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Antibacterial Soaps Doing More Harm Than Good? |
| Date Added: February 25, 2008 11:08:38 PM |
| Author: Scientific American |
| Category: Health & Fitness |
| Soaps, household cleaners, sponges, and even mattresses and lip glosses now pack bacteria-killing ingredients. Does adding those ingredients make sense? Traditionally people wash bacteria from their bodies and homes using soap and hot water, alcohol, chlorine bleach or hy¬drogen peroxide. Soap works by loosening and lifting dirt, oil and microbes from surfaces so that they can be easily rinsed away with water.
General cleaners such as alcohol inflict sweeping damage to cells by demolishing key structures, after which the cleaners evaporate. Products containing antibacterial agents, in contrast, leave surface residues. This persistence is problematic. When a bacterial population that survives the first hit of an antibacterial agent vies with the lingering chemical, a small subpopulation armed with special defense mechanisms can evolve. This group then multiplies as its weaker relatives perish, and it will withstand attack the next time the chemical is applied. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is the governing maxim here; antibacterial chemicals select for bacteria that can endure their presence. Resistance to topical chemicals is not the only risk. When bacteria become tolerant to these compounds, they sometimes also become less sensitive to certain antibiotic medicines. This phenomenon, called cross-resistance, has already been demonstrated with triclosan, one of the most common chemicals in antibacterial products. |
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