Sucked in by Labels

Would you buy mouthwash if it gave you bad breath and stained your teeth? Antiwrinkle cream if it made you look older? Shampoo if it made your hair so weak it started to fall out? Cleaning products that polluted your home? Sunscreen if it made you more susceptible to skin cancer?

You’d feel pretty stupid if you did! I know did:< But I didn’t start to feel stupid until I began to question the claims made on labels of the many of the products I was using on an everyday basis, starting with toothpastes and mouthwashes. After all, dentistry is my area of expertise.

Listerine mouthwash was “as effective as flossing”. Colgate Total gave “12 hour protection against bacteria”.  I don't think so.  How could purple or blue mouthwash whiten and clean your teeth?  How could all that alcohol freshen your breath?

I was aware that some of my patients were particularly sensitive to some of the more popular brand toothpastes. They complained of sore gums, mouth ulcers, even burning tongues and through their own research and experimentation, had identified the ingredient SLS or Sodium Lauryl Sulphate as the main culprit.
Back then, you could only find the “active ingredients” listed on the packaging of most dental and personal care products – you had to search high and low to discover the complete ingredient list – and sure enough, SLS was always there.

As I learned more about the ingredients included in the well known oral “health” products, I found it increasingly difficult to correlate the actual contents to the manufacturer’s claims. Things just didn’t make sense.
SLS is a foaming agent, commonly used in many personal care products. It is a harsh detergent also used by mechanics to degrease engines. It is known to cause skin and eye irritation and mouth ulcers and is a possible carcinogen. What on earth is it doing in toothpaste?

Making our teeth feel “sparkling clean” of course. Degreasing teeth and gums is not only unnecessary but damaging to the delicate mucosa lining our mouths and helping to support our teeth. And SLS was not the only dangerous toothpaste ingredient causing problems for my patients.  (Find out what else is in toothpaste here)
Yet how could I have been so stupid? How could I have allowed my patients and my own family to believe they were receiving health benefits from a tube of toxins?

These days more of us read labels diligently. There’s even more written on the labels. Not that it makes much sense. Numbers, chemical names, common names…… it seems they’re all interchangeable.  Dr Joseph Mercola warns us that we should “Expect labels to lie”, especially when it comes to processed food.  All Natural, Organic, Healthy, Preservative Free, No added Sugar, No MSG are all over the front of junk food packaging but do they even mean anything?

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/04/20/how-to-rea... “Statements like those are unregulated and are designed to appeal to the gullible health-conscious, but do not reflect nutritional content. Marketers hope you're uninformed enough to accept those statements at face value—hoping you'll just grab the bag and go.” Labelled Should Read Lucozade Sport Sport Body Fuel Calorie-dense sugar drink Milo Chocolate Energy Drink Choc Flavoured Sugar hit Red Bull Gives you wings Makes you fat and jittery LCM Bars Goodness of rice No artificial colours Half sugar half fat">Mercola says that,
“Statements like those are unregulated and are designed to appeal to the gullible health-conscious, but do not reflect nutritional content. Marketers hope you're uninformed enough to accept those statements at face value—hoping you'll just grab the bag and go.”

I guess we wouldn't buy the product if the manufacturer actually told the truth on the label.