Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids • Hacker News Board

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#151

Post by GuB-42 » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:01 AM UTC

hokkos wrote: post #40

I use white vinegar instead of a dedicated rinse aids.

It is a tip I see often, and dishwasher manufacturers generally don't recommend it

White vinegar is a very different product: it is not a surfactant, it is an acid. It means that it doesn't help rinsing, but it can remove scale. Both can prevent white stains, but the mechanism is very different.

If it works just as well, why don't dishwasher manufacturers use acids instead of rinse aid? You can argue that white vinegar is cheap and they they prefer you use expensive detergents so that they can make profit, but they could also sell you expensive acids, so I don't think it is the reason.

So what to do with it? Personally, I still use rinse aid because it is what the manufacturer recommends, and I have no better idea. It is not a significant expense, and according to the study, not as much as a problem with household dishwashers as it is with professional dishwashers (very different machines using different products).

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#152

Post by jkepler » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:02 AM UTC

JonathonW wrote: post #56

jasonhansel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Importantly, when they tested a household dishwasher, they didn't find the same issues: > In contrast, the residual substances on the cups washed in a household dishwasher with detergent B were not present at sufficiently high concentrations to exert cytotoxicity and impair the epithelial barrier function (see Fig E9).

Also, they've only tested one professional dishwasher and one household dishwasher using one specific formulation of rinse aid. There's enough here to indicate a need for further investigation, but not enough data to come to any overall conclusions about commercial or household dishwasher safety in general.

They call for further study at the end, acknowledging that their data was all /in vivo/ in a lab, and not direct data in humans. Thus, while they claim to have demonstrated a mechanism, they make no claims that it works the same way in people.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#153

Post by amanaplanacanal » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:02 AM UTC

esaym wrote: post #145

insane_dreamer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need any rinse aid, period.

Did you not read what I wrote? Not sure what point you are making... I don't need to brush my hair, wear clothes, or wash my car either... But those are usually considered "proper" things to do. My first load without rinse aid resulted in spotty dishes. Not too bad, but annoying. By the third, it was worse. By the end of the week, all of the glassware was milky white and you could no longer see through it. You know t…

Either you are using too much detergent, or you have very hard water. A water softener would probably fix it.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#154

Post by heavyset_go » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:02 AM UTC

version_five wrote: post #135

magila wrote: post #78

I suffered from chronic diarrhea for years which I attributed to Crohn's disease. This seemed obvious since diarrhea is a very common symptom of Crohn's, but its onset had been several years after I was diagnosed and prior to that I had tended more towards the opposite problem (constipation). I was thus always suspicious that the root cause lay elsewhere. After much experimenting I found that if I ran my dishwasher t…

I worked in an office where I eventually realized I got annoying to bad GI problems whenever I drank the water (won't describe in detail but very atypical and I at first wondered why it only happened when I was in the office), and someone else there once mentioned they had the same problem. I always used the office-services provided glasses to drink out of, and reading this it seems very likely it could have been res…

Might also be the result of shitty water treatment or softening, or even the state of the water source, water main and pipes in the building. Some water softening is done via agents like EDTA, which are also used heavily in soaps and detergents.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#155

Post by jkepler » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

esaym wrote: post #125

Ok, so what do I use as a rinse aid then? I just dug all over amazon and pretty much everything has akoxylated alcohol or some form of polyoxypropylene laureth. And yes, I've purposely let the rinse aid run out just to see what happens. It wasn't pretty... Anyway to make something more "natural"? Some other ingredients I've seen include citric acid, urea, trisodium phosphate. But not sure if just mixing those togethe…

Use Guinness - it does a great job rinsing the mouth and throat after any meal. After all, Guinness---its not just a breakfast drink.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#156

Post by bonniemuffin » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:06 AM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #150

I remember washing clothes at my aunts for some holiday, and started sneezing crazily sometime afterward. 12 year old cousins kid said “oh, you’re allergic to Tide” derp. If it was toxic on my clothes, I wondered what I was eating. People think I’m crazy to not have a dishwasher or microwave.

How is a microwave related to this article/discussion?

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#157

Post by jkepler » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:07 AM UTC

wobbly_bush wrote: post #4

Is my reading of the summary correct that it is only (or mainly?) talking about rinse aid and not about the detergent?

Yes, but they also didn't study how this affects people---their work was all /in vivo/, and they call for more study at the end.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#158

Post by tsol » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:07 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #122

My son has eczema and food allergies and I did a lot of research on actions we could take to help prevent the so called "atopic march" to hay fever and asthma. There's a lot of woo-woo stuff out there that I think can be safely ignored, but I did find what I consider strong evidence that families that hand wash their dishes have significantly lower incidence of some allergic symptoms. I thought it sounded weird and I…

>There's a lot of woo-woo stuff out there that I think can be safely ignored, but I did find what I consider strong evidence that families that hand wash their dishes have significantly lower incidence of some allergic symptoms.

Yes, I believe there are studies that have found households that use detergents to wash their dishes have significantly high rates of allergies than households that only hand wash dishes. After hearing that, I started trying to try to avoid using detergent when possible. I think it makes a lot of sense-- really the majority of the powerful chemical detergents we use in the home are mostly unnecessary. They're just bound to leave residue that enters our bodies

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#159

Post by michaelteter » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:08 AM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #143

michaelteter wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While searching for causes, did you also look at ways to strengthen/rebalance/improve your GI system? I'm not sure if this will turn out to be quackery or snake oil, but the Super Gut book by William Davis makes some believable claims as to common causes of digest issues (along with solutions).

A HN poster recommended L. Reuteri supplements a while back, and I cannot recommend them enough: 6 months on and I've been able to completely drop a prucalopride prescription and have almost eliminated what used to be frequent and fairly crippling gut pain. The key I found was at about the 2 month mark things seemed to be getting worse, but after that a dramatic improvement. I was able to stop the supplements after t…

This is good to hear. The Super Gut book describes a somewhat involved process in stages, with the latter rebuilding stage involving growing your own high population cultures; so it's nice to know that comparatively low effort supplements can be effective.

The first stage of resetting, as described in the book, was to rebuild the lining of the intestine. Forgive my imprecision in describing it, as I have forgotten the details and don't feel like digging. The issue is that many of our foods are made with emulsifiers (baked goods, ice creams, etc.), and emulsifiers cause thinning of the intestine walls. That in turn creates a less than optimal environment, causing losses of good bacteria as well as increases/movements of bad bacteria.

Fortunately that first stage is pretty easy - making clove tea with a couple other ingredients daily. I actually found it pleasant after the first few days. And then I read about clove tea and discovered that it's already a big thing, but where I grew up we've never heard of it!

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#160

Post by tsol » Fri, Dec 02, 2022, 1:09 AM UTC

esaym wrote: post #145

insane_dreamer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need any rinse aid, period.

Did you not read what I wrote? Not sure what point you are making... I don't need to brush my hair, wear clothes, or wash my car either... But those are usually considered "proper" things to do. My first load without rinse aid resulted in spotty dishes. Not too bad, but annoying. By the third, it was worse. By the end of the week, all of the glassware was milky white and you could no longer see through it. You know t…

It might be hard to avoid if your water supply is just hard to begin with. Maybe you can use it every second or third cycle.