy of an immune system without any previous exposure is at a rather pathetic baseline level, and unless you want to die very young, it needs to be exposed to a variety of invaders in order to learn. There is boat loads of evidence to this effect, and it is in fact the basis of many of our vaccines which in some cases don't use the actual disease, but something that looks similar from the perspective of our immune systems.