Peroxide vs. Bleach

[coffeeseven]

Sent to me by daughter #1.


Peroxide vs Bleach


This was written by Becky Ransey of Indiana (a doctor's Wife), and I want to share it with   you.  This is what she said:


"I would like to tell you of the benefits of that plain little ole bottle of 3% peroxide you can get for under $1.00 at any drug store. What does
bleach cost?  My husband has been in the medical field for over 36 years, and most doctors don't tell you about peroxide.

"Have you ever smelled bleach in a doctor's office? NO!!!  Why?  Because it smells, and it
is not healthy!  Ask the nurses who work in the doctor's offices, and ask them if they use bleach at home.  They are wiser and know better!

"Did you also know bleach was invented in the late 40's?  It's Chlorine, folks!  And it was used to kill our troops.

"Peroxide was invented during WWI.  It was used to save and help cleanse the needs of our troops and hospitals.  Please think about this:


1. Take one capful (the little white cap that
comes with the bottle) and hold in your mouth for 10 minutes daily, then spit it out.  (I do it when I bathe.)  No more canker sores, and your
teeth will be whiter without expensive pastes. Use it instead of mouthwash...

2. Let your toothbrushes soak in a cup of peroxide to keep them free of germs.

3. Clean your counters and table tops with
peroxide to kill germs and leave a fresh smell. Simply put a little on your dishrag when you wipe down your countertops, or spray it on the counters directly.

4. After rinsing off your wooden cutting board, pour peroxide on it to kill salmonella and other bacteria.

5. I had fungus on my feet for years until I sprayed a 50/50 mixture of Peroxide and water on them (especially the toes) every night and let dry.

6. Soak any infections or cuts in 3% peroxide for five to ten minutes several times a day. My husband has seen gangrene that would not heal with any medicine but was healed by
soaking in peroxide.

7. Fill a spray bottle with a 50/50 mixture of
peroxide and water and keep it in every bathroom to disinfect without harming your septic system like bleach or most other disinfectants will.

8.
Tilt your head back and spray into nostrils with your 50/50 mixture whenever you have a cold, plugged sinus.  It will bubble and help to kill the
bacteria.  Hold for a few minutes, and then blow your nose into a tissue.

9. If you have a terrible toothache and cannot get to a dentist right away, put a capful of 3% peroxide into your mouth and hold it for ten
minutes several times a day.  The pain will lessen greatly.

10. Put half a bottle of peroxide into your bathwater to help rid boils, fungus, or other skin infections.

11. You can also add a cup of peroxide instead of bleach to a load of whites in your laundry to
whiten them.  If there is blood on clothing, pour it directly on the soiled spot.  Let it sit for a
minute, then rub it and rinse with cold water.

Repeat if necessary.

12. I use peroxide to clean my mirrors.  There is no smearing, which is why I love it so much for
this.

"I could go on and on.  It is a little brown bottle no home should be without!

"With prices of most necessities rising, I'm glad there's a way to save tons of money in such a simple, healthy manner!"

This information really woke me up.  I hope you gain something from it, too.


Pass this on .. And on ... And on!

[Vitruvian]

Snopes

[ByronB]

I understand that using hydrogen peroxide on cuts and small wounds kills off the otherwise healthy tissue in the wound and causes healing to take longer, an antibiotic to prevent infection is probably a better way to go... besides peroxide stings pretty bad when you pour it on a wound.

[coffeeseven]

Guess I should have posted try at your own risk but I usually assume everyone here has enough common sense not to use chemicals without doing the fair amount of study.

I've heard both sides of this issue for years. How about I'll be the guinea pig and report any ill effects here.

So far the gargle and the up the nose and applied to hands. Still alive and I feel okay. I don't look any better than  I did before I used it though. DAMN!

[ByronB]

If you were enough of a masochist you could cut yourself identically in two places and use triple-antibiotic on one cut and hydrogen peroxide on the other and see which healed quicker, I'd personally bet on the antibiotics.

I used to use peroxide on cuts all the time to disinfect (still alive like you) but I started using antibiotics... maybe it's just because I am a real wimp when it comes to doing stuff I know will hurt.

[Vitruvian]

If you were enough of a masochist you could cut yourself identically in two places and use triple-antibiotic on one cut and hydrogen peroxide on the other and see which healed quicker

Or try saliva.

[coffeeseven]

If you were enough of a masochist you could cut yourself identically in two places and use triple-antibiotic on one cut and hydrogen peroxide on the other and see which healed quicker, I'd personally bet on the antibiotics.

I used to use peroxide on cuts all the time to disinfect (still alive like you) but I started using antibiotics... maybe it's just because I am a real wimp when it comes to doing stuff I know will hurt.

Can't disagree. 3X antibiotic is probably better but hydrogen peroxide still has good use. I'll keep it in the toolbox.

[ByronB]

Screw antibiotics the drug companies are ripping us all off, I think I'm sold on saliva now. 

JK, I have nothing to prove about any of them, I'm sure each one of the three excel in some area more then the others do...

[dalebert]

Or try saliva.

Might have to find a friend to lick those wounds that we can't reach, since we're not as limber as animals. 

[coffeeseven]

Or try saliva.

Might have to find a friend to lick those wounds that we can't reach, since we're not as limber as animals. 

Never even met you but somehow knew you were headed there. +1 hee hee

[Bald Eagle]

"Have you ever smelled bleach in a doctor's office? NO!!!  Why?  Because it smells, and it is not healthy!  Ask the nurses who work in the doctor's offices, and ask them if they use bleach at home.  They are wiser and know better!

As far as I can remember, the standard operating procedure for cleaning hospital rooms for preventing nosocomial infections is wiping everything down with bleach.
This study actually found that peroxide-based cleaners not only didn't do the job, but promoted spore-formation of dangerous bacteria.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4871840.stm
http://dfcorp.us/docs/Download_T.pdf

"Did you also know bleach was invented in the late 40's?  It's Chlorine, folks!  And it was used to kill our troops.

Bleach isn't "chlorine" any more than table salt is.
Chlorine bleach is sodium hypochlorite: NaOCl, manufactured by absorbing chlorine gas in sodium hydroxide.  The chlorine (Cl2) reacts with the hydroxide (OH-) to produce one equivalent of hypochlorite (OCl-) and one equivalent of chloride (Cl-).  The reaction is reversible, which is why excess hydroxide is present in bleach, to drive the reaction equilibrium towards hypochlorite.  That's also the reason people don't use "bleach" on wounds or skin - because the high pH is destructive to tissue and would be burn in an open wound.  Neutralizing the excess lye in bleach provides "Dakin's solution"

First used during World War I, Dakin's solution was the product of a long search by an English chemist, Henry Drysdale Dakin, and a French surgeon, Alexis Carrel, for an ideal wound antiseptic.  Consists of sodium hypochlorite (0,45 % to 0,5 %) and boric acid (4 %). Its solvent action on dead cells hastens the separation of dead from living tissue.

Bactericidal and wound healing properties of sodium hypochlorite solutions:the 1991 Lindberg award.  J Burn Care Rehab Sept/Oct 1991 pp. 420-424

Hmmm.  Won an award for burn wound care as recently as 1991. 
What they don't tell you in this email-spam-type folklore post is that you never put peroxide into places where the effervescence might get trapped, inflate the tissue, and cause parts of the wound to tear or burst.

There's also the issue of whether something is bactericidal (KILLS bacteria) or only bacteriostatic (simply prevents bacteria from growing).  It will of course depend from species to species what bacteria will be killed by H2O2, but I'll bet there's a lot greater number of bacteria killed by NaOCl. 

On a somewhat related side-note, when water-treatment plants stopped chlorinating water and switched to chloramine-based treatments, a whole lotta people died from cyptosporidia infections.  Chlorinating water is cheap, does a great job of killing virtually everything, and doesn't persist in the drinking water or harm copper pipes.  Chloramine treatments aren't as effective at killing pathogens, persist in the drinking water, are carcinogenic, and eat through copper pipes.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-f_XZ9dIOPkC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=chloramine+cryptosporidium+outbreak&source=bl&ots=aqD4GQKl0t&sig=rh2LpOrcnXvEDEfq9FAudcGvXww&hl=en&ei=UySvSaXZLIqhtwfixaGGBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result


"Peroxide was invented during WWI.  It was used to save and help cleanse the needs of our troops and hospitals.  Please think about this:

[See Dakin's or Modified Dakin's solution, vide supra]
Maggots were used in ancient Rome to chew away dead tissue from living tissue, and were used to cleanse the wounds of soldiers and save their lives from infection.  That doesn't mean that I'm going to go packing maggots into my next cut.


4. After rinsing off your wooden cutting board, pour peroxide on it to kill salmonella and other bacteria.

I might try the 10% ("30-volume") peroxide intended for bleaching hair.  That might KILL everything you're looking to kill.
Quaternary ammonium salts ("Quats" / Lysol) can be used to sanitize food preparation surfaces, but most of the health and food-service studies I've read have found that Lysol causes bacteria to agglomerate and resist lysis.  The oxidizing action of bleach is vastly preferred.

5. I had fungus on my feet for years until I sprayed a 50/50 mixture of Peroxide and water on them (especially the toes) every night and let dry.
Interesting.  I'll have to look into that.  I always just poured Isopropyl alcohol into my shoes and wore them until they were dry.  Killed the itchy stuff on my feet, and cleaned out the shoes as well.

7. Fill a spray bottle with a 50/50 mixture of peroxide and water and keep it in every bathroom to disinfect without harming your septic system like bleach or most other disinfectants will.

I could see that working, though I can't see the small amount of bleach one might use for cleaning a fixture wiping out all the bacteria in a septic system.  Bleach is like any other chemical - it reacts, and once reacted, is spent.  Once it's used up, it doesn't go on reacting indefinitely like "acid" in the movies where it will proceed to burn a hole to the center of the earth.

8. Tilt your head back and spray into nostrils with your 50/50 mixture whenever you have a cold, plugged sinus.  It will bubble and help to kill the bacteria.  Hold for a few minutes, and then blow your nose into a tissue.
Oh man.  I've tried the mouthwash thing, and that's - yukky - enough as it is.  I'm not sure I want to try spraying it up into my sinuses.


11. You can also add a cup of peroxide instead of bleach to a load of whites in your laundry to whiten them.  If there is blood on clothing, pour it directly on the soiled spot.  Let it sit for a minute, then rub it and rinse with cold water.
Non-chlorine bleach is usually sodium perborate - hydrogen peroxide stabilized and converted to a solid form by reaction with borax.
If the price comparison of H2O2 vs Na(OH)3B(OOH) works out, this could be a pretty good money saver.

12. I use peroxide to clean my mirrors.  There is no smearing, which is why I love it so much for this.
Does that work on windows too?  I've used ammonia, and sometimes rubbing alcohol, never tried peroxide.

Sorry.  I went to Pharmacy school, and then did 10 years of graduate research on amino acid chemistry, some of which entailed me researching entryways into syntheses starting with Dakin or Dakin-West reactions.
Chlorine bleach is great stuff. 

[Vitruvian]

That doesn't mean that I'm going to go packing maggots into my next cut.

Reading this article, maybe you should consider it.

[coffeeseven]

I'm convinced. So what is Hydrogen Peroxide good for then?

[dalebert]

That doesn't mean that I'm going to go packing maggots into my next cut.

Reading this article, maybe you should consider it.

"Pain at the wound site was the most common side effect."   

[Pat McCotter]

Also remember that the body naturally produces hydrogen peroxide and...

Going Gray? Blame Catalase
Irene Klotz, Discovery News

March 2, 2009 -- Attention parents: It's not your kids that are making you go gray. Your hair is simply building up too much hydrogen peroxide.

Bottle-blondes may be a fan, but hydrogen peroxide, which is produced naturally in the human body, interferes with melanin, the pigment that colors our hair and skin.

The body also produces the enzyme catalase, which breaks down hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. Or at least it does for a while. As we age, catalase production tails off, leaving nothing to transform the hydrogen peroxide into chemicals the body can release.

So, as hydrogen peroxide builds up, we go gray, concluded researchers at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, who last week published the results of a study in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology's online journal