Nutrition

Is Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) In Toothpaste Safe?

Just because the sodium lauryl sulfate in toothpaste doesn’t cause cancer doesn’t mean it can’t cause problems.

Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) is a common laundry detergent used in toothpaste. It was presented in a famous internet joke almost 20 years ago. Colgate toothpaste contains SLS that was claimed to cause cancer, but at least buying Colgate instead of Crest, made by Procter & Gamble, didn’t endorse Satan – or alleged another famous hoax that claimed “a large part of the profits from Procter and Gamble products will support the satanic church. “

The joke that SLS was linked to cancer in toothpaste and hair care products was so widespread that the American Cancer Society was forced to post a response to Shampoo-poo the link. Read the organization’s article “Debunking the Myth”: “Radical chain emails have flown through cyberspace claiming that sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS, a common ingredient in many health and beauty aids, causes cancer. According to researchers, this is not the case. “So I just ignored it all these years until I did research on canker sores, those painful, flat, gray sores that can get on your lip or cheek known as aphthous ulcers. They can often be triggered by trauma, such as accidentally stabbing yourself with a toothbrush. It is therefore recommended not to bite your lip and avoid toothpaste containing SLS – not because of cancer, but because of irritation. At least that makes a little more sense. Why should a laundry detergent, a soap chemical, be carcinogenic? However, you can imagine how SLS could theoretically dissolve at least some of the protective layer from the inside of your mouth. So I decided to check out how I am discussing in my video Is Sodium Lauryl Sulphate Safe?.

Although SLS has been used As a foaming agent in toothpaste since the 1930s, our story begins 25 years ago with a summary presented at a conference on the possible effects of SLS on recurrent cancerous ulcers. The researchers took ten men and women who had more than one wound per week, an average of 18 over a three-month period, who had used a regular SLS-containing toothpaste, and switched them to an SLS-free toothpaste for an additional three months . The subjects went from 18 canker sores to about 5 – a decrease of about 70 percent. The researchers believed that the SLS adversely affected the protective layer of mucus that lines the mouth.

However, one must always be careful with published abstracts. You should always make sure that researchers actually publish their results in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Indeed, in this case, they did. So we can confirm it guided a double-blind study and used the same toothpaste, one with the regular concentration of SLS and the other without SLS, but still with only ten patients. Although it was a preliminary study, it apparently had such a dramatic effect that a series of experiments were conducted carried out to see what might be going on. The researchers simply applied some SLS at the concentration found in toothpaste to a person’s gums for 90 seconds with a Q-tip and measured the increase in blood flow to the area, a sign of inflammation, presumably because the detergent penetrated the gums and this irritated you can see in mine at 3:06 Video. But does it actually damage the tissue?

Researcher smeared Some toothpastes on some dental hygienists’ gums were two minutes twice a day for four days, and while the SLS-free toothpaste caused no problems, those with the typical amount of SLS caused “flaking” – in other words, one – in most participants The top layers of the inner lining of your mouth peeling off or peeling off. No wonder SLS could make canker sores worse.

If you go back to the original American Cancer Society source that debunked SLS as a carcinogen, the answer was that SLS isn’t a known carcinogen – it’s just a known irritant.

What about the non-SLS foaming agents? I discuss them in my video Is CABP Better In SLS-Free Toothpaste?.

I’ve delved deep into canker sores. See for example:

In health,

Michael Greger, MD

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