Do you know what ingredients are in your oral care products?
Although you surely take for granted that the toothpaste and mouthwash you use everyday are working to improve your oral health and freshen your breath, in fact, the oral care products you use could be causing you actual harm. For several decades the large pharmaceutical companies have made commercial oral care products that contain harmful ingredients such as alcohol, sodium lauryl sulfate, saccharin and benzalkonium chloride.
Read the labels on your oral care products to avoid these harmful ingredients...
Alcohol - Commercial oral care manufacturers have added alcohol to mouthwash for many years as a way to kill the germs that cause bad breath.Unfortunately, because alcohol is a drying agent, the alcohol actually makes bad breath worse. You see, a dry mouth is bad breath's best friend. Without saliva to combat the bacteria that cause bad breath, your dry mouth is a perfect breeding ground for bad breath bacteria and the volatile sulfur compounds they create.
Also, research has shown that long term use of alcohol can lead to oral cancer. So, the "burn" that you feel when your rinsing with a mouthwash containg alcohol is not only killing the bad breath bacteria, it's also damaging the delicate oral tissue in your mouth and increasing your risk of oral sores and oral cancer.
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) - Nearly every toothpaste contains sodium lauryl sulfate which has been proven to dry out your mouth and is now scientifically linked to canker sores. It is placed into toothpaste to create the foaming action that you believe is helping to clean your mouth. It's not helping to clean your mouth - it's drying it out.
The harshness and harmfulness of sodium lauryl sulfate has been scientifically proven to create microscopic damage to the oral tissue which lines the inside of your mouth, which then leads to canker sore production. This microscopic damage and shedding of vital oral tissues also provides a food source to the bad breath bacteria allowing them to rapidly reproduce which results in bad breath.
Saccharin - An artificial sweetener, saccharin is another harmful ingredient that has been used for many years by large oral care companies in oral care products. The problem is, saccharin has been linked to bladder cancer in rats and in humans it can cause allergy-related symptoms, skin disorders, nausea and diarrhea.
Would you give saccharin to your children? Well, you are - when you provide them with children's toothpaste from some of the major companies, take a look at their ingredients.
Benzalkonium Chloride (BKC) - Another harmful ingredient that has been used for many years as a preservative in nasal sprays and nasal drops. Recently, researchers in Europe discovered that this preservative was causing a great deal of allergic reaction among users. It is now estimated that fully 10% of the population is allergic to benzalkonium chloride. Other studies have shown a direct relationship between benzalkonium chloride and contact dermatitis, another allergic reaction.
Based on these facts, pharmaceutical companies have started to produce eye and nasal drops without benzalkonium chloride in order to provide better products to the public.
