So this is a crazy article… Mouthwash use could inhibit benefits of exercise…. what? really?!

Apparently, studies have already shown that mouthwash can raise blood pressure.

This small study tried to see if mouthwash would have any effect on the typical BP-lowering effects of exercise. It turns out that it did!

The authors suggest that the bacteria that live in our mouths play a key role in processing nitrous oxide, a primary chemical that helps dilate blood vessels and lower blood pressure. If we kill them with mouthwash, then we reduce the benefit of the nitric oxide on our vascular system.

Now, they didn’t come out saying that we should ban mouthwash – after all, it seems to have some pretty good social benefits – but it is interesting and curious, isn’t it?

I’m not posting this to suggest that we should stop using mouthwash either. But I do find it fascinating that the more we look at the microbiome – the microscopic world of bacteria that live on us – the more we learn how deeply integrated it is with our own physiology.

It’s a real paradigm shift for us. We’ve just come from an age where we were completely anti-bacterial in any and every possible way. Antibiotic meds for everything. Antibacterial soaps. Even TRIPLE antibiotic ointments on every scrape and cut. Now, we’re finding that all of this bacterial hyper-phobia has not been so good for us.

We’re on a course correction and starting to make reconciliation with our symbiotic microbes. 🙂