This article appeared in just about every daily newspaper in the uk today.
Mouthwash 'can cause oral cancer'
Some mouthwashes can contribute to oral cancer and should only be available on prescription, researchers have claimed.

Last Updated: 6:34PM GMT 12 Jan 2009

Researchers claim "sufficient evidence" that mouthwashes containing alcohol contribute to an increased risk of cancer, and that they should be taken off supermarket shelves and labelled with health warnings. They claimed there was now "sufficient evidence" that mouthwashes containing alcohol contribute to an increased risk of the disease that they should be taken off supermarket shelves and labelled with health warnings.

In a review of the latest studies, the scientists found evidence that the ethanol in mouthwash was allowing cancer-causing substances to permeate the lining of the mouth more easily and therefore cause harm.

Professor Michael McCulloch, chairman of the Australian Dental Association's therapeutics committee and associate professor of oral medicine at Melbourne University, said the alcohol in mouthwashes "increases the permeability of the mucosa" to carcinogens like nicotine.

He added that a toxic breakdown product of alcohol called acetaldehyde that may accumulate in the oral cavity when swished around the mouth is also a carcinogen.

Prof McCullough said: "We see people with oral cancer who have no other risk factors than the use of alcohol-containing mouthwash, so what we've done in this study is review all the evidence that's out there.

"We believe there should be warnings. If it was a facial cream that had the effect of reducing acne but had a four-to-five-fold increased risk of skin cancer, no one would be recommending it."

Some mouthwash can contain as much as 26 per cent alcohol.

The findings, published in the Dental Journal of Australia, said the most popular mouthwashes contained higher concentrations of alcohol than drinks such as wine or beer.

Prof McCullough said: "If you have a glass of wine, you tend to swallow it. With mouthwash you have a higher level of alcohol and spend longer swishing it around your mouth. The alcohol present in your mouth is turned into acetaldehyde."

He said regular alcohol consumption was a cancer risk - but usually did not involve swishing it around the mouth.

Eating while drinking increased salivation which lowered the risks, he said.

Oral cancer is a mutilating disease that afflicts thousands of people each year and kills half of them within five years of being diagnosed.

Smoking and alcohol consumption are well-established risk factors, but the use of mouthwash containing alcohol is more controversial.

Prof McCullough and co-author Dr Camile Farah, director of research at the University of Queensland's School of Dentistry, recommended mouthwash be restricted to "short-term" medical use or replaced by alcohol-free versions.

Dr Neil Hewson, of the Australian Dental Association, said: "It hasn't actually been established there is a direct relationship between mouthwashes with alcohol and oral cancer."

He said if people floss their teeth, brush properly and have a good diet they should not need mouthwash at all.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4223380/Mouthwash-can-cause-oral-cancer.html
Mouth cancer link to alcohol

We've suspected this risk factor here for quite some time and there have been numerous discussions about alcohol containing mouthwash. Not only is it a risk for Oral cancer patients but for alcoholics as well. It also drys out the mouth. It's about time there was some solid evidence.

They can add some cold remedies to this as well, some of them also have very high alcohol contents. Nyquil being one of them.

I find this interesting as my sore in my mouth grew I used regular mouth wash almost 10-15 times a day to try to get rid of it when in fact I was probably made it grow.. Of course this is before I knew it was cancer and before I found this site...Live and learn...I wish I would have even had a clue!

I used Listerine for years and years and years and I would tend to leave it in my mouth for 10 mins or so several times a day thinking the longer and more often the better. When I was told my cancer was caused by tobacco and alcohol (way before I was tested for HPV) I told my docs that I didn't smoke at all and only drank socially and I did mention my heavy Listerine use and they brushed that off quicker than you would swat a noseeum.

Post Tx I was told not to use a mouthwash with alcohol only because it would dry my mouth out.

I wonder if perhaps alcohol plays a role in HPV's ability to do it's thing?

There was something on the news this evening about mouthwash. I was busy and missed a lot of it. It does make sense if you give it some thought.

all i heard on our news about it was to limit the use to short term if the mouthwash has alcohol in it ... or better yet, to use one with no alcohol. they said it increases the risk of OC

David your last question is one I have been considering for a long time.....

When my brother was diagnosed with tongue cancer, he was asked about alcohol use. He was a casual drinker but that is it.

When it came out that he was a heavy, heavy listerine user for about 20 years, in fact he rinsed about 3-4 times a day and left it in his mouth for minutes at a time, his doctor said it could have played a large part.

He could not say definitely, but my brother seemed convinced tht was it.

Since his diagnosis we all switched to Crest pro-health, just in case. We were not heavy users like him, but why take a chance? It does the same thing but with no alcohol.

I know that everyday there will be something that is linked to cancer and panic will set in, but this is a small change and it does make sense with the alcohol.

Again, it comes down to moderation of anything, my brother overused the product, whether it was the cause or not, it could still not be good for you to use it excessively.

But . . . . . .

Susan

We have been sitting on this news story at OCF for about a week. It appears that there has been some controversy in the data collected, and a paper published this week with a scientifically opposing viewpoint. I want to see that you get the BEST information possible, and anytime that something seems sensational, the news services picks up fast. I will put both stories up together when the second comes in so that we can see both sides of the story....

Obviously this has been, at very least, urban myth for over a decade if you had not heard this before. And as an FDA approved product, they will no doubt be weighing in soon on the quality of the science that produced this study.

i could be wrong but i think there is a big difference between the way alcohol in listerine and the way a bottle of jack daniels is produced...i was a heavy user of listerine like your brother and i don't see it causing my cancer...i would take the radiation produced from my cell phone over the listerine...no proven cases

I have been chewing over this and reading all the news feeds,and my sleep was totally disrupted by dreams of all the google and media headlines regarding Robins dentists court hearing.

"Dentist told Robin Read to gargle with listerine 1 year later he was dead from mouth cancer"
Do i now have to live with the thought that not only did he fail to diagnose Robins ulcer as cancerous,but he also prescribed a treatment that actually was going to make the tumour more aggressive!!!! Robin used listerine at the rate of a bottle a week for the next six months only changing to the alcohol free version when the pain and burning on his tongue became unbearable.

God this modern world just sucks

Alcohol is alcohol. The only differencs between Jack Daniels amd Listerine are the additives and the manufacturing process (they don't age Listerine in burned oak barrels).

The 64 dollar question is - is alcohol a carcinogen or mutagen?

Is it an irritant to health skin tissue? We do know that it can cause cirrhosis and/or liver cancer.

Remember when the FDA approved that targeted receptor drug and later found out the placebo was more effective!?!?!

So Ray, lets see, you were also a heavy Listerine user and a non smoker and a casual drinker and you got OC.....hummmm not sure you are making a noteworthy counterpoint.

I know we have discussed and dismissed this topic each time it was previously brought up but I still remember the burning feeling in my mouth every time I used Listerine which I thought was good, you know killing those bad germs.

It will be interesting to see the "other point of view".

Okay, let me jump in and add to the chain of causality or coincidence (depending on which competing study you believe) to note that in the decade before DX, I was a major Listerine junkie - swishing it through my teeth after stimudenting - four times a day (meals and bedtime) as part of my oral hygiene drill.

So now I can tell people that my Cancer was "Holistic" - triggered by a confluence of second hand smoke (recent post), mouthwash, incense (old post and also in OCF data base), and the Summers of Love from 1969 to 1981.

Seriously while The mouthwash issue for moot for me, I am switching my son over to non alcohol mouthwash like Biotene. Even the chance that this is only a contributing factor is too much risk.

I posted this back in March of 08
http://oralcancersupport.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=71842#Post71842
when an article showed up in the OCF news:
http://www.oralcancerfoundation.org/news/story.asp?newsId=2114

My opinion still stands and I have had several discussions with my cancer docs about this as they have had time.

My husband was a heavy Listerine user for years. I, too, have wondered if it was one of several factors in his cancer. Not only does it contain alcohol that you hold in your mouth and swish around, but it makes sense that the drying effects could be a factor. (My husband is a non-smoker and very light drinker). I wonder - as did David - if Listerine affects even those who attribute their cancer to HPV (additively, etc.).

Listerine not only has the alcohol but according to this article from the Ecologist, you are also "swilling a mouthful of chemicals that will give you more to worry about than bad breath"
These additives " makes it a film former, keeping other toxic ingredients on the surface of the mouth for longer."
full article here: Listerine -behind the Label

This is just more than i can compute at the moment...where does this all end?

Charm 2017,

Thanks for the article. Just as you are motivated to protect your son, we're motivated to protect our daughter. We can't change her genetics, but we can help her avoid what might be contributing factors such as Listerene! (She's also been vaccinated with Gardasil).

Sophie H.

I haven't used ACM's(alcohol containing mouthwashes) or drinking alcohol(in my case the occasional beer or wine) in over a year because of my issues with OC. I stopped using both about 7 or 8 months before I was dx'd. I suppose a connection could be assumed in developing OC. But, if ACM helped my cancer take seed what gave me the actual cancer? What was the carcinogen?

I hope everyone who is worried about ACM stays away from drinking alcohol 100%...

I presently use Biotene mouthwash.

It must have worried me because all alcohol and alcohol containing products was the first on my "do not use list"....I just never read any articles about it until today....

What about sushi? I love sushi..is the mercury level and other chemicals too prevalent in sushi/sashimi?

Our world is a cesspool and we all live in it!! Our only alternative is to live very green for future generations and the planet.

Ray,

You could have easily had your OC 7 or 8 months before it was Dx'ed.

Don't overlook all those chemicals that the state of California has found to be carcinogenic -- Did my occasional use of automotive parts cleaner affect all this? Hard to tell...

Charm - please note this is from an unregulated and unverified BLOG site. Which means the information may or may not be true. Having said that, most of the things on the list, sound horrible, but you have to consider something very important about them VOLUME OF EXPOSURE. Everything in the world, if enough quantity will be bad for you. Even oxygen. So the inverse is also true, even very strong toxins, solvents etc. in micro exposure have very little impact on us. We are exposed to thousands of them at these kinds of levels everyday. We know that radiation causes cancer. thousands of people under the nuclear blst in Japan showed us that, but you willingly get in a dental chair and have X rays, RADIATION, without a second thought. This is because the volume of exposure, even though accumulative (in radiation but not necessarily in any of the things on the list) is at a level which is going to do you no harm.

I big on hammering on tobacco and the 400 carcinogens it is known to contain. Truth is that most of them are not the contributors to lung cancer. But a few of them are really bad.

So this long list on an unverified site has provided you with information which may or may not be valid, and has not even passed the test of volume of exposure bias.

Brian said....I big on hammering on tobacco and the 400 carcinogens it is known to contain. Truth is that most of them are not the contributors to lung cancer. But a few of them are really bad.

I always grew up associating lung cancer with tobacco so is there a something out there worse that tobacco re lung cancer?

Brian
Everything you point out is true. Still, I don't think Listerine is going to turn out (like in the Woody Allen film Sleeper)to be a health elixir. I'm glad you raised the "volume of exposure" since that has always been a problematic issue that underlays the EPA's many failures to protect the public. The level of "no harm" is set far too high IMHO. Each time they reassess mercury or lead levels or some other toxic chemical lower, it's only after documented studies instead of being safe not sorry.
Good thing I'm not a homeopathic healer or else you would have hurt my feelings and questioned the entire basis of my life's work. Since homeopathic potions often average a 1 part to 1,000,000 of the original substance ratio, they obviously have a diiferent take on volumes of exposure. Let me be clear that I have zero idea of what the proper exposure level is for any of these chemicals. What's frustrating is that there is often no actual need for these additives.

dadgum...something else I didn't do! I always hated the burn of mouthwash and the super strong minty smell, so I never used it. I would use peroxyl on occasion for a canker sore but that was on rare occasions. I have some family members that use mouthwash religiously though.

David

Much as I enjoy jousting with Brian (god what a relief to find a clever civilized forum instead of the usual fiery missives from true believers) - I don't read Brian's message as dethroning Tobacco as the number one Health hazard and lung cancer cause. Instead, I took his quote to mean that while there are 400 cancer causing agents in tobacco, only a handful of those are causing the cancer. It was a way of buttressing his point that my unverified blog list of bad additives which do have harmful effects documented does not mean that they actually make Listerine more harmful than a non adulterated alcohol rinse. just m2c

Charm's interpretation of my meaning is spot on. And you're right it isn't a good thing to bring up homeopathic remedies with me unless you want to unleash a diatribe. Some other topics that fall into this category would be chiropractic medicine, and oxymoron in my opinion. As to our government's ability to protect us from things, while the balance has leaned to the good, the amount of stuff that they let go into our air, water, food and more is disturbing to say the least. Of course this is less about their understanding of the science, than what our congressmen and senators, who make the laws that allow it to happen, make in donations from the companies that are continually allowed to poison our world with a list of toxins that boggles the mind. Combine that with the utter stupidity of allowing loose on us, that which we really have no fracking clue what their impact might be, it makes me desire to either commit murder of a high ranking federal official euphemistically called a public servant, or slit my wrists is frustration over it all.

Lastly related to the comment about Listerene.... we all know what the impact of 25% alcohol is, it is the other little bits of molecular toxins and unknowns that I am less worried about. Who cares if the small rats, bugs, and centipedes in the jungle might kill you, when the king of the predators is sitting right in front of you licking his chops.

David,

The reason why I stopped using Listerine and the occasional drink was because I was having a problem with my tongue in the spot where the tumor developed. I wouldn't be surprised if the cancer was growing for 12 months or more before I was dx'd. Doctor's, dentists and a hygienist just didn't see nothing wrong...until they saw the tumor. I'm still mad at myself for not going to other doctors...I kept telling the same people that that one spot on my tongue burns really bad when i eat anything spicy...hind-sight is 20/20...I should have been more prudent.

There are almost 600 additives in a unlit cigarette, once that cigarette is lit and smoked it releases almost 4000 chemicals into our bodies and air.

Asbestos and coal mining would probably be worse on your lungs quicker then tobacco. But smoking is deadly.

when i posted this article i never expected to see so many closet listerine users coming out of the woodwork lol.

My next question is how long has this information been available?The news reports on Robins case headlines the fact that in May 2007 his dentist told him to treat his toungue lesion by using Listerine(the inference being that this was like taking a plaster to treat a severed limb).Robin was a smoker and a heavy drinker,a fact the dentist didnt even bother to enquire about,which was noted at the time of the enquiry.It would seem if this report holds any water that this advice was akin to asking him to hold a hand grenade and pull the pin.

Am i right or am i just plain addled?

a very very angry liz

Ray,

The last thing any of us needs to to 2nd guess ourselves so please let it go (said in a nice friendly caring non combatant way).

Since the late 60's early 70's when we, the American Public, first heard that tobacco COULD BE harmful I just find it amazing, especially today that it is still legal. Believe me I know it's all political from my lobbying days. Imagine if someone tried to smoke this new thing called tobacco today. Every person in the U.S. would be all over it and it would be declared illegal within a year.

I can see the article's point of view that Listerine can damage cells so that a carcinogen can grab hold and plant it's seed to grow and cause chaos. If ACM's was the main culprit for causing OC I think there would be a lot more of us. Listerine and other ACM's have been around a long long time and if they are the culprit then why not a lot of young OC cases 20, 30 or 40 years ago? Is it a combination of ACM's and viruses, smoking, drinking or other known carcinogens? I don't know, I'm not a scientist. The study proved that it has to be looked at closer by other scientists and studies and I'm sure it's happening.

My grandmother did not smoke, drink, or use Listerine and her and my grandfather had been together for almost 60 years, and her tongue cancer was supposedly caused by a rough tooth. I had a tooth rubbing my tongue and use to get those mouth ulcers, I also held that cell phone to my left ear and averaged 2500 to 6000 minutes a month(every month) and I used Listerine and I drank once a week--they're not sure what caused my cancer but I have suspects. A lot of OC has been proven that viruses was the culprit. We all know what smoking and heavy drinking does to the body.

A healthy person with no risk factors getting OC strictly from using a ACM as directed in the instructions? I don't see it...I don't think our bodies are that weak.

We abuse ourselves and don't listen to great advice or instructions and we all want to blame someone or something for our cancer(s)...whether it's OC or any other type. I think we all know who the real culprit is...it's us...it's humans and the way we live in this world. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and realize who is accountable.

Liz--I understand your anger...I have a mother with emphysema that continues on smoking to this day...My mother will NOT stop SMOKING...When she dies from this I am not going to be angry with the cigarette company...However, I am MAD at my MOTHER and I will be mad at her when she dies...she knows the cigs are killing her. She's an addict that doesn't want to stop. My step-father had two strokes 5 years ago and he continues on smoking...I'm mad at him too...They know the risks...they know what's going to happen...My grandfather on my dad's side died at 83--his cancer was caused by years of alcohol abuse. He always thought he was going to die young so he told me he made a decision to say the hell with it I'm going to eat, drink and do what I want...My grandfather was lucky he wasn't bitten until he was 83...We all have mirrors.

We all cheat in life and some get away with it and live a very long time...But most of us get caught...some sooner then others. And some of us get second chances and continue on cheating...it's life...we're only human and we all have mirrors.

Only children and animals are innocent the rest of us are guilty.

Ray

...[quote]My mother will NOT stop SMOKING...When she dies from this I am not going to be angry with the cigarette company...However, I am MAD at my MOTHER and I will be mad at her when she dies...[/quote]

You have given some really good sage advice in posts about not letting anger overwhelm our chance to "walk tall" and make the best of this bad situation in the way we live our lives. Ask yourself: Is being mad at my Mom how I want to relate to her? Sometimes it is us who need to change when those we Love won't.
I was Sad when my Mom died, and I still miss her every day even though it was eight years ago. What I would not give to see her again, even if it was with her faced wreathed in cigarette smoke as usual (she smoked from 14 until they put her on oxygen). Like the radio ads here in DC area say disingenuously: "Not a sermon, just a thought"

Thank you Charm...I stopped arguing with my mother and other loved ones to stop smoking a long time ago...I still ask them to quit but I won't argue with them. I love them all very much and the anger I hold is inside...I know it's not healthy for me...But I love them too much...it's hard. And I had those same thoughts as you...the day I don't see or can't talk to any of my loved ones and all their faults will be very sad...we're lucky to have felt this love...some people never do

What do they say?....love hurts

heck i still think about all my animals i've had in my life...i even think about a couple of old GF's!!! LOL...LOL...I hope Kelly never sees this!! LOL...LOL

life is hard...but i'm glad i'm living it...it's a good one

Hi,
I read about the risk of cancer linked to Listerine and alcohol based mouthwashes in the free Metro paper in the UK. It was a surprise to me, and when I got home I got rid of my listerine.
It seems that it is old news though.
It is strange though, no one ever mentioned it at the hospital.
I have found some alcohol free mouthwashes now, and they taste just as nice. But who knows what they will say about those in a few years?