[Alcohol] increases the permeability of the mucosa to other carcinogens like nicotine," explains Professor McCullough. "But also the first breakdown product of alcohol with enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase is acetaldehyde. And acetaldehyde is a known human carcinogen."
[...]
He says there is enough evidence to suggest dentists should not be recommending long-term use, and earlier this evening the New Zealand Ministry of Health advised that it is not sensible to use alcohol-containing mouthwash long-term without advice from a dentist.
Smokers are still far more likely than mouthwash users to get oral cancer—fifty times more likely, according to some studies, so you shouldn't rush over to the oncologist's office at the first pangs of a new canker sore.
Dentists also say that you don't really need mouthwash if you brush and floss regularly and eat a healthy diet. Which, um, we all do, right?
Research shows some mouthwashes may cause cancer [3 News] (Thanks to Shaula!)
Mouthwash linked with increased cancer risk [ABC]
The role of alcohol in oral carcinogenesis with particular reference to alcohol-containing mouthwashes [Australia Dental Journal Abstract]
I usually enjoy reading these articles; they're very informative and enlightening. But this headline is just a little bit misleading to say the least. Of course, I don't know why I care: I rarely use mouthwash anyway. Brush and floss, brush and floss, brush and floss.....
]]>@dweebster: i get those pre-threaded dental pick things of floss...easy to carry around, work great...yea floss
]]>@kimsama: extremely happy for us
]]>@Parapraxis: And yet they were able to get saccharine out of all the soft drinks because of that stupid study, and we're stuck with splenda or nutrasweet, both hideous
]]>Just do what I do:
drink cosmos or bloody marys or screwdrivers etc.
The antioxidants in the healthy juices counteract all the bad stuff in the alcohol!
]]>There they're and their
Other than me being a grammar Nazi, I completely agree with your comment Skankingmike.
]]>@dweebster: I find it extremely painful. I have terrible gums (great diet, fantastic teeth, no cavities) but inherited bad gums. Flossing is torture.
I know, I know, if I do it regularly it'll get easier. But it's hard to regularly self-inflict that much pain. And it's not like ripping a band aid off or something - it takes *forever*.
/hates flossing
]]>The real reason most animals (other than humans) are "poisoned" by chocolate is because they can't process the theobromine in it like we do. We rock at metabolizing it, but they don't. Sad for them, but happy for us.
]]>This is based on pregnancies (in utero), but you get the picture.
]]>@eyemandy: I've discovered their toothpaste at Target lately and *love* it. Doesn't taste like overflavored ass since it has a nice, unsweetened natural mint oil for flavor. Plus the mint flavor doesn't linger forever and screw up my sense of taste like Crest, Aquafrash, etc. do.
]]>@hi: though you left out the fact (which is mentioned right after your quote) that Finland and Germany BOTH offer pediatric dental care in their schools. The reason the rate either didn't change or kept going down is that the children in that part of the world get regular free dental visits courtesy of their public schools. Not so much in the US.
]]>OT, but I really want to know about this chocolate and dogs thing. I hear it all the time, but I once had a 13 lb. miniature wire haired dachshund who snatched a two pound box of chocolates when I wasn't home.
He polished off over a pound, then hid the ones he couldn't eat immediately in the couch cushions for later. I so appreciated that. (This dog was amazing; he could also pry open the refrigerator with his nose and take whatever he wanted; we had to keep it locked. We could remember to lock it 100 times in a row and the one time we forgot he would have a feast).
Anyway, old Rusty was fine and lived to scavenge another day. Was he just immune to the dog/chocolate syndrome?
One study said that the dividing line between significant increased risk and not is 14% alcohol by volume (ABV). Regular Listerine is slightly above 14%, flavored Listerine is slightly below 14%, and all other brands have less, down to Targon with 4%.
Although some studies say that smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages do not increase risk of oral cancer, I am tending to believe another study that says that Listerine plus booze plus tobacco significantly increases risk more than Listerine alone. After all, the more alcohol consumed, the drier the membranes in the mouth and throat, making it easier for the carcinogens in tobacco to get into the bloodstream.
What annoys me is when so-called "scientists" have a hypothesis, devise a test to prove their hypothesis, and if the results don't significantly disprove the hypothesis, they say "there is now sufficient evidence to accept the proposition."
"Anything is possible if you can imagine it! That's what being a scientist is all about! Right, Dr. Farnsworth?"
]]>Like we learned from "Futurama", "Anything is possible if you can imagine it! That's what being a scientist is all about!"
]]>I'll take the 1 in a million bet and enjoy the minty freshness. I even drink diet soda. I live on the edge.
]]>@Parapraxis: Please provide sources for your facts.
"For example, in Finland and Germany, tooth decay rates remained stable or continued to decline after water fluoridation stopped. "
Notice it only says it increases your chance of getting oral cancer...they never give you the important numbers.
the chance of getting cancer, ANY cancer, is .4% using their own incidence (cancer incidence/US population I got from google). Thats ANY cancer, and includes people predisposed to it. So lets be generous and say oral cancer accounts for .1% of new cancers. This doesnt even raise your risk by 40 times like smoking. So the most its going to make you is, say, .39%. Which is pretty low. That 39 people out of 100,000 who regularly use mouthwash. How many people regularly use mouthwash? Now you could say, my town is 300,000 people, 1.3 of them are going to get cancer from mouthwash! Well only if ALL of them regularly use mouthwash and dont die of something else. The number of people this study is pertinent to is so small that the increase in cancer risk to you and the public is negotiable. So I didnt RTFKA. But I did get the number because I was curious about cancer incidence.
]]>So yes, at the end of a very long day when I'm about to fall into bed, I do skip it.
Guess I'll have to live with the knowledge that I'll never be as perfect as you.
]]>Fluoride at low doses helps rebuild teeth. At high doses breaks down bones. It has not been shown to cause cancer.
Sodium laurel sulfate is soap. S-O-A-P. It's in Ivory. It's in Irish Spring. It's in shampoo and dish/laundry detergent. If you're afraid of soap causing cancer, then I don't know how you stay clean.
]]>I'm a compulsive flosser. It's so satisfying when I get a big clump of food on the floss. Free horsedouvers.
]]>Most cancers require up to 20 mutations at specific points, all in different genes, all in a single cell. So, if you're binge drinking or sucking down a pack of ciggies everyday, your risk of liver or oral/throat/lung cancer might go up. If you're rinsing with mouthwash containing alcohol, your risk of oral cancer might go up, but it will be 1000X less risky.
MOST people who get cancer are born with one or two genes that are already defective in all of their cells. I'm not saying that you can chew tobacco and roll around in toxic waste without fear if you have a perfect genome. But, people born with defective copies of cancer genes have a higher risk.
There's risk in everything we do. I wear sunscreen, but I won't give up my vodka tonics.
]]>I've never had any staining, and I would notice because my teeth are naturally pretty white since I don't drink coffee or tea.
]]>And a double-blind test of this nature would be unethical science. Unethical unethical unethical! You can't subject people to something you hypothesize causes cancer if they don't already use it, meaning you'd have to give the placebo to non-users, rendering a double-blind test, well, NOT double-blind.
]]>Wow, I can't believe eggs (eating or not eating, depending on the day) didn't make it into the top ten.
Or listening to Hannah Montana albums.
]]>Saccharine caused cancer in lab rats because they metabolize saccharine differently than humans do. We don't have the metabolic pathway that causes the cancer.
(Much like how chocolate is fatal to dogs)
Sodium Fluoride: there are TONS of websites out there that are teeming with insane people who think Fluoride is some big conspiracy. It's not. Fluoridated water is not going to kill people. Don't like it? Get a water filtration/water softener system. And then make sure your dentist doesn't use a precautionary fluoride paste on your teeth. You get about 100x more fluoride in that treatment than in a solid year of drinking fluoridated water. Good luck with the shitty teeth, though.
Sodium Laureth Sulfate is NOT necessarily worse than anything else you come in contact with during the day. . It's an extremely effective detergent that is used in pretty much everything- even the laboratory. Stop regurgitating uninformed echain mails about Herbal Essences.
]]>@dweebster: It is for me. Flossing properly between every tooth takes up more time than I have patience for. It's not that I think it's difficult, it's that I find it tedious.
]]>Does this professor work for ACT or Crest or another manufacturer of alcohol free mouth wash?
]]>Really everything causes cancer because cancer is a catchall for when your cells stop functioning correctly.
Basically, take all the this and that cause cancer news with a grain of salt.
]]>Yes, I was definitely recommended an alcohol free mouthwash when I was at my dentist a few years back. She said it would help a lot.
]]>If you can, hold off using Listerine until February.
]]>Tonight at 11: New study, Based on assumptions; null hypothesis; and dated scientific research, finds life.....IS CANCER!!!!
Details at eleven
Really, can't magazines just say "There's a balance out there you need to reach to be healthy, and it doesn't come down to a simplistic soundbyte"?
]]>I wish there was a safer alternative. My dorm lifestyle has me eating nasty, non-whole foods all the time, which ferment like rotten grapes in a yeast factory in my mouth. I used Crest the day before that post, and quit out of fear although I had no side effects (yet). Then I started using generic alcohol mouthwash. If that's bad, what can I gargle? My whole mouth tastes nasty without it when I'm eating the stuff at school, no matter how much I brush or floss.
]]>Powdered donuts?!?!?!?
Oh nooo... I'm doomed!
]]>So, don't run away from mouthwash. Just run away from mouthwash with alcohol.
Let me reiterate: The dental community has know about this for a very long time.
]]>Yeah, stick with the "none of the above"... it's less work.
]]>and when you go for your dental checkup and they ask if you floss and you say yes? they can totally tell when you're lying.
]]>The other effects of just drinking tend to get you before the cancer - cirrhosis, etc.
Chronic drinkers and smokers tend to have *MUCH* higher incidences of oral cancer than do non-drinkers/non-smokers or people who are chronic drinkers/chronic smokers.
]]>When people drink alcohol, like in beer, wine liquor etc., alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver converts that alcohol (ethanol) to acetaldehyde (AKA ethanal) which circulates throughout your body until, at some point down the line, it makes it back to the liver and is process from acetaldehyde into acetic acid (vinegar) by aldehyde dehydrogenase. The acetic acid is then excreted via the kidneys.
]]>Is it just me, or does the study not really say it causes cancer?
we believe that there is now sufficient evidence to accept the proposition that alcohol-containing mouthwashes contribute to the increased risk of development of oral cancer [emphasis added]
Bad science! Bad bad bad! we do NOT presume causation without quantitative data and double-blind tests!
It looks like all they're saying is that it's theoretically possible for there to be an increased risk, and that they understand the mechanism by which such a risk would be caused. but they haven't actually proven it, or shown how much that increase in risk is. If someone wants to shell out 43 bucks for the full article, i'd be more than happy to check it out.
]]>The CDC just released a list of ten highest causes of cancer
10. Mouthwash
9. Powdered donuts
8. Dreadlocks on white guys
7. Reruns of "Xena: Warrior Princess"
6. Clay Aiken's "Measure of a Man" album
5. Egyptian mummy curses
4. Jessica Simpson
3. The Food Network
2. Breathing
1. Cancer
Although drinking everyday can cause health problems too, acetaldehyde is a common feeling in the human experience - ever had a hangover? too much acetaldehyde!
Anyways, I think I should go read the article...
]]>Please remove the misleading headline about the fake research. Thanks.
]]>Slight possibility of cancer (and how many people you know have been using Listerine for YEARS and nothing wrong) or significant possibility of seriously F-d up teeth? You decide.
]]>That being said, since one of my medications leads me to get canker sores pretty easily, I found the Crest Pro-Clean stuff really helps me get rid of them when followed by a quick rinse of hydrogen peroxide.
]]>news at 11
btw did you know eating too much BBQ can increase cancer too because you're eating a lot of carcinogen's..
OMG somebody call Famous Dave's their selling death!
]]>1. Correlation != Causation
2. The EtOH metabolism pathway is in the liver, so unless you are actually swallowing large amounts of the mouthwash, it will not be metabolized to acetylaldehyde. Secondly, the researcher's assumption there ignores the second step in the EtOH metabolism pathway, which is the conversion of acetylaldehyde to acetic acid, which is catalyzed by acetylaldehyde dehydrogenase, which eliminates acetylaldehyde.
]]>Maybe, but in a pinch it will still get you drunk.
]]>