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What if a common household item that most of us have in our medicine cabinet could kill the coronavirus? This is the exact question we looked into when we saw, earlier this week, a new study by researchers at Cardiff University in the UK that analyzed the ability of mouthwash to kill the coronavirus. Taken at face value, this is great news, but according to the doctors we spoke to, it’s probably too good to be true. Read on for everything you need to know about a mouthwash and Covid-19 and why you shouldn’t be worrying about storage on Listerine right now.
The study did not use real mouths
Dr Caesar Djavaherian, Co-Founder and Director of Clinical Innovation at Carbon Health, tells us: “The study was done in the lab and without using real mouths for the mouthwash, but mimicking the oral environment. and determined this mouthwash. can kill the virus. “Because of this, Dr. Djavaherian tells us, we cannot know whether mouthwashes can actually prevent infections in the actual mouths of real humans. This type of information, he said,” would be helpful, but study it. would be unethical because one would have to try and infect real humans with a virus by studying whether mouthwash is protecting patients. ”Dr. Nate Favini, Medical Manager at Forward, agrees, telling us that s ‘it is correct to say that mouthwash kills the virus because it destroys virus particles, “it doesn’t mean that it kills all the virus in your body, just if you mix the virus and rinse it out – mouth in a test tube, the virus dies. He adds: ‘It would be very inaccurate to say that mouthwash cures the coronavirus.’
It’s too early to tell if this might actually work
The study’s results could be promising, but Dr Favini says it’s too early to say if it will help. “It’s no surprise that the ingredients in mouthwash (cetylpyridinium chloride) can kill the virus under laboratory conditions,” he tells us. “What will make these results more meaningful is studying them in humans, which is the next step for researchers.” His takeaways from the study? “I suspect that the frequency of using mouthwash to reduce viral transmission would be very high, so I doubt that mouthwash will significantly reduce the transmission of COVID-19. I’d like to be surprised though.”
The bottom line
According to Dr. Favini, “With vaccines advancing, I don’t expect this to become a major tool in our toolkit against COVID-19.” His suggestion? Continue to wear your mask, as “Widespread use of a mask is probably much more effective than mouthwash in reducing the spread of the virus.” Roger that, we’re in the market for a cool new one anyway.
RELATED: 4 myths about face masks, debunked (and one that’s more complicated)
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