New heart health danger to avoid....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 8-21-2012

Background:

Heart failure is NASTY stuff and best avoided.  The current treatments aren’t very effective so heart failure tends to be progressive.

It starts out just being a bit short of breath because when your heart doesn’t pump well you get fluid in your lungs.  But it progresses to cut backs in circulation you need in the rest of your body and being so weak and so short of breath that walking a few feet to the bathroom is extremely hard to do.  Even talking much can be difficult.

The growing negative impact on your quality of life is extreme.

Personal note:  My father got this stuff, heart failure, and decided a life where he was no good to anyone and a burden to my Mom instead of a support was no longer worth living.

He stopped treatment and then stopped eating to reduce the time he was a burden.  He succeeded in that at least.

This was tragic because he was a really good guy and mentally as sharp at 87 as he was at 17 and his wisdom and knowledge were still an asset to everyone in our extended family.

Of course every way you can protect your heart and prevent cardiovascular disease helps prevent heart failure. 

(My Dad’s was mostly caused by heart damage from the heart attacks he survived. 

And, it was worsened by the statins he was prescribed.  Unfortunately, his doctors didn’t know how to prevent future heart attacks without using statins. Many doctors still don’t know to avoid the use of statins for this reason and many others.)

Regular moderate exercise and interval cardio are directly preventive of heart failure. And for older people, taking CoQ10 or its more powerful version, ubiquinol, also helps prevent heart failure and may even help treat heart failure effectively according to one research source I found.

The new threat to avoid:

So, you can imagine how attention getting it was for me when I read that the common antibacterial soap component, triclosan, has been found to produce muscle weakness in general and heart failure in particular!

I read this in Medical News Today’s email that I get:

“Introduced in the 1970s, the compound triclosan has become an increasingly popular ingredient in many antibacterial soaps and other personal-care items, such as deodorants and mouthwashes.  However, as the chemical’s popularity continues to grow, a recent report has raised concerns about some frightening risks that triclosan could pose to public health.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has revealed that exposure to triclosan is linked with muscle function impairments in humans and mice, as well as slowing the swimming of fish.  By reducing contractions in both cardiac and skeletal muscles, the chemical has the potential to contribute to heart disease and heart failure.

Primarily used in antibacterial hand soaps, triclosan can also be found in a number of bath and household products, including mouthwashes, toothpastes, deodorants, bedding, washcloths and towels, kitchen utensils and toys.”

Triclosan may well even be in tap water also due to how dreadfully much has already been used!  And, it’s still being used.  So this will become more and more likely for several years.

(Note that this also means that any strength training you do will be less effective. 

And if you do no strength training at all, you will be weak indeed after exposure for years to triclosan.)

What to do:

Avoid all the products that contain triclosan and work to drink and cook with filtered water if you possibly can do so!

Always read labels to avoid triclosan before you buy or use such products!

Compared to most people, I already had a low exposure to it because of several things I did long ago.  We also use bottled, filtered water to drink and to cook with.  

(We tried an in-sink reverse osmosis filter but it failed due to bad installation and we decided for now not to spend the several hundred dollars to have it redone right.)

Antibiotic resistant bacteria on your skin can kill you. 

And it’s been a few years ago I think since news came out that the use of triclosan in antibacterial hand soaps and other products was helping to breed such resistant bacteria!

So for antibacterial hand soaps at least, I’ve avoided the stuff, triclosan, ever since. 

I use Ivory liquid hand soap and have since then. 

Properly used, liquid soap by itself removes bacteria from your hands quite thoroughly -- without making the bacteria antibiotic resistant. 

And, with this new research, we now know washing your hands without triclosan avoids harming your muscles and heart also!

(The bacteria on your hands and the dirt on them gets embedded in the oils on your hands. 

Regular liquid soap massaged into your hands without ANY water & with a hand washing motion that covers all of your hands, combines with those oils and the bacteria in them.

Then continue with warm or hot water until the soapy feeling is almost gone. And then wash your hands with cold water until the soapy feeling is all gone.

It’s simple and fast and the bacteria are gone but not made antibiotic resistant.  The soap removes the oils and bacteria.  And then the water removes the mix of oils an bacteria for you.

You also do not have ANY need for a soap with triclosan!)

I also tend not to use many of the other products triclosan is in.  And should I wish to use such products occasionally I can read the ingredients on the label. 

However, the fact that some fools may add it to new sheets and towels, etc, is an upsetting thought indeed.

I hope that laws will be passed to ban triclosan now.  And, if not, have laws passed making its use mandatory to disclose both on new products and on a permanent tag on products such as towels and sheets.  It should immediately be banned from toys!