Non-Alcohol Mouthwash vs Alcohol Mouthwash – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing non-alcohol mouthwash to alcohol mouthwash, we picked the alcohol.

Why?

Note: this is a contingent choice and is applicable to most, but not all, people.

In short, there has been some concern about alcohol mouthwashes increasing cancer risk, but research has shown this is only the case if you already have an increased risk of oral cancer (for example if you smoke, and/or have had an oral cancer before).

For those for whom this is not the case (for example, if you don’t smoke, and/or have no such cancer history), then best science currently shows that alcohol mouthwash does not cause any increased risk.

What about non-alcohol mouthwashes? Well, they have a different problem; they usually use chlorine-based chemicals like chlorhexidine or cetylpyridinium chloride, which are (exactly as the label promises) exceptionally good at killing oral bacteria.

(They’d kill us too, at higher doses, hence: swill and spit)

Unfortunately, much like the rest of our body, our mouth is supposed to have bacteria there and bad things happen when it doesn’t. In the case of our oral microbiome, cleaning it with such powerful antibacterial agents can kill our “good” bacteria along with the bad, which lowers the pH of our saliva (that’s bad; it means it is more acidic), and thus indirectly erodes tooth enamel.

You can read more about the science of all of the above (with references), here:

Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?

Summary:

For most people, alcohol mouthwashes are a good way to avoid the damage that can be done by chlorhexidine in non-alcohol mouthwashes.

Here are some examples, but there will be plenty in your local supermarket:

Non-Alcohol, by Colgate | Alcohol, by Listerine

If you have had oral cancer, or if you smoke, then you may want to seek a third alternative (and also, please, stop smoking if you can).

Or, really, most people could probably skip mouthwashes, if you’ve good oral care already by other means. See also:

Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?

(yes, it’s the same link as before, but we’re now drawing your attention to the fact it has information about toothpastes too)

If you do want other options though, might want to check out:

Less Common Oral Hygiene Options ← miswak sticks are especially effective

Take care!

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    Antibiotic overuse is a many-headed beast, from growing superbugs to killing friendly bacteria. Missing Microbes is a scary, informative book on the real problems caused by antibiotics.

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  • 52 Weeks to Better Mental Health – by Dr. Tina Tessina

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’ve written before about the health benefits of journaling, but how to get started, and how to make it a habit, and what even to write about?

    Dr. Tessina presents a year’s worth of journaling prompts with explanations and exercises, and no, they’re not your standard CBT flowchart things, either. Rather, they not only prompt genuine introspection, but also are crafted to be consistently upliftingyes, even if you are usually the most disinclined to such positivity, and approach such exercises with cynicism.

    There’s an element of guidance beyond that, too, and as such, this book is as much a therapist-in-a-book as you might find. Of course, no book can ever replace a competent and compatible therapist, but then, competent and compatible therapists are often harder to find and can’t usually be ordered for a few dollars with next-day shipping.

    Bottom line: if undertaken with seriousness, this book will be an excellent investment in your mental health and general wellbeing.

    Click here to check out 52 Weeks to Better Mental Health, and get on the best path for you!

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  • Lower Cholesterol Naturally

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Lower Cholesterol, Without Statins

    We’ll start this off by saying that lowering cholesterol might not, in fact, be critical or even especially helpful for everyone, especially in the case of women. We covered this more in our article about statins:

    Statins: His & Hers?

    …which was largely informed by the wealth of data in this book:

    The Truth About Statins – by Dr. Barbara H. Roberts

    …which in turn, may in fact put a lot of people off statins. We’re not here to tell you don’t use them—they may indeed be useful or even critical for some people, as Dr. Roberts herself also makes makes clear. But rather, we always recommend learning as much as possible about what’s going on, to be able to make the most informed choices when it comes to what often might be literally life-and-death decisions.

    On which note, if anyone would like a quick refresher on cholesterol, what it actually is (in its various forms) and what it does, why we need it, the problems it can cause anyway, then here you go:

    Demystifying Cholesterol

    Now, with all that in mind, we’re going to assume that you, dear reader, would like to know:

    • how to lower your LDL cholesterol, and/or
    • how to maintain a safe LDL cholesterol level

    Because, while the jury’s out on the dangers of high LDL levels for women in particular, it’s clear that for pretty much everyone, maintaining them within well-established safe zones won’t hurt.

    Here’s how:

    Relax

    Or rather, manage your stress. This doesn’t just reduce your acute risk of a heart attack, it also improves your blood metrics along the way, and yes, that includes not just blood pressure and blood sugars, but even triglycerides! Here’s the science for that, complete with numbers:

    What are the effects of psychological stress and physical work on blood lipid profiles?

    With that in mind, here’s…

    How To Manage Chronic Stress (Even While Chronically Stressed)

    Not chemically “relaxed”, though

    While relaxing is important, drinking alcohol and smoking are unequivocally bad for pretty much everything, and this includes cholesterol levels:

    Can We Drink To Good Health? ← this also covers popular beliefs about red wine and heart health, and the answer is no, we cannot

    As for smoking, it is good to quit as soon as possible, unless your doctor specifically advises you otherwise (there are occasional situations where something else needs to be dealt with first, but not as many some might like to believe):

    Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit

    If you’re wondering about cannabis (CBD and/or THC), then we’d love to tell you about the effect these things have on heart health in general and cholesterol levels in particular, but the science is far too young (mostly because of the historic, and in some places contemporary, illegality cramping the research), and we could only find small, dubious, mutually contradictory studies so far. So the honest answer is: science doesn’t know this one, yet.

    Exercise… But don’t worry, you can still stay relaxed

    When it comes to heart health, the most important thing is keeping moving, so getting in those famous 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise is critical, and getting more is ideal.

    240 minutes per week is a neat 40 minutes per day, by the way and is very attainable (this writer lives a 20-minute walk away from where she does her daily grocery shopping, thus making for a daily 40-minute round trip, not counting the actual shopping).

    See: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, And Move More

    If walking is for some reason not practical for you, here’s a whole list of fun options that don’t feel like exercise but are:

    No-Exercise Exercise!

    Manage your hormones

    This one is mostly for menopausal women, though some people with atypical hormonal situations may find it applicable too.

    Estrogen protects the heart… Until it doesn’t:

    Menopause can bring increased cholesterol levels and other heart risks. Here’s why and what to do about it

    See also: World Menopause Day: Menopause & Cardiovascular Disease Risk

    Here’s a great introduction to sorting it out, if necessary:

    Dr. Jen Gunter: What You Should Have Been Told About Menopause Beforehand

    Eat a heart-healthy diet

    Shocking nobody, but it has to be said, for the sake of being methodical. So, what does that look like?

    What Matters Most For Your Heart? Eat More (Of This) For Lower Blood Pressure

    (it’s fiber in the #1 spot, but there’s a list of most important things there, that’s worth checking out and comparing it to what you habitually eat)

    You can also check out the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) edition of the Mediterranean diet, here:

    Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet

    As for saturated fat (and especially trans-fats), the basic answer is to keep them to minimal, but there is room for nuance with saturated fats at least:

    Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?

    And lastly, do make sure to get enough omega 3 fatty-acids:

    What Omega-3s Really Do For Us

    And enjoy plant sterols and stanols! This would need a whole list of their own, so here you go:

    Take These To Lower Cholesterol! (Statin Alternatives)

    Take care!

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  • Twenty-One, No Wait, Twenty Tweaks For Better Health

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Dr. Greger’s 21 Tweaks… We say 20, though!

    We’ve talked before about Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen (12 things he advises that we make sure to eat each day, to enjoy healthy longevity), but much less-talked-about are his “21 Tweaks”…

    They are, in short, a collection of little adjustments one can make for better health. Some of them are also nutritional, but many are more like lifestyle tweaks. Let’s do a rundown:

    At each meal:

    • Preload with water
    • Preload with “negative calorie” foods (especially: greens)
    • Incorporate vinegar (1-2 tbsp in a glass of water will slow your blood sugar increase)
    • Enjoy undistracted meals
    • Follow the 20-minute rule (enjoy your meal over the course of at least 20 minutes)

    Get your daily doses:

    • Black cumin ¼ tsp
    • Garlic powder ¼ tsp
    • Ground ginger (1 tsp) or cayenne pepper (½ tsp)
    • Nutritional yeast (2 tsp)
    • Cumin (½ tsp)
    • Green tea (3 cups)

    Every day:

    • Stay hydrated
    • Deflour your diet
    • Front-load your calories (this means implementing the “king, prince, pauper” rule—try to make your breakfast the largest meal of your day, followed my a medium lunch, and a small evening meal)
    • Time-restrict your eating (eat your meals within, for example, an 8-hour window, and fast the rest of the time)
    • Optimize exercise timing (before breakfast is best for most people, unless you are diabetic)
    • Weigh yourself twice a day (doing this when you get up and when you go to bed results in much better long-term weight management than weighing only once per day)
    • Complete your implementation intentions (this sounds a little wishy-washy, but it’s about building a set of “if this, then that” principles, and then living by them. An example could be directly physical health-related such as “if there is a choice of stairs or elevator, I will take the stairs”, or could be more about holistic good-living, such as “if someone asks me for help, I will try to oblige them so far as I reasonably can”)

    Every night:

    • Fast after 7pm
    • Get sufficient sleep (7–9 hours is best. As we get older, we tend more towards the lower end of that, but try get at least those 7 hours!)
    • Experiment with Mild Trendelenburg (better yet, skip this one)*

    *This involves a 6º elevation of the bed, at the foot end. Dr. Greger advises that this should only be undertaken after consulting your doctor, though, as a lot of health conditions can contraindicate it. We at 10almonds couldn’t find any evidence to support this practice, and numerous warnings against it, so we’re going to go ahead and say we think this one’s skippable.

    Again, we do try to bring you the best evidence-based stuff here at 10almonds, and we’re not going to recommend something just because of who suggested it

    As for the rest, you don’t have to do them all! And you may have noticed there was a little overlap in some of them. But, we consider them a fine menu of healthy life hacks from which to pick and choose!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Apples vs Bananas – Which is Healthier?
  • How to Find Happiness In Yourself – by Michelle Mann

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    A lot of books about happiness tell you what to pursue, generally. What things to focus on, and that’s good, but incomplete. This book does cover those things too (complete with academic sources to back up what really works), but also goes further:

    Michelle Mann gives 25 key habits that will cumulatively build happiness, which is what it’s really about. After all:

    • If you watch your favourite movie, you’ll be happy for 90 minutes (or 9 hours if it’s The Lord of the Rings).
    • If you build daily habits that add happiness to you, your surroundings, and those around you, you’ll be happy for life.

    They do also cover happiness while going through difficult times, such as divorce, job loss, illness, or bereavement.

    Sometimes, knowing what we “should” do in theory is the easy part. Where Mann excels here is in providing explanations of each habit. This means that rather than it being some platitude, the principles underlying it are truly understood… and thus motivate us to actually apply the advice and build the habits into our life.

    While the explanations are therefore the greatest value of the book, we do recommend copying out the 25 habits (which are effectively subchapter headings) and putting them somewhere to read often.

    Bottom line: we recommend getting yourself (and/or your loved ones!) a copy of this book. You (and/or they) will be happy you did!

    Order “How to Find Happiness In Yourself: 25 Habits Guaranteed to Help You Live a Happier Life” on Amazon today!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • 30 Days Of Weight Vest Use: Lessons Learned

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Robin, from “The Science of Self-Care”, has insights:

    How to have an easier time of it

    Per peer-reviewed science (linked under the video on YouTube), there are some benefits:

    • Cardiovascular fitness: increases workout intensity, improving heart and lung health.
    • Muscle strength & endurance: strengthens core, legs, glutes, and calves.
    • Bone density: helps prevent osteoporosis through weight-bearing exercise.
    • Caloric expenditure: burns more calories, aiding in weight loss.
    • Balance & posture: improves balance, though posture effects were mixed.

    She chose a 30 lb weighted vest, which felt much heavier than expected. Initially, this was uncomfortable but became comforting over time (much like a weighted blanket). She also found that walks became noticeably more intense, leading to increased sweating and hunger.

    Over the course of the month, she found:

    • Week 1: adjusting to the extra weight; walks felt significantly harder.
    • Weeks 2-3: strength improvements; carrying groceries felt easier, walking without the vest felt effortless.
    • Week 3: started craving the weighted vest, but also began experiencing shoulder discomfort.
    • Week 4: reduced walk duration to 20 minutes due to shoulder strain.

    She concluded that the vest design was flawed—all weight rested on shoulders instead of distributing across the body, which led to shoulder discomfort and posture issues. To mitigate these things, she switched to wearing the vest around the waist like a skirt. She now plans to try a weighted belt for better weight distribution, though also simply a different kind of vest would work better (the kind that looks like combat body armor distributes the weight a lot more easily)

    In short, her verdict:

    • Weighted walking: 10/10, highly beneficial and easy to incorporate into daily routines.
    • Vest used: 2/10, poor weight distribution, causing discomfort and shoulder strain.

    For more on all of this, plus links to the relevant scientific papers, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like:

    Weight Vests Against Osteoporosis: Do They Really Build Bone?

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Are Squats the Ultimate Game-Changer?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Dr. Jess Grochowsky, PT, DPT, MTC, CLT, CMPTP, says the answer is yes, and here’s why:

    The most complete exercise

    Squats are a powerful full-body exercise that targets legs, core, and (when weights are used) upper body. All in all, they enhance strength, mobility, metabolism, and joint health, making them essential for longevity and maintaining quality of movement throughout life.

    In particular, they allow a much greater range of movement through more dimensions than most exercises do, meaning that (unlike a lot of more linear exercises) they build functional strength that sees us well in everyday life—mobility, joint control, and muscle stability.

    Proper Squat Technique:

    • The squat involves lowering the center of mass (which is slightly behind your navel and slightly down; exact position depends on your body composition and proportions) toward the floor.
    • Use the “head to hips” principle to maintain a straight spine: as the head moves forward, the hips go back.
    • Different foot positions (sumo, narrow, etc) target various muscles.

    4 key variables to adjust squats:

    1. Base of support: the surface you stand on (firm vs unstable like a Bosu ball) affects stability and muscle engagement.
    2. Foot position: wide stances increase stability and target inner thighs and glutes; narrow stances focus more on quads.
    3. Weights: can use free weights, kettlebells, or bars. Adding weights increases intensity and can incorporate upper body exercises (e.g. bicep curls, overhead presses, etc).
    4. Squat depth: ranges from partial to deep squats, depending on functional goals.

    Types of squats and variations given in the video:

    • Firm surface squats: provide stability and allow even weight distribution.
    • Unstable surface squats: engage smaller stabilizing muscles.
    • Yoga ball squats: shift the center of mass backward, increasing quad and glute activation.
    • Weighted squats: add resistance to increase muscle load and core stability (e.g. one-sided weights for oblique engagement).
    • Dynamic weighted squats: incorporate quick movements, like kettlebell swings, for power and coordination.
    • Single-leg squats: enhance balance and increase workload on one side of the body.

    For more on all of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    The Most Anti-Aging Exercise

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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