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Being Too Clean Can Make People Sick
An anonymous reader writes "Young people who are overexposed to antibacterial soaps containing triclosan may suffer more allergies, and exposure to higher levels of Bisphenol A among adults may negatively influence the immune system, a new University of Michigan School of Public Health study suggests (abstract, full paper [PDF]). Triclosan is a chemical compound widely used in products such as antibacterial soaps, toothpaste, pens, diaper bags and medical devices. Bisphenol A is found in many plastics and, for example, as a protective lining in food cans. Both of these chemicals are in a class of environmental toxicants called endocrine-disrupting compounds, which are believed to negatively impact human health by mimicking or affecting hormones."
nuff said
But it won't kill me, because I won't use them. In the past 20 years or so we have become so afraid of dirt that our kids will have practically no immune system at all.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
It's not new that our immune system has to be trained to work well. And only some kind of idiot doesn't make the link that keeping the kids away from every source of infection must result in an inferior immune system. Where's the news here?
Now the article suggests that it could either be caused by the hygiene or the chemicals used in the cleaners.
Now if this study was well done and had some control groups, say other forms of cleaners, we might learn something we didn't already know.
Antibacterial soap does not contain antibiotics. It contains simpler chemicals (alcohol, etc) which kill cells on contact. Antibiotics are more specific
One claim is that being too clean makes people unhealthy. The other is that triclosan and BPA make people unhealthy. Those are two very distinct and different claims. The latter claim is what this study seems to prove, while the former claim seems completely unsubstantiated by this study according to TFA.
If those antibacterial products could have been made with a compound other than triclosan, would cleanliness still have a negative impact on health?
Further, the closing comment on the article makes another good point:
So really, there seems to be NOTHING in support of the claim that being too clean makes people unhealthy.
This is either another case of journalistic ignorance or journalistic sensationalism. But seeing as the journal is called Medical Daily, you'd expect them to have at least a minimum amount of knowledge and insight.
I place a lot of blame on the marketing people for this. Soap manufacturers were the first. Despite the fact that soap already kills like 99% of the germs on contact, soap marketers started dumping stuff like triclosan into their products to tout their "antibacterial effects". Now triclosan and its ilk are in everything and everyone must have it, even if it's completely pointless. Seriously, do we really need triclosan covered toothbrushes? Has anyone in the past 100 years really gotten sick because of their toothbrush?
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Today's kids are so wrapped in cotton wool the poor darlings never get dirty.
I blame the TV advertising for this. Many ads go out of their way to suggest that the only way to stay healthy is to use AB stuff at every opportunity.
Last year I told my grandkids how I used to play in the dirt. They were shocked.
They didn't beleive me until I showed them a picture of me covered in mud from head to foot aged two.
Their mothers were horrified.
"All those germs? How could you?"
Pah.
Then to make them feel rally bad, I told them how we used to dig holes in the ground and make underground camps, have cooks outs and other cool stuff.
All done when I was less than 12.
Ok, we didn't have PlayStations or Xboxes back then. We had fun inventing things to do.
Except instead of your "hey wouldn't it be totally ironic if anti-bacterial soap made people SICKER!!??" observation, they have identified Triclosan and Bisphenol A as an endocrine disruptor with the specific function of inhibiting the immune system not by protecting it from exposure or selectively breeding resistant germs (the two popular "well duh" observations here) but by actually inhibiting the effectiveness of the immune system. Knowing this, as opposed to say "knowing that for sure, antibacterial soaps are totally bad because they don't let your body *learn* about bad germs!!!" is what leads to advances in medicine and pathogen control.
I'm not a doctor but I appreciate what they do.
That's why Bisphenol A is a registered toxic substance in Canada. It also causes more girls to be born that boys.. but maybe that's a good thing for the /. crowd.
if gender==female then (send pix|vidz!)
That is not the Opposite of the GP's statement.
If anything you've proven his point.
Further, I think you misread the article.
Conclusions: Endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA and triclosan may negatively impact human immune function as measured by CMV antibody levels and allergy/hayfever diagnosis, respectively, with differential consequences based on age.
So rather than your assertion that "the immune system is targeting harmless compounds" the facts are that the immune system is not functioning up to par (depressed CMV antibody levels) thereby allowing higher levels of allergy/hayfever.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Except instead of your "hey wouldn't it be totally ironic if anti-bacterial soap made people SICKER!!??" observation, they have identified Triclosan and Bisphenol A as an endocrine disruptor with the specific function of inhibiting the immune system not by protecting it from exposure or selectively breeding resistant germs (the two popular "well duh" observations here) but by actually inhibiting the effectiveness of the immune system. Knowing this, as opposed to say "knowing that for sure, antibacterial soaps are totally bad because they don't let your body *learn* about bad germs!!!" is what leads to advances in medicine and pathogen control.
I'm not a doctor but I appreciate what they do.
Let's not get hasty here. They took some data previously collected:
Methods: Using data from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, we compared urinary bisphenol A (BPA) and triclosan with serum cytomegalovirus antibody levels and diagnosis of allergies or hayfever in US adults and children age 6 years. We used multivariate ordinary least squares linear regression models to examine the association of BPA and triclosan with cytomegalovirus antibody titers, and multivariate logistic regression models to investigate the association of these chemicals with allergy/hayfever diagnosis. Statistical models were stratified by age (
Then ran a series of statistical tests to see if there were any correlations between the body burden of BPA and triclosan and putative proxies for immune function (CMV titer and hayfever diagnosis).
They "adjusted" for a bunch of variables and come out with a correlation between the markers and their effects. They then go on to state that the chemicals may depress immune function.
It may be true but this sort of analysis is prone to a host of problems - poor data collection, poor data analysis, over correlation by the statistical software and god knows what else by the statistical software (disclaimer - I've only read the abstract, I don't know exactly how they did it but unless they have a very good statistician looking over their shoulders, they open to making any one of a number of mistakes).
And of course, our favorite logical fallacy: Correlation implying Causation. Specifically, the charge that the endocrine disruption mechanism of BPA and Triclosan is the cause of the immune changes is not addressed at all. It's simply assumed.
Unfortunately, this is like the vast majority of the literature in these areas. Because good science is so hard to do, we gets lots of these little studies that may or may not mean much of anything. They're fine, it's the way we have to do things, but don't flush all of the soap down the toilet.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Antibacterial soap does not contain antibiotics. It contains simpler chemicals (alcohol, etc) which kill cells on contact.
Alcohol is usually found in hand sanitizers, not soap. Antibacterial soap usually contains triclosan, which is similar to antibiotics in that it gradually interferes with a part of bacterial metabolism that humans don't have. It prevents bacterial growth over time, but doesn't kill instantly. As with antibiotics, some bacteria have evolved resistance to triclosan due to constant exposure.
Hand sanitizers are mostly alcohol, which is immediately highly disruptive of many biological processes. Since it evaporates away after use, long term chronic exposure shouldn't be a problem. At any rate, if alcohol could breed dangerous resistance, then the Jack Daniels distillery would have been ground zero for superbug outbreaks decades ago.
I personally find it highly annoying that almost all liquid hand soaps on the market contain triclosan. (So much for the "wisdom" of free markets. The potential problems with triclosan, and its lack of effectiveness in preventing disease have been common knowledge for many years now.) We go out of our way to only buy Ivory, which is the one brand that seems to not include triclosan (or any annoying scents either), but it's not always easy to find.
Why is the parent modded informative? While the antibacterials used in soap are not really an antibiotic, the rest of the post is wrong. Most antibacterial soaps contain triclosan, which when used in concentrations it is use in soaps decidedly does NOT kill on contact and merely inhibits reproduction of the bacteria cells.
Unlike commercial hand sanitizers that usually utilize ethanol to kill on contact, the triclosan used in antibacterial soaps is relatively simple for bacterial populations to develop resistance against.
What do Triclosan being an potential alergen and Bisphenol-A which is not a sanitation product have to do with "Being Too Clean Can Make People Sick" which is reference to the hygiene-hypothesis?
And then we're not being too clean, we're just cleaning the wrong way, the wrong things, the wrong time.
My understanding of the hygiene-hypothesis and modern auto-immune disorders is that its nothing to do with the over use of sanitation products, and more to do with we don't spend enough time outdoors in the natural environment which our immune system seems to need to be calibrated by. Instead of contact with environmental bacterial, dust, spores, we're exposed to artifical chemicals in our indoor environments and food/water and our immune system gets the wrong idea about what to fight.
I'm disturbed by the lack of handwashing in the general population. Almost nobody remembers to wash their hands before they eat, barely do it after visiting the bathroom, and it certainly never happens when your eating out. Blame fast food which is "finger food" to some extent. Some kids these days don't know how to use a knife and fork let alone name vegetables and fruit. Some are genuinely perplexed by the need to wash hands before handling food - and don't really grasp the reasons why - from experience managing a food kitchen.
Previous generations were much more fastidious about washing and scrubbing themselves and everything, perhaps because before antibiotics it was the only defence against the spread of pathogetns. Perhaps because these people had deadly global flu pandemics in living memory.
It's ironic that we are both over using antiseptic compounds where they aren't needed, poisoning ourselves, and not cleaning when it actually is needed to prevent the spread of potentiall deadly pathogenics (salmonella, campolybacter, hepatitis A, influenza and many more). Virtually all human to human or human to food transmission of this stuff is due to some dim wit not washing his hands after taking a dump. Influenza is weakly spread airbone, but strongly spread by touch.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Because we're not born with immunity to most things. We acquire it from low level exposure. If you remove all of those initial low level exposures from someone's life, they won't acquire immunity. It makes perfect sense.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano