Quote:
Originally Posted by youngatheart
While Mr Green went a little overboard in his tirade against antibacterial soap. I am going to cut him some slack. I could be mistaken but, he may have been referring to hand sanitizers. And he is correct. Most Hand Sanitizers on the market are useless and give a false sense of security. Most of them are 60% alcohol. By the time you put it on your hand and rub it in all the alcohol has evaporated rendering it useless.
|
Sir Young,
Soap is an ester of a fatty acid and has very little effect on the bacterial plasmamembrane, or the (lipo)polysaccharide 'coats' that surround and "protect" some of the more dangerous Gram positive/negative bacteria which is what makes them stain the way they do. This is not an issue of my winning any argument, which I have no interest in doing. I have written very detailed answers about biofilms, quorum sensing, hypervirulence, etc. to someone, and the appropriate answers can be found under these headings. If you look under
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1091302
the first author happens to be my deeply beloved and honored teacher, who taught me much about the lipid bilayer.
The non-lamellar phases of membrane bilayer with signal transduction, stress pathogen challenge and wound healing is what I do/did for a living, teaching etc.
Transition to hexatic phases, and the composition of lipids in the membrane bilayer is my specific focus, e.g.:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1734957
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11964238
Perhaps you will indeed cut me some slack about knowing something about the difference between alcohol, soap and detergents?
To repeat, soap, including the types of antibacterial soap on commonly sold on the market, do very little to destroy the more dangerous germs associated with STDs. Some do raise the pH levels and some percentage of bacteria may die, but sufficient numbers live on. The issue is TITER levels.
When pasteurizing eggs for example, not all bacteria are killed. There is a time x temperature graph, and there is a logarithmic scale established that essentially says, in 55 minutes at X temperature, almost enough bacteria of this type are dead that they pose no more statistical harm to the population. The numbers have been brought down almost close to negligible.
For viruses that are exceptionally virulent, like the HIV, the minimum infective virion is ONE, so you can imagine how dangerous it is. It is statistically difficult to guarantee there is not one single virion in spit, tear, etc.
A virus has a very resistant protein coat around itself. It uncoats itself in order to multiply in one of 2 ways:
1) it either says, Let me destroy the cell, and produce many more of myself.
2) or, it says, as in the case of the HIV, and these are a special type of viruses, let me go and insert myself into very middle of the DNA, where no one can touch me. It cuts the DNA with an enzyme, places itself right in the middle of a very secure one, the White House, and sits quietly. Then, when it feels the time is right, it can go into the mode we described above, the destructive mode.
Viruses are very similar to natural processes, bits of DNA that move in and out according to their own whims. There is a long history of where these came from, and this is not the place for that story. But the next time you see colored corn, many colors of kernels on the same cob, black, red, yellow, etc. e.g. at Thanksgiving/Halloween, then those are the visible signs of these transposons or "jumping genes".
SOME, not all viruses, are a bit damaged by complex alcohols like the spermicide nonoxynol. There are other specifics, and I do not know if they are readily available.
Ethanol 70% and above does damage the bacterial membranes of most but not all bacteria in the amounts x time we manage to apply it!! Here is that issue again, the time and contact factor. How much ethanol or other drying alcohols one may keep applying to sensitive mucous membranes is anyone's guess!
It is very, very important to NOT disturb or damage the integrity or ecology of the female reproductive tract with excessive soap, douches, vinegar, or anything excessive that wears out the secretory cells and their secretions. We cannot improve upon the body's own mechanisms, ever!! We must remember that it is already under extreme pathogen and environmental challenge and severely stressed under "normal conditions". I can get into the details of membrane lipid composition of each of the tissues vital to humans, e.g areolae and nipples, which secrete non-volatile pheromones, making them so much more attractive to men. So does the female tract, the non-volatile lipids and isopyrenes combining with the volatiles to have a powerful effect on the opposite sex: "the scent of woman, wild, fetid, saline".
Well, hopeless nerds might have a few things up their sleeves, and ladies are welcome to find out what!!!!
Our nation depends on science and research, and our citizens being willing and eager to accept in good faith information offered in good faith. If not, a cursory glance through the internet is the modern way to open up untold volumes of life-saving information.
This board has the goal of exchanging useful information in a spirit of comradeship, caring and good faith.
Sadly, I find just a couple of members seem to have made their life goal to destroy the very meaning of ECCIE. I do not refer to you, by any means, but sometimes a criticism is in order, since we have been at the receiving end quite a bit, for reasons not initiated by us.
A post upthread speculates on the number of women I have seen or ought to see, and I cannot understand how on-topic such comments are in a thread that deals with the safety of anti-bacterial soap, (in the narrow sense) as an aid personal hygiene post the consensual act in the patron-provider situation.
