Soap power: Handwash chemical linked to cancer
Washing your hands with antibacterial soap may be dangerous, a new US study reveals. A chemical found in many liquid handwashes and other basic household products like shampoos and toothpaste has been linked to cancer.
Triclosan is an antimicrobial agent of broad-spectrum and one of the most common additives used in a wide range of consumer products, from kitchenware to toys. Studies have also found traces of the chemical in 97 percent of breast milk samples from lactating women and in the urine of nearly three-quarters of people tested. Triclosan is also common in the environment, being one of the seven most-frequently detected compounds in streams across the US.
Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have found that triclosan causes liver fibrosis and cancer in laboratory mice through molecular mechanisms that are also relevant in humans.
"Triclosan's increasing detection in environmental samples and its increasingly broad use in consumer products may overcome its moderate benefit and present a very real risk of liver toxicity for people, as it does in mice, particularly when combined with other compounds with similar action," study leader Professor Robert H. Tukey stated in a press release. The full study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.
