[Big Mac]

Do you think alcohol-based mouth wash products cause oral cancer?

Most recently an Australian study came out saying that they do - increasing the risk by a very substantial amount. Previous studies, including a pretty lengthy research report summarizing decades worth of findings that I found published in 2003 say that they don't. I started using Listerine six or so years ago when a dentist suggested it for gum health. I've become pretty accustomed to using these products to give my mouth a clean feel, but if they conclusively increase cancer risk I'll stop using them.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I started using Listerine six or so years ago when a dentist suggested it for gum health. I've become pretty accustomed to using these products to give my mouth a clean feel, but if they conclusively increase cancer risk I'll stop using them.

They provide little benefit over rinsing with just water for overall oral care. Colgate total, fluoridated mouthwash a few times a week, and if you really want to clean your mouth use hydrogen peroxide mouthwash.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious 

Colgate total

My dentist actually told me never to use Colgate Total. If I remember right, I think he said it was excessively abrasive and hazardous to the gums.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Do you think alcohol-based mouth wash products cause oral cancer?

How would anyone here know the answer to that question?

[Big Mac]

I'm asking for opinions, not scientific conclusions.

[ghporter]

My opinion is "mouthwash specific." I've been using Listerine for years, and while it seems kind of harsh, it has kept me from getting a serious cold or the flu. 30 second gargle, then 30 second mouth rinsing twice a day, and I haven't had a real cold since about 2003.

Now here's why I think Listerine isn't going to cause this problem where others may. Listerine uses alcohol and a number of other rather strong chemicals; it kills germs by destroying their cell membranes, so it also helps strip away old, dying cells from mucous membranes in the mouth and throat. Plain alcohol will not do this, but rather will damage the cells which may lead to poor repairs, the first step toward irritant-caused cancers.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I'm asking for opinions, not scientific conclusions.

I think I'll start a thread asking opinions on whether or not global warming is real.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

My opinion is "mouthwash specific." I've been using Listerine for years, and while it seems kind of harsh, it has kept me from getting a serious cold or the flu.

No it hasn't. How is a swish of Listerine at 8 am going to prevent you from getting infected from a sneeze from a sick co-worker at 3 pm?

Now here's why I think Listerine isn't going to cause this problem where others may. Listerine uses alcohol and a number of other rather strong chemicals; it kills germs by destroying their cell membranes, so it also helps strip away old, dying cells from mucous membranes in the mouth and throat. Plain alcohol will not do this, but rather will damage the cells which may lead to poor repairs, the first step toward irritant-caused cancers.

That doesn't make much sense.

Basically you're saying that alcohol causes cancer, yet alcohol with nastier chemicals mixed in won't cause cancer.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Just devil's advocate, not picking sides:

Originally Posted by Eug 

No it hasn't. How is a swish of Listerine at 8 am going to prevent you from getting infected from a sneeze from a sick co-worker at 3 pm?

If the germ takes 24 hours to establish an infection, you can kill it the next morning for the same effect.

Basically you're saying that alcohol causes cancer, yet alcohol with nastier chemicals mixed in won't cause cancer.

No, he's saying that alcohol causes cancer, and alcohol with nastier chemicals mixed in causes cancer and kills the cancer cells at the same time. It's a hedge.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Just devil's advocate, not picking sides:

If the germ takes 24 hours to establish an infection, you can kill it the next morning for the same effect.

No, he's saying that alcohol causes cancer, and alcohol with nastier chemicals mixed in causes cancer and kills the cancer cells at the same time. It's a hedge.

To put it bluntly, he's just making up a theory to justify his use of Listerine to himself. If ghporter wants to use mouthwash that's fine, but it's foolish to just assume that some half-baked theory he just made up is actually correct, when there may be evidence to the contrary.

One can try to discredit the research, but the above doesn't qualify as a viable argument.

That reminds me of practices in Asia. Some believe (with no evidence to support it) that certain compounds can counteract the risk of oral cancer related to chewing betel nut. So, instead of chewing betel nut, they chew betel nut together with other stuff. It's a hedge.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if regular use of alcohol-based mouthwashes with a relatively high alcohol content cause an increased risk of oral cancer. It should be noted that studies looking at regular alcohol consumption have shown increased rates of oral cancer. Furthermore, I would guess that the more carcinogenic compounds in the mix, the higher the risk. For example, smoking and alcohol use is associated with higher risk of oral cancer than alcohol use alone.

Despite this, I sometimes use mouthwash, and I sometimes drink alcohol. However, I do so knowing there are potential downsides to it.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I'm asking for opinions, not scientific conclusions.

Which, in this case, are totally useless, as they have no validity unless the person giving it has a scientific background in the area under question. If you want to ask someone if they thought Gran Torino was a good movie, that would be an appropriate question. Asking someone with no scientific knowledge whether something causes cancer is rather fruitless, as their answer means nothing.

[wallinbl]

Why alcohol? If you're doing it for your teeth, you should find a rinse with stannous fluoride in it. If you're doing it for your breath, look for something with Cetylpyridinium Chloride in it. Neither would have any alcohol.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Eug 

No it hasn't. How is a swish of Listerine at 8 am going to prevent you from getting infected from a sneeze from a sick co-worker at 3 pm?

Bacteria and viruses need time to get into your system through effective, working mucous membranes. Regularly cleaning those membranes helps prevent the germs from sticking around for very long, and also keeps the membranes from retaining old mucous which could harbor the bugs.

Originally Posted by Eug 

Basically you're saying that alcohol causes cancer, yet alcohol with nastier chemicals mixed in won't cause cancer.

Alcohol causes what are effectively "big dents" in cell walls, while all the ingredients in Listerine break down the cell walls very thoroughly-like "ripping off the fenders" of the cell walls. Basically Listerine actually does strip the outermost cells off of membranes-at least the ones that are exposed.

Alcohol-caused cancer mechanisms, as typified in extremely heavy drinkers with esophageal cancer, are theorized this way: alcohol causes cell wall damage, which the cell tries to repair. But the repair is damaged soon afterward by more alcohol, so the cell wall is never completely repaired. Copying the appropriate DNA sequences for cell wall repair over and over leads to transcription errors that are not caught, which leads to damage within the cell nucleus. A damaged nucleus can lose its ability to check ANY transcriptions, and thus oddities emerge which lead to loss of growth control and eventually cancer.

By the way, both the effectiveness of Listerine and the alcohol-cancer mechanism came from my pathology professor... I'd been using the Listerine for quite a while before that particular course, and we were discussing why so many freshmen, or new grad students, wound up getting sick during the first semester of school. The prof said it was exposure to bugs they had never been exposed to before in a new environment. Most of my class nodded knowingly-they'd all gotten pretty sick in their undergrad schools. I hadn't. I hadn't gotten sick as an instructor of hundreds and hundreds of students from all over the world, and I said so. The prof asked about what I did for oral hygiene. Twice a day (sometimes three times a day) brushing with Listerine morning and evening was my reply, and his response was "that's it." He explained that Listerine does more than sweeten breath-it cleanses the membranes of old mucus and irritates them enough that they generate new, fresh mucus which is more effective at defense. It causes this irritation through actually killing the more vulnerable cells in the epithelium, which are on the way out anyway.

[ThinkInsane]

Originally Posted by Eug 

To put it bluntly, he's just making up a theory to justify his use of Listerine to himself. If ghporter wants to use mouthwash that's fine, but it's foolish to just assume that some half-baked theory he just made up is actually correct, when there may be evidence to the contrary.

One can try to discredit the research, but the above doesn't qualify as a viable argument.

That reminds me of practices in Asia. Some believe (with no evidence to support it) that certain compounds can counteract the risk of oral cancer related to chewing betel nut. So, instead of chewing betel nut, they chew betel nut together with other stuff. It's a hedge.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if regular use of alcohol-based mouthwashes with a relatively high alcohol content cause an increased risk of oral cancer. It should be noted that studies looking at regular alcohol consumption have shown increased rates of oral cancer. Furthermore, I would guess that the more carcinogenic compounds in the mix, the higher the risk. For example, smoking and alcohol use is associated with higher risk of oral cancer than alcohol use alone.

Despite this, I sometimes use mouthwash, and I sometimes drink alcohol. However, I do so knowing there are potential downsides to it.

Pfft, just because you got some fancy medical degree doesn't make you an expert mister. Everything I need to know about doctorin' I learned from the internet. And as such, I expect to live well into my 40s. Yeah, who's got all the answers now, Dr. Smart Guy!?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ThinkInsane 

Pfft, just because you got some fancy medical degree doesn't make you an expert mister. Everything I need to know about doctorin' I learned from the internet.

You just need a Ph.D. in Wikipedianism. I think most of us MacNNers qualify.

BTW, Listerine was named after Sir Joseph Lister. This is a pretty interesting contraption created by him:

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Bacteria and viruses need time to get into your system through effective, working mucous membranes. Regularly cleaning those membranes helps prevent the germs from sticking around for very long, and also keeps the membranes from retaining old mucous which could harbor the bugs.Alcohol causes what are effectively "big dents" in cell walls, while all the ingredients in Listerine break down the cell walls very thoroughly-like "ripping off the fenders" of the cell walls. Basically Listerine actually does strip the outermost cells off of membranes-at least the ones that are exposed.

In other words, it would potentially make it easier for microorganisms to get in.

That is, if you're snorting the stuff, considering a lot of the mucous membranes they'd be getting in aren't actually in the mouth.

Alcohol-caused cancer mechanisms, as typified in extremely heavy drinkers with esophageal cancer, are theorized this way: alcohol causes cell wall damage, which the cell tries to repair. But the repair is damaged soon afterward by more alcohol, so the cell wall is never completely repaired. Copying the appropriate DNA sequences for cell wall repair over and over leads to transcription errors that are not caught, which leads to damage within the cell nucleus. A damaged nucleus can lose its ability to check ANY transcriptions, and thus oddities emerge which lead to loss of growth control and eventually cancer.

Which is why carcinogens often have synergistic effect.

BTW, I wonder if you're mixing up replication and transcription. Cell repair would usually be the latter.

By the way, both the effectiveness of Listerine and the alcohol-cancer mechanism came from my pathology professor... I'd been using the Listerine for quite a while before that particular course, and we were discussing why so many freshmen, or new grad students, wound up getting sick during the first semester of school. The prof said it was exposure to bugs they had never been exposed to before in a new environment. Most of my class nodded knowingly-they'd all gotten pretty sick in their undergrad schools. I hadn't. I hadn't gotten sick as an instructor of hundreds and hundreds of students from all over the world, and I said so. The prof asked about what I did for oral hygiene. Twice a day (sometimes three times a day) brushing with Listerine morning and evening was my reply, and his response was "that's it." He explained that Listerine does more than sweeten breath-it cleanses the membranes of old mucus and irritates them enough that they generate new, fresh mucus which is more effective at defense. It causes this irritation through actually killing the more vulnerable cells in the epithelium, which are on the way out anyway.

Well, I'd suggest taking that with a big grain of salt... unless you have high blood pressure... cuz it's just an off-the-cuff theory, which would apply to any mouthwash anyway.

[adamfishercox]

For what it's worth, I use no mouthwash and haven't been sick in forever. I think that just because we *can* put chemicals that may or may not clean without side effects into our bodies, water works just as well as it always did.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by Eug 

it's just an off-the-cuff theory, which would apply to any mouthwash anyway.

It is.
Alcohol based mouthwashes are not significantly better from one another in any way. Using them does not produce dramatically significant benefits over just brushing and then thoroughly rinsing one's mouth out with tap water. They are popular because of marketing. People assume the burning sensation they cause means it is the most effective way to kill bacteria. It isn't

If you want to kill bacteria use hydrogen peroxide mouthwash. It wil kill bacteria as surely as it would kill you if you consumed it. Cetylpyridinium chloride rinses like Crest procare work well but not so much better that it warrants four times the cost of H2O2.
If your concern is dental care then you use fluoride based rinse. It does help reduce cavities.

In any case proper brushing should be a person's first concern. Most people never even get that right. For that get a Sonicare toothbrush. Its probably the best investment in a gadget I have ever made.

[ghporter]

I can say this conclusively: before I started regularly using Listerine, I would have 3-4 colds every year, at least one of them pretty bad. Since then, I have had ZERO infections that I could classify as the standard "7-10 days of misery" that goes with the common cold. In that time, I've been in hugely crowded locations during the peak of various cold seasons and not had a bit of trouble from it.

Here in San Antonio, it's hell for allergy sufferers, and many of us without allergies develop sensitivities to allergens and other irritants because of how thick the air can be with them here. Up until it finally rained this afternoon, we were suffering from Saharan dust. Really. Dust from the Sahara blown all the way over here. Later in the year, we'll get Mexican dust and ash as farmers in large areas will burn their fields to clear them. It sucks. But while I can accurately identify when the air is nasty with crap, I have not had more than itchy eyes as a result, though it's common for a lot of people here to get some sort of infection or other when the irritant levels are this high.

Whether my professor's theory (not mine) is "off the cuff" or not (a PhD pathologist is not the kind of person I'd assume would publish that sort of thing in a classroom), the stuff works for me.