Is Rinse Aid Killing Your Gut?
Originally posted Dec 5 2022
You’ve heard about leaky gut. It’s when the lining of your intestinal tract is damaged, and it’s pegged as a major cause of unexplained obesity and a long list of chronic inflammatory diseases.
Maybe you’ve worked on healing your gut for ages with no happy returns. You still have lousy skin, your stomach hurts, or you suffer from something much more severe. A study published a few days ago shows dishwasher detergents damage our intestines, specifically rinse aid.
Stretched out, the lining of our guts covers more than 4,000 square feet of surface area. When it works properly, it forms a tight barrier that regulates the absorption of nutrients, water, and electrolytes. If you have cracks or holes, aka leaky gut, toxins and partially digested food can enter your bloodstream and create havoc as your immune system freaks out.
It’s been found that leaky gut plays a role in celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, and irritable bowel. Makes sense. But it goes further. It can also be associated with autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), lupus, and type 1 diabetes, as well as fibromyalgia, allergies, asthma, acne, arthritis, and chronic fatigue syndrome.
So, let’s talk about your rinse aid.
The residue dries on the plates, and then, yum, we eat it with our next meal. The study found that the alcohol ethoxylates in rinse aid disrupted the epithelial barrier (gut lining) in multiple ways. Signaling and communication, development, metabolism, proliferation, and immune and inflammatory responses of cells were negatively affected. They also noted an increase in cell death.
Now, the study pins professional dishwashers as the main problem. When compared to household dishwashers, they were far worse. However, I will presume that repeatedly ‘eating’ rinse aid at home is also detrimental. Why? Because when the scientists diluted the rinse aid 10,000 times, it still damaged the cells.
I’ve decided not to take chances.
What to do?
Switch to safer, greener dishwashing detergent and rinse aid. No, they won’t strip off as much as the electric blue stuff, but they also won’t destroy your guts. I can live with less than spotless glasses.
The Environmental Working Group rates the health impact of different cleaners. Here is their guide to safer options for the dishwasher.
Now, lazy sod that I am (at times), I’ve been putting my Mom’s silver cutlery in the dishwasher, lured by the promise that it won’t tarnish if I use a specific (toxic as hell) detergent.
Not true. Silver does NOT go in the dishwasher. I’ll have to polish everything to restore it. And I’ve been inadvertently wrecking my gut lining in the meantime.
It goes beyond your rinse aid. The gut-disrupting agents can be found in laundry soap and household cleaners. Please go to the EWG website and look up the products that you use regularly. They might be at the root of your chronic health complaints.
For healthier cleaning supplies, check out Thrive Market. That’s an affiliate link, and they’ll deliver heavily discounted healthy food and products to your door.
I placed an order last night, and in my cart were safer dishwashing detergent and rinse aid. Otherwise, having read the study, I will be forever paranoid that I’m shredding my guts.
Seems I’ll revert to my childhood and wash the cutlery by hand.
Sources:
Ismail Ogulur, Yagiz Pat, Tamer Aydin, Duygu Yazici, Beate Ruckert, Yaqi Peng, Juno Kim, Urszula Radzikowska, Patrick Westermann, Milena Sokolowska, Raja Dhir, Mubeccel Akdis, Kari Nadeau, and Cezmi A. Akdis. Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2022, Dec 1. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2022.10.020