Flossing: You can quit!

I’ve never been a regular flosser. Just another tedious thing to do. Plus it spatters the bathroom mirror. Now it turns out that it’s been overrated. Yea!

Apparently, until recently, no one had bothered to study whether flossing had any value. Now, however, the American Academy of Periodontology acknowledged that flossing has not been shown to prevent cavities or severe periodontal disease. In reviewing 12 randomized controlled trials published in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, researchers could not find any studies that proved the effectiveness of flossing.

It may be that if you flossed the way your dental hygienists do, it might be effective, as was the case when professionals flossed the teeth of children on school days for nearly two years. (Can you imagine?!) They saw a 40 percent reduction in the “risk” of cavities, whatever that means. At any rate, it looks like we can stop feeling guilty about not flossing.

So now, you’ve got all this floss sitting around. Here are just a few of the many ways to use it (where provided, click on the links for YouTube demonstrations):

• Sew up gunshot wounds. This has been done!
• Cut up food (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0btXb4O21I)
• Escape prison by combining a ton of it to make a rope or mix it with toothpaste to saw through wire. This has been done!
• Remove a ring (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSq_7e6DJMg). This one made me laugh out loud.

I'll still floss when I've got food stuck in my teeth. Otherwise, I'm done.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

The health benefits of dirt

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world eat dirt. Here, in southeastern states such as Georgia, a white clay called kaolin is the dirt of choice (not just any dirt will do). Apparently, it’s mostly women who crave dirt, especially pregnant women. "Every time I get pregnant, I get a craving -- I have to eat it," says one woman who has given birth to four healthy babies. Some medical professionals believe that minerals in certain clays are especially beneficial for pregnant women. As one said, "Mineral demand goes up substantially during pregnancy. Soil is nature’s multi-mineral supply."  Other researchers believe that eating dirt while pregnant strengthens both the mother’s and child's immune systems. It can also have a calming effect on the mother’s gastrointestinal system, since the clay (also found in Maalox and Rolaids) contains antacid compounds. Because clay absorbs toxins, people in traditional cultures cook food such as potatoes and acorns in clay as a way of protecting against the toxic alkaloids and tannic acids that would otherwise make these food inedible.

You may now be hankering for some dirt. You can get kaolin clay on the internet. Just look it up.

There’s a clay deposit in Canada that has been found to contain powerful antibiotics. In fact, solutions of the clay can kill 16 different strains of multi-drug-resistant bacteria—such as Staphylococcus aurea—that commonly infect hospital patients. As one scientist noted, the antimicrobial clay provides “new hope in a battle that the medical community is currently not winning.” Actually, the find is not new. Natives of the region, the Heiltsuk, have used the clay for medicinal purposes for generations.

You can get some dirt-inhabiting bacteria to spray on yourself. A company called AOBiome sells a tonic that contains billions of cultivated Nitrosomonas eutropha, an ammonia-oxidizing bacteria that is most commonly found in dirt. It once lived happily on us too before we started washing it away with soap and shampoo. The AOBiome spray re-introduces these critters as nature intended. They act as a built-in cleanser, deodorant, anti-inflammatory and immune booster. 

Recent studies have shown that farm children who are exposed to animal manures have significantly less asthma than farm children who do not.

Something for everyone in dirt!

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Sunscreen surprises

I’m not very good about using sunscreen, mostly because I figure it’s too late. The damage is done: I have lots of skin cancer and other unsightly sun-induced blemishes. I do use it on my face when I’m going to be outside for hours, hoping to keep my nose from getting any redder.

Scanning the shelves of sunscreen is all very bewildering. It’s hard to choose. I usually opt for a high SPF (Sun Protection Factor). It turns out there’s not much difference between high and low SPF. Sunscreen with SPF 15 blocks about 95 percent of all incoming UVB rays; those with SPF of 40 block 97 percent; etc. The higher SPF sunscreens do block more rays, but in actual use, it’s not clear if they’re that much more effective than the lower-rated ones.

It’s all very disheartening. According to my source, no sunscreen is effective for longer than two hours without reapplication. Plus you need a lot for it to be effective: two fingers-length of product applied to each of the “eleven areas of the body” for a day at the beach say Drs. Aaron E. Carroll and Rachel C. Vreeman, both pediatric doctors and professors. (They don’t specify those eleven areas.) In other words, to follow the recommended amount, you’d have to use up almost an entire bottle of sunscreen during your outing. Also, you should apply it thirty minutes before you go out in the sun to let the ingredients bind to the skin, then apply it again twenty minutes later. Apparently, these first two applications are the most effective.

What this says to me is, unless you follow these rigorous recommendations, the sunscreen isn’t helping all that much. And it’s all a terrific amount of bother. I maintain that there’s a big genetic component to skin cancer. How come my sister doesn’t have skin cancer? Or my husband? He has never used sunscreen and has no skin cancer, while his classmate from Fresno, where both grew up, has plenty of it. Like much else, it's the luck of the draw.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Stop with the hand wipes!

It seems that those hand wipe dispensers, such as you see at supermarkets, have become increasingly prevalent. They’re for wiping down the handles of shopping carts before using them--I guess so you don't pick up other people's cooties. You also see more of those dispensers in other places. I’ve always thought they were silly: just one more thing to make people fear their environment.

It turns out, they do more harm than good. They (and many other products) are impregnated with a chemical called triclosan, which kills the native bacterial species on our hands--bacteria that act as a defensive layer against “invaders.” In other words, they disrupt the natural balance of bacteria on our hands. Triclosan kills weak bacteria but favors the tolerant, including those that eat triclosan[!]. What’s more, overuse of such products helps encourage antibiotic-resistant germs. In fact, resistance to triclosan is already evident. Triclosan also disrupts endocrine systems—at least in fish, who have been found to have lower sperm counts than those who are not exposed to triclosan. (Triclosan has entered our water systems.)

We don’t need to be at war with the microbial world. In fact, exposure to some bacteria encourages a stronger immune system. A newly published study of 1,037 children in New Zealand, which began in 1972 and continues to this day, showed that children who frequently sucked their thumbs or bit their nails (had their hands in their mouths) were significantly less likely to test positive for allergies than those who did not. (It did not, however, affect their likelihood of having asthma or hay fever.) Other studies have shown an increase in allergies and asthma in people living in overly sterile environments. What's more, most people who use antibiotic soap are no healthier than those who use normal soap; and chronically sick people who use antibiotic soap appear to get sicker!

All of this supports what is called the “hygiene hypothesis” which holds that our germaphobic ways may be making us sick by harming our microbiome—those bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc. that live in and on our bodies. We end up with an underutilized immune system unable to distinguish friend from foe. So stop with the hand wipes.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.