Your Toothpaste is not Full of Carcinogens

Stop Brushing Your Teeth with Carcinogens

The Food Babe took an uneducated strike at toothpaste of all things last week, writing a fearmongering post about how you are brushing your teeth with carcinogens. What’s new eh?

This whole thing does not start, nor finish with Vani, but let’s clear some things up.  Early last year I came across a post by Dr Mark Hyman, of which is shown below. The entire article written can be found here. The post basically instructs you to make your own toothpaste, because toothpaste is toxic. Here are some direct quotes from the article, which should raise some red flags:

badsciencedebunked

“Fluoride, which can be toxic if swallowed and doesn’t even work in toothpaste."

"Glycerin, which isn’t toxic, but has no place in the mouth as it’s a soap that strips your body’s natural oral mucosa and leaves a film. This film could coat the teeth, messing with the structure of the biofilm which could alter the microbiome in the mouth and impact the natural remineralization process — your body’s natural cavity-fighting mechanism.”

Doesn’t tell you what fluoride is supposed to do, but its telling you it doesn’t work. Not at all sketchy. I found a blog which takes this post down, very well by revealing that in the products that he sells online actually contain the ingredients that he has told you not to use. Subtle. 

Carcinogens everywhere

badsciencedebunked

The post by Vani focuses mostly on how we are ‘brushing ourteeth with carcinogens’ – at this point, I genuinely don’t think she knows what that word means anymore. She starts by saying that ‘the mouth is one of the most absorbent parts of the body’ and that what is in toothpaste is ‘getting a free pass into the bloodstream’. True, the mouth can absorb a lot of things like much of the skin; dependant on pH, polarity, lipid solubility, molecular weight and other factors. Factoring these, in, it isn’t as simple as ‘everything is absorbed through the mouth’.

Being the avid scientist and researcher she is, she picks up on the bandwagon of the FDA banning Triclosan, a chemical which has previously been used as an antibacterial agent, but has been kinda faded out given research that showed it wasn’t overly effective. She states that this particular chemical has been removed from hand sanitisers, but not from toothpaste. As far as adding triclosan to toothpaste goes, studies and reviews have shown it has great effectiveness in the education of gingivitis and plaque occurrences. There is a little bit of murky water given the recent banning of this chemical, saying that the reduction of plaque may not be statistically significant. But that is in no way saying ‘this is carcinogenic’. 

Toxically, harmful, detrimental, murderous ingredients

Mirror

Inevitably, in The Food Babe way, she moves onto a list. These lists follow the general pattern of a scientific, long-winded chemical name of a common ingredient. Followed by an uneducated, biased take on what it is used in and how it will kill you which is the followed by a ‘sassy quip’ that I’m sure is hilarious when you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. I’m going to disseminate the first and then I am going to go hit my head on a wall. Vani posts:

“Artificial colors: Toothpaste can contain colors that are considered too toxic for food. The main colors I found in toothpaste were Red #30, Red #33, Blue #1, Yellow #5  – and the brands targeting children are almost always brightly colored! Made from petroleum, these artificial colors are contaminated with carcinogens and can also contain heavy metals, such as lead, mercury, and arsenic. Do you really care what color your toothpaste is?”

‘To toxic for food’ she provides no links to this, which would help me out a lot here. Because I cannot find anything saying that the colours she has listed are ‘too toxic for food’ at all. EWG has a database of these colourants and the toxicity, immunotoxicity, carcinogenetic activity and restrictions that are in place of ingredients used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry. I have found zero evidence of them being readily toxic. In fact, they all have a low ‘overall hazard’. As for the interesting take on contamination with metals and their carcinogenetic – there is very little credible in the way of evidence for this. Not to mention, if there was, we have the simple sentence that Vani has failed to understand:

‘Dose Makes the Poison’

*Sigh*, another? Okay:

gawker.com

“GMOs: Unless it is certified organic or non-GMO verified, you might be supporting Monsanto with your toothpaste.”

This one is simple: prove that they are harmful. Systematicreviews have led to the scientific consensus that GMOS are not harmful to anyone. The balls in your court Vani, astonish me. 

More?

“Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES): These foaming agents break down the protective lining in the mouth. SLES is another ingredient contaminated with the carcinogen 1,4-dioxane.”

These are some of Gwyneth Paltrows most hated ingredients, I’m sensing a theme between ‘self-educated’ morons and general income made through fearmongering. Maybe there is a conspiracy here? Anyway, the crux of this is that she provides a link to a scientific paper. This is a monumental occasion, as usually she just mentions they exist and I spend about three hours tracking down a paper she has seemingly made up or not read properly.  But alas, maybe she is actually reading my blogs and has taken some advice on how to science. The paper is entitled: ‘Sodium Lauryl sulfate and recurrent aphthous ulcers. A preliminary study’ which was published in a low impact factor journal in 1994. So, that throws the theory of her learning anything out the window. The paper has been cited twice since its publishing, providing an indication to its mind-blowing scientific revelations. Then again, the paper basically concludes that this chemical can treat mouth ulcers. The ‘contamination’ 1-4-dioxane is a by-product of the formation of SLS and is monitored and regulated by the FDA, as it is a ‘possible’ carcinogen and is encouraged to be removed from products. Nothing here is a clear cut as is stated in her summary and her statement about breaking down the protective lining of the mouth is quoted a lot in newspaper articles, but isn’t really substantiated by any science.

Fluoridation

I knew this was coming the second I saw they article. There are many people out there that believe fluoridation is going to poison you, it’s controlling us and that it shouldn’t be allowed to be in products. Vani is a perpetrator of this myth, unbelievable right? 

Sciencebasedmedicine

“Fluoride itself is highly toxic and when it accumulates in your body can lead to skeletal fluorosis, bone cancer, and thyroid disorders. New research links it to type 2 diabetes. This is a bigger risk for children who typically swallow more toothpaste than adults, where it can affect cognitive function and can cause yellow and brown stains on the teeth.”

I add this paragraph to my post because it literally eviscerates itself. Click the links to check the sources. They’re not links to studies. They’re not links to valid sources of scientific information. They’re not links to journals with links to journals. They’re just biased links to biased websites that hate fluoride, for no good biased reason. This is just not true, fluoridation of water and toothpaste is in low but vital quantities. One of her links is to Mercola. Fucking Mercola. Mercola is an osteopathic physician residing in America and promoting pseudoscience. He runs the website mercola.com – which advocates highly, highly questionable treatments. In the skeptical world, we call these people ‘quacks’. However, if you visit his website you will notice something a little more peculiar than the average quack. He has a strange talent to amalgamate actual fact, sound medical advice with a congregate of highly inaccurate misinformation. This is somewhat dangerous, as if blindly following the information you semi-recognise to be true, you will assume the inaccurate information is also true. Like Vani.

Conclusion

Vani goes on to suggest ones to buy, providing a load of links to amazon selling fluoride, chemical and carcinogen free toothpaste. A claim that toothpaste is carcinogenic should be backed up with good science based evidence, of which is completely none is-existent in any of Vanis’ post, much less this particular one. The word ‘toxic’ is both grossly miss and overused by the woman, which is a good indication that she has zero idea what she is saying. Everything to her is toxic. In truth, she is the toxin. She is belligerently spreading scientific misinformation, fearmongering and thinking she is doing the world a favour by shoving her scientifically illiterate nose where it doesn’t belong. If there was evidence for this, she would be producing statistical information to show how many people have gotten cancer from brushing their teeth for example.

Making Sense of Fluoride

Don’t stop brushing your teeth based on the words of this pseudoscientist and don’t change toothpaste based on the alleged toxicity of everything in the world. A sentence even I thought I would never have to type.