The promise of "antibacterial" soaps seems squeaky clean: Fewer bacteria means less option of illness. Most of the bacteria we daily interact with are awesome -- triclosan is not the best. It's terrible at its job and potentially bad for you, too.
A new study in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy found that, under normal hand washing conditions, antibacterial soap wasn't any better at killing germs than regular soap.
According to the study, anti-bacterial hand soaps contain a chemical known as triclosan, which is a commonly used chemical in most anti-bacterial soap. As such, people believe that this chemical, triclosan is better at killing all those harmful bacteria and germs. But it appears that this study has found that not only does triclosan not cause any significant bactericidal effects, it is also harmful to the body as it might lead to antibiotic resistance and hormone problems.
To put that to the test, these researchers conducted an experiment using normal soap and anti-bacterial soap that contain triclosan. Firstly, they placed some samples of bacteria along with either normal or anti-bacteria soap under some petri dishes. Next, they got a few, 16, to be exact, volunteers and spread some bacteria on their hands. To ensure fairness, the team only used anti-bacterial soap containing 0.3% triclosan, which the limit in most countries. Plus, these volunteers had refrained from using antibacterial soap for at least the preceding week.
The dilemma is that putting triclosan as an active component in over-the-counter products such as hand washes and chopping boards, to name a few, has not been fully evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. And the results of their studies show astounding results that should prompt all of us to stop using antibacterial soaps.
For a long while, people believed that this is the case and hence opted for the more expensive anti-bacterial soap over the cheaper normal soap. But that might just stop today.
