Author Topic: antibacterial soap  (Read 2246 times)

Luke Warm

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antibacterial soap
« on: February 08, 2017, 11:51:44 AM »
washing your hands with antibacterial soap supposedly kills 99% of bacteria but the other 1% that survive are the fittest bacteria thus creating stronger breeds of bacteria. wouldn't it be better to not even wash your hands at all to keep the bacteria weak?

Dave1442397

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2017, 11:54:38 AM »
I don't know if it's the culture or the marketing, but I've always found Americans to be overly concerned with germs and bacteria in everyday life.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/17/you-should-really-stop-buying-antibacterial-soaps/?utm_term=.3e004a96448e

deadlymonkey

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2017, 11:55:34 AM »
It would be better to wash with regular soap and water.  Actually I think most antibacterial soaps actually use alcohol instead of antibiotics, so they do not contribute significantly to making stronger bacteria. Alcohol good, antibiotics bad.

KCM5

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2017, 12:08:35 PM »
Antibacterial soaps use triclosan. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/well/live/why-your-toothpaste-has-triclosan.html?_r=0

It's not been shown to be more effective in soaps than regular soap (hence the ban). It also leads to hormonal changes in fish.

I'm unaware of what antibacterial soaps are using now. I imagine its probably another chemical similar to triclosan.

Shor

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2017, 12:08:53 PM »
It depends on what your goal is.
If you're trying to create a Superbug, repeated exposure and mass bactericide will eventually develop a possible winner, given enough test subjects and mutations. Sometimes you might hit a local maximum that will always die out. Sometimes the conditions are so extreme that the mutation(s) needed to survive is too far removed. As it is, you don't keep your hands isolated in an ideal temperature-controlled feeding environment. You touch things, you touch your hair, you touch your jeans, this introduces plenty of regular bacteria right back in to the mix.

But if you're aim is sanitation, you should just wash your hands anyway.
Think of it this way, if you kill off 99.9% of bacteria, and only the strongest survives and gets under your skin, your body can and does fight it off, easily, almost offhandedly and you go about your day not even noticing. Your body is complex[citation needed] and it can handle many many small incidents.

The reason you get sick is because your system gets absolutely overwhelmed with an invading force that grows and multiplies out of control.
Every now and then, one of those small incidents spirals in to an uncontrolled disaster, invaders everywhere, multiplying and consuming..... and you get a tummy ache for a few hours!

trollwithamustache

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2017, 01:11:33 PM »
hand washing with non antibacterial soap also "kills" 99% of bacterial since good mechanical action with the soap simply removes north of 99% of the bacteria from your hands.

Oh, and the CDC recommends 20 seconds! of scrub time.

https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html

Which this dirty troll will admit I sometimes fall short on. We had one kid for a long time only washed the back of his hands and the soap never really touched the front. It probably didn't matter what soap he used.

Abe

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #6 on: February 08, 2017, 06:58:02 PM »
Most antibacterial soaps use(d) triclosan. Unfortunately, in addition to selecting for resistant bacteria (like any antibiotic), it also seems to have a stimulative effect on certain bacteria, inducing them to multiply. The FDA banned its use in soap for this reason earlier this year. 

Antibacterial hand sanitizers are alcohol-based and work through a desiccating effect on the bacteria. A few bacteria (most importantly clostridium species that can cause diarrhea) are resistant to this effect and hand-washing with soap is necessary for removing these ones.

While theoretically hand washing selects for bacteria that are better at sticking to your hands, there isn't any specific reason why those bacteria would be more harmful to you than any other ones. If anything, they would probably evolve to be dependent on attachment to skin and not survive inside your body.

Not washing your hands is the major source of most bacteria and virus spread, and one of the main causes of death prior to the development of sanitation systems, so I recommend doing it often.

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2017, 09:15:25 PM »

Luke Warm

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2017, 07:00:14 AM »

accolay

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Re: antibacterial soap
« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2017, 03:59:23 PM »
MN banned the sale of triclosan, just went into effect last month. Not sure about other states.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/21/health/triclosan-ban-antibacterial/

The world is covered in poop:
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/05/not-just-beards-the-whole-worlds-poop-covered.html

Beyond that, as many males who use public toilets know, a lot of dudes don't wash their hands. Not sure if it's a majority or not, but it seems like a lot. Think about that when you're shaking hands. Poppy got a little sloppy, indeed.

One more thing, I hate going out to eat, wash my hands in their bathroom, and it's the cheapest stank soap you could have in there. Even in "nice" restaurants. Can't you restaurants of the world spend an extra buck on soap you can't smell while you're eating?