Widely Used Antibacterial Chemical May Impair Muscle Function 252
New submitter daleallan writes "Triclosan, which is widely used in consumer handsoaps, toothpaste, clothes, carpets and trash bags, impairs muscle function in animal studies, say researchers at UC Davis (abstract). It slows swimming in fish and reduces muscle strength in mice. It may even impair the ability of heart muscle cells to contract. The chemical is in everyone's home and pervasive in the environment, the lead researcher says. One million pounds of Triclosan is produced in the U.S. annually and it's found in waterways, fish, dolphins, human urine, blood and breast milk. The researchers say their findings 'Call for a dramatic reduction in use.' It's in my Colgate Total toothpaste, and in fact, preventing gingivitis is the only use that may be worthwhile, although this makes me think twice about continuing to brush with it."
This isn't the first time Triclosan has been in the news over safety concerns.
Triclosan is not the only drug found in waterways (Score:5, Informative)
Need to stress this, Triclosan is not the only drug found in waterways
A lot of other substances that human being are using ended up in waterways and they are having all types of side effects on ecology around us
I read an article about 10 years ago that nano-silver particles that we human are using - to kill bacteria, -somehow entered the waterways and end up killing a lot of microbial lifeforms, and the chain reaction (according to the articles that i read, can't find the links to them anymore, sorry) was worrying
Re:Who would have thought... (Score:5, Informative)
there's lots of things which harm only some kinds of life.
Your eyes are protected by Lysozyme: enzymes which attack bacteria but it doesn't harm your eyes.
Lots of things are harmful to one organism and not another: Theobromine is deadly to dogs but fairly harmless to us except in extreme quantities because we have enzymes which can handle it.
Oxygen will kill many types of bacteria but we need it to live.
Many anti-bacterials are simply far far far less toxic to us than to bacteria so it's not that surprising but it makes an awful rule of thumb.
Re:What was the dose? (Score:3, Informative)
I've only had a quick scan through the article, but near the end it explicitly says:
So if I'm reading that right, the potential health risk depends on exactly who those "some humans" were, and if they were people who generally used triclosan products or if they were people injected with the stuff, which isn't really made clear.
It also notes that triclosan *is* metabolised in the human body, but exactly how seems to be a bit murky. There's also a note that 95% of the compound seems to be bound by serum protein in blood, but their "results demonstrated that TCS disrupts skeletal (excitation–contraction coupling) even in the presence of excess serum protein".
Re:What was the dose? (Score:5, Informative)
acutely depresses hemodynamics and grip strength in mice at doses 12.5 mg/kg
Re:What was the dose? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who would have thought... (Score:3, Informative)
Death in 100% N2 would be via hypoxia - rather pleasant....
Re:Evolution (Score:3, Informative)
One could say the same thing about MANY things that our lives depend on. Oxygen, water, amino acids, etc. Just because our bodies don't make it doesn't make it automatically harmful.
I, for one, would like to see the concentrations of Triclosan used in this study compared against the average exposure concentration "in the wild".
From the Abstract:
Now, I am not a scientist, but shouldn't the second measurement be listed in ppm, not micrometers? I mean, who cares how many micrometers they put into the water if we don't know how much water they used? 0.52uM is a HUGE amount when mixed with an equal amount of water. it's nothing in a bathtub.
Can a scientist type person please clarify this for the less-sciency of us?
(Note: I had to change some of the symbols so that they would output clearly on /. the "~" replaces the stacked ">_" and the u replaces the greek symbol for "micro".)
Re:Evolution (Score:3, Informative)
the M in 0.52 uM is 1 mol/L so 0.52 umol/L :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_concentration
Re:Can't stand your neighbor's dog yepping ? (Score:5, Informative)
The industry responds. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Informative)
In context.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22885664 [nih.gov]
Urinary levels of bisphenol A, triclosan and 4-nonylphenol in a general Belgian population.
'Geometric mean concentration was determined for bisphenol A at 2.55ug/l and for triclosan at 2.70ug/l'
Now, Triclosans molar mass is around 300.
0.52uMol/l is therefore 300 times this - 150ug/l.
So, this is lots higher - 50 times - that in the general population.
(Assuming urine and blood are of similar concentration, I can find no papers on this in 2 mins)
However, 50* is not a stupid amount to exceed dosages by, especially given that it's likely that some humans will exceed the average by at least 5 times.
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Informative)
Can a scientist type person please clarify this for the less-sciency of us?
uM is micromolar, not micrometer. Micrometer is um. Molarity is a a unit of concentration where 1M is one mole of a substance per liter. A mole is the number of atoms of a substance it takes for the actual weight to match the molecular weight. e.g. The molecular weight of an oxygen molecule (O2) is twice the molecular weight of oxygen(2x16=32). So one mole of O2 weighs 32g.
The actual numerical value of the mole is avogadro's number(6.02x10^23), but it's not really necessary to work with the actual number when you're doing concentration calculations like this.
Re:Can't stand your neighbor's dog yepping ? (Score:4, Informative)
Effective against us. It likely kills people indirectly.
There is a huge, symbiotic [wikipedia.org], non-human, microbial biomass [mpkb.org] that make our lives possible.
These microbes outnumber us, in our OWN bodies. They are how we digest our food, repel destructive invaders, regulate enzyme levels - and are likely involved in our psychological disposition.
The fact is, we know almost nothing about this - just the tip of an iceberg. Science and Medicine are just getting past the primitive, binary thinking that sterile systems are healthiest. Killing ALL the bacteria in your mouth? Health complications emerge when you lose the phages that destroy actually harmful bacteria.
Poisoning this has a potential for huge, uncalculated consequences. And merely brushing your teeth with this stuff trickles a little dose of triclosan into your tract, two or three times a day.
I think that it would be interesting to study the correlation between triclosan exposure and the obesity epidemic.