14 ms·

This is probably the stupidest question many of you will encounter today, but: If soap has an extraordinary ability to destroy viruses on our skin ... can eati

by jawns 3y ago

This is probably the stupidest question many of you will encounter today, but: If soap has an extraordinary ability to destroy viruses on our skin ... can eating soap give us some of those benefits for viruses that are already in our bodies? I'm not seriously envisioning chowing down on bar soap or using liquid hand soap as a salad dressing. But are there ways to use the _properties_ of soap that make it good for killing viruses in something that can be ingested? Or do those properties only work for surface-level viruses, and we need to use other strategies to kill viruses once they're in our bodies?

FigurativeVoid 3y ago
The bigger issue is not that it would kill viruses, I think that it certainly would. The bigger issue is that it would cause mass death of good cells as well as prevent proper cell functions.
Kranar 3y ago
I mean yes, technically soap will destroy viruses that are already in your body absolutely. It will also destroy many other cells and proteins in your body as well since soap is an indiscriminate killer. The end result is that both viruses and normal tissue will end up dying which will damage you or possibly kill you.
- downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  This doesn't sound right. Soap is considered nontoxic. We all ingest soap residue from dishes and other hygiene and I've never heard anyone concerned about it.
  - Kranar 3y ago
    Soap in very small amounts is nontoxic. In larger quantities soap will absolutely cause a great deal of discomfort, vomiting or even result in chemical burns in your digestive tract. Soap poisoning is absolutely something people get concerned with, especially those who have kids who are a little too curious.
  - loeg 3y ago
    The dose makes the poison. Don't eat soap.
  - itishappy 3y ago
    That's not quite right either. Soaps and detergents are not intended for internal use. The residue won't kill you (because it's incredibly diluted) but ingesting the raw product would cause problems such as nausea and vomiting. That's why there's an entirely separate class of soap products formulated specifically for those among us who own and operate a vagina.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >I've never heard anyone concerned about it. I think people should abandon this heuristic.
  - nextos 3y ago
    Actually residue from fancy dish soaps is known to be a gut irritant, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091674922014774 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009167492... For this reason, I stick to either first-generation soap (made by saponification) or simple surfactants. In general, as a precautionary principle, it is always good to stick to simple products that have been around for a long time.
    - amluto 3y ago
      I generally try to avoid traditional soaps (saponified oils). They’re only soapy at in basic solution, and skin is naturally a bit acidic. Even for washing dishes, there are mildly unfortunate interactions — try mixing Dr. Bronner’s soap with any acidic food. You get a gooey mess that isn’t soapy. On the other hand, I suppose that traditional soap residue that anyone with normal stomach acid manages to eat will turn back into free fatty acids. (Skin is, in general, rather more sensitive to bases than acids. Even a fairly mild base will make skin feel unpleasant and a bit slimy, whereas holding an orange slice (quite acidic) is not particularly irritating to intact skin.)
      - nextos 3y ago
        That is true. Traditional soaps are quite messy. One trick with Dr Bronner's is to rinse with vinegar afterwards to balance pH.
    - bch 3y ago
      Lead and asbestos beg to differ. I mean, your admonition works when it works, but…
  - amluto 3y ago
    People are, in fact, concerned about it, although some studies suggest that the types of surfactants used in rinse aid are worse than the kinds used to wash dishes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091674922014774 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009167492... And overuse of soap is definitely irritating to skin — this is not a particularly subtle effect.
  - thesaintlives 3y ago
    Phosphates.. We ingest phosphates from soaps.
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Dose makes the poison. A little bit of residue won't do much. Eat a whole bar of soap and you'll feel it.
  - dist-epoch 3y ago
    It's all about the concentration. Our gastro-intestinal tract is coated in mucus which will prevent small quantities of soap from actually touching the cells. And I think it will be neutralized by the acids inside the stomach.
  - mint2 3y ago
    Soap and detergent will kill if concentrated enough. https://www.eater.com/2015/6/18/8805047/restaurant-killed-customer-detergent-wine-spain https://www.eater.com/2015/6/18/8805047/restaurant-killed-cu... unfortunately googling shows that mixups happen every so often, sometime due to what I’d call gross or willful negligence like storing it in a re-used food container in the fridge
NeuroCoder 3y ago
The problem is that it works by simply messing up structural integrity and isn't very specific. Skin is durable and resistant to this but our insides aren't.
SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
Your question has been answered, but addressing this bit: > This is probably the stupidest question many of you will encounter today We should all be so lucky that a well-intentioned but somewhat naive question is the stupidest thing we read all day.
- softskunk 3y ago
  i have respect for people who can ask these seemingly-dumb but valid and good-faith questions, knowing that they may be judged for it. we all have gaps in our knowledge.
  - Fnoord 3y ago
    True. However it can also be used by asking a question without having looked into it, ie. laziness, having others do the work instead. The tactic is then to come across as (courageously) courteous. The old preface on /. "OK, I got karma to burn [...]". Looking into it before asking for help is easier nowadays than ever before (sapere aude). With the caveat it is also easier to find misinformation and fall into such a cultish trap set up by people thousands of miles away, frolicking around in hostile jurisdictions (IRA comes to mind). I guess the cynicism is high in my post; if we lighten up and assume no harm Saul Goodman.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gwbas1c 3y ago
(Joke) > I'm not seriously envisioning chowing down on bar soap If you want to find out, my dog will happily chow down on a bar of soap. He tried to eat one a few days ago, and he happily drinks soapy water out of the tub when my kids are in the bath. You can dog sit him and clean up the mess when the soap comes out the other end.
IKantRead 3y ago
> can eating soap give us some of those benefits for viruses that are already in our bodies? I think the thing people are missing in a lot of these comments is that viruses are typically traveling from the skin to a mucus membrane in your body (which can be in the stomach but also in your lungs and nose), then infecting your cells. Eating soap might impact pathogens in your still in your stomach, but it's not going to dissolve in your blood and circulate through your body at high enough concentrations to impact viruses... ...and if it was high enough concentration: imagine snorting, inhaling or injecting dish soap.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > ...and if it was high enough concentration: imagine snorting, inhaling or injecting dish soap. I'm worried enough imagining the soap doing to my insides the things it does to organic residue on my hands or dishes.
washadjeffmad 3y ago
I feel like the more important takeaway is that soap makes water a better solvent for washing and hygiene, not necessarily that soap destroys viruses. Also, water that cells can't keep in or out or that sticks to the wrong things can't be used! Manually washing your hands with regular water eventually has the same degree of efficacy as with soapy water, it just takes a lot longer, so why don't more people conclude that they just need to drink more water to flush the viruses out when they're sick? Why should it be the soap plus the water that makes it magic? By and large, you want to prevent the contamination that leads to viral infections by keeping the parts of you (or others) that interact with the environment away from the parts of you (or others) that viruses enter through. Because we can't do that all day, every day, we try to lower the odds of anything that might've gotten on us staying on us intact, and soapy water applied and rinsed at a sink is a pretty good way to do that. Once the viruses are inside us, they're in the cells, and soapy water doesn't have the right properties that our cells and tissues need to maintain an environment that allows them function, largely for the same reasons it's good for cleaning. The biology of life relies on these properties universally, which is why we can't drink salt water or water that's "too pure" like deionized water; one takes water out of our cells, and other puts too much in.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
Your question is important. Sapophagia exists. People do this. It can give you gastrointestinal symptoms. Could be associated with nutritional deficiencies. Might kill you. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9881715/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9881715/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30307335/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30307335/ > The most common symptoms were > labial oedema (28%, n = 153) > oropharyngeal irritation (10%, n = 56) > salivation (10%, n = 53) > vomiting (9%, n = 48) > cough (8%, n = 45) > Among symptomatic patients (n = 276), one patient died from aspiration pneumonia and one patient died from a cardiogenic shock following oropharyngeal oedema, vomiting, cough and bronchial obstruction. I'd also like to add: don't ever ingest anything containing methanol. That group may include hand sanitizers.
gosub100 3y ago
I did a cursory skim and didn't see any mention of the gut biome. I'm not a medical person but my guess would be ingesting soap would harm the good bacteria. I asked a similar question to a doctor about inhaling alcohol vapor, if that would kill bronchitis or pneumonia (obviously the answer is NO). I can't remember the specific response, but it's unfortunate because if biology were as simple as computer science: pneumonia/bronchitis is an infection, alcohol kills bugs, ergo breath alcohol vapor to stop infection. I also asked in good faith why an I.V. solution of alcohol wouldn't help with sepsis, and I'm pretty sure the answer is that it _would_ treat sepsis but the concentration would have to be so high that you'd have no liver in the end :(
tim333 3y ago
The soap would only really get into your gut, not inside the rest of the body. And taste bad.

by jawns 3y ago

FigurativeVoid 3y ago

The bigger issue is not that it would kill viruses, I think that it certainly would. The bigger issue is that it would cause mass death of good cells as well as prevent proper cell functions.

Kranar 3y ago

I mean yes, technically soap will destroy viruses that are already in your body absolutely. It will also destroy many other cells and proteins in your body as well since soap is an indiscriminate killer. The end result is that both viruses and normal tissue will end up dying which will damage you or possibly kill you.

downWidOutaFite 3y ago
This doesn't sound right. Soap is considered nontoxic. We all ingest soap residue from dishes and other hygiene and I've never heard anyone concerned about it.
- Kranar 3y ago
  Soap in very small amounts is nontoxic. In larger quantities soap will absolutely cause a great deal of discomfort, vomiting or even result in chemical burns in your digestive tract. Soap poisoning is absolutely something people get concerned with, especially those who have kids who are a little too curious.
- loeg 3y ago
  The dose makes the poison. Don't eat soap.
- itishappy 3y ago
  That's not quite right either. Soaps and detergents are not intended for internal use. The residue won't kill you (because it's incredibly diluted) but ingesting the raw product would cause problems such as nausea and vomiting. That's why there's an entirely separate class of soap products formulated specifically for those among us who own and operate a vagina.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >I've never heard anyone concerned about it. I think people should abandon this heuristic.
- nextos 3y ago
  Actually residue from fancy dish soaps is known to be a gut irritant, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091674922014774 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009167492... For this reason, I stick to either first-generation soap (made by saponification) or simple surfactants. In general, as a precautionary principle, it is always good to stick to simple products that have been around for a long time.
  - amluto 3y ago
    I generally try to avoid traditional soaps (saponified oils). They’re only soapy at in basic solution, and skin is naturally a bit acidic. Even for washing dishes, there are mildly unfortunate interactions — try mixing Dr. Bronner’s soap with any acidic food. You get a gooey mess that isn’t soapy. On the other hand, I suppose that traditional soap residue that anyone with normal stomach acid manages to eat will turn back into free fatty acids. (Skin is, in general, rather more sensitive to bases than acids. Even a fairly mild base will make skin feel unpleasant and a bit slimy, whereas holding an orange slice (quite acidic) is not particularly irritating to intact skin.)
    - nextos 3y ago
      That is true. Traditional soaps are quite messy. One trick with Dr Bronner's is to rinse with vinegar afterwards to balance pH.
  - bch 3y ago
    Lead and asbestos beg to differ. I mean, your admonition works when it works, but…
- amluto 3y ago
  People are, in fact, concerned about it, although some studies suggest that the types of surfactants used in rinse aid are worse than the kinds used to wash dishes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091674922014774 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009167492... And overuse of soap is definitely irritating to skin — this is not a particularly subtle effect.
- thesaintlives 3y ago
  Phosphates.. We ingest phosphates from soaps.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Dose makes the poison. A little bit of residue won't do much. Eat a whole bar of soap and you'll feel it.
- dist-epoch 3y ago
  It's all about the concentration. Our gastro-intestinal tract is coated in mucus which will prevent small quantities of soap from actually touching the cells. And I think it will be neutralized by the acids inside the stomach.
- mint2 3y ago
  Soap and detergent will kill if concentrated enough. https://www.eater.com/2015/6/18/8805047/restaurant-killed-customer-detergent-wine-spain https://www.eater.com/2015/6/18/8805047/restaurant-killed-cu... unfortunately googling shows that mixups happen every so often, sometime due to what I’d call gross or willful negligence like storing it in a re-used food container in the fridge

NeuroCoder 3y ago

The problem is that it works by simply messing up structural integrity and isn't very specific. Skin is durable and resistant to this but our insides aren't.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago

Your question has been answered, but addressing this bit: > This is probably the stupidest question many of you will encounter today We should all be so lucky that a well-intentioned but somewhat naive question is the stupidest thing we read all day.

softskunk 3y ago
i have respect for people who can ask these seemingly-dumb but valid and good-faith questions, knowing that they may be judged for it. we all have gaps in our knowledge.
- Fnoord 3y ago
  True. However it can also be used by asking a question without having looked into it, ie. laziness, having others do the work instead. The tactic is then to come across as (courageously) courteous. The old preface on /. "OK, I got karma to burn [...]". Looking into it before asking for help is easier nowadays than ever before (sapere aude). With the caveat it is also easier to find misinformation and fall into such a cultish trap set up by people thousands of miles away, frolicking around in hostile jurisdictions (IRA comes to mind). I guess the cynicism is high in my post; if we lighten up and assume no harm Saul Goodman.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

gwbas1c 3y ago

(Joke) > I'm not seriously envisioning chowing down on bar soap If you want to find out, my dog will happily chow down on a bar of soap. He tried to eat one a few days ago, and he happily drinks soapy water out of the tub when my kids are in the bath. You can dog sit him and clean up the mess when the soap comes out the other end.

IKantRead 3y ago

> can eating soap give us some of those benefits for viruses that are already in our bodies? I think the thing people are missing in a lot of these comments is that viruses are typically traveling from the skin to a mucus membrane in your body (which can be in the stomach but also in your lungs and nose), then infecting your cells. Eating soap might impact pathogens in your still in your stomach, but it's not going to dissolve in your blood and circulate through your body at high enough concentrations to impact viruses... ...and if it was high enough concentration: imagine snorting, inhaling or injecting dish soap.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
> ...and if it was high enough concentration: imagine snorting, inhaling or injecting dish soap. I'm worried enough imagining the soap doing to my insides the things it does to organic residue on my hands or dishes.

washadjeffmad 3y ago

I feel like the more important takeaway is that soap makes water a better solvent for washing and hygiene, not necessarily that soap destroys viruses. Also, water that cells can't keep in or out or that sticks to the wrong things can't be used! Manually washing your hands with regular water eventually has the same degree of efficacy as with soapy water, it just takes a lot longer, so why don't more people conclude that they just need to drink more water to flush the viruses out when they're sick? Why should it be the soap plus the water that makes it magic? By and large, you want to prevent the contamination that leads to viral infections by keeping the parts of you (or others) that interact with the environment away from the parts of you (or others) that viruses enter through. Because we can't do that all day, every day, we try to lower the odds of anything that might've gotten on us staying on us intact, and soapy water applied and rinsed at a sink is a pretty good way to do that. Once the viruses are inside us, they're in the cells, and soapy water doesn't have the right properties that our cells and tissues need to maintain an environment that allows them function, largely for the same reasons it's good for cleaning. The biology of life relies on these properties universally, which is why we can't drink salt water or water that's "too pure" like deionized water; one takes water out of our cells, and other puts too much in.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

Your question is important. Sapophagia exists. People do this. It can give you gastrointestinal symptoms. Could be associated with nutritional deficiencies. Might kill you. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9881715/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9881715/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30307335/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30307335/ > The most common symptoms were > labial oedema (28%, n = 153) > oropharyngeal irritation (10%, n = 56) > salivation (10%, n = 53) > vomiting (9%, n = 48) > cough (8%, n = 45) > Among symptomatic patients (n = 276), one patient died from aspiration pneumonia and one patient died from a cardiogenic shock following oropharyngeal oedema, vomiting, cough and bronchial obstruction. I'd also like to add: don't ever ingest anything containing methanol. That group may include hand sanitizers.

gosub100 3y ago

I did a cursory skim and didn't see any mention of the gut biome. I'm not a medical person but my guess would be ingesting soap would harm the good bacteria. I asked a similar question to a doctor about inhaling alcohol vapor, if that would kill bronchitis or pneumonia (obviously the answer is NO). I can't remember the specific response, but it's unfortunate because if biology were as simple as computer science: pneumonia/bronchitis is an infection, alcohol kills bugs, ergo breath alcohol vapor to stop infection. I also asked in good faith why an I.V. solution of alcohol wouldn't help with sepsis, and I'm pretty sure the answer is that it _would_ treat sepsis but the concentration would have to be so high that you'd have no liver in the end :(

tim333 3y ago

The soap would only really get into your gut, not inside the rest of the body. And taste bad.