What's in your soap?

Triclosan, an ingredient popular in soaps and lotions, has been linked to accelerated hormonal activity, if I'm reading this correctly. I personally stay away from "antibacterial" soaps due to worries over super-resistant strains of bacteria, but this is a new reason to pay attention to what you're scrubbing with. Go natural!

These results hint that triclosan does not mimic thyroid hormones but instead speeds up their impact, says Cathy Propper, an endocrinologist at Northern Arizona University. Although the mechanism is unknown, triclosan may be making protein receptors in the cell more sensitive to thyroid hormones, Zoeller speculates. Because thyroid-hormone signaling is essential for the development of the human brain and body, the new study raises red flags for human health, Zoeller says.

We're talking about frogs in this study, but this is a tad(pole) alarming:

The triclosan effects included significant weight loss and accelerated hind-limb development. Helbing and co-workers also detected elevated activity in the brain of genes linked with uncontrolled cell growth, and decreased gene activity in the tail fin. The data suggest that triclosan, at concentrations as low as 0.15 ppb, is capable of perturbing a fundamental hormone signaling mechanism that is nearly identical in frogs and humans, she says.

Where can you find Triclosan? From Wikipedia:

Triclosan is used in many common household products including Clearasil® Daily Face Wash, Dentyl® mouthwash, Colgate Total Fresh Stripe®, Colgate Total®, Soaftsoap®, Dial®, RightGuard® Deodorant, Sensodyne Total Care®, Old Spice® and Mentadent®.

We've been blaming the juiced-up milk for the early onset of puberty, but it looks like the list of suspects is growing.