Hazards of sharing toothbrush

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Hippocrates aptly stated, All disease begins in gut."

Although patients with hepatitis C (HCV) are advised to take care not to share household and personal items such as razors, nail-scissors or toothbrushes with anyone in family, the data to support these recommendations has been scarce.

Dr. Lock and colleagues from the University of Regensburg in Germany addressed this issue in their recent paper titled,"Hepatitis C - contamination of toothbrushes: myth or reality?" This paper was published in the Journal of Viral Hepatology (September 2006).

These investigators recruited thirty consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C (HCV) for the study. None of these patients was taking any antiviral medication.

Is It Leaky Gut or Leaky Gut Syndrome?

They investigators collected saliva from the patients before and after brushing teeth for 2 minutes. In addition, toothbrush was rinsed after brushing and the rinsing solution was also analyzed.

The saliva before tooth brushing was positive for hepatitis C in 30% of patients. Hepatitis C positive saliva was seen in 37% of patients after brushing. Interestingly, many of these patients had hepatitis C negative saliva before brushing.

Further more, HCV-RNA was seen in 40% of the toothbrush rinsing water specimens. In half of these patients, the saliva before tooth brushing had been negative for hepatitis C.

In conclusion, this study lends further support to the hypothesis that sharing of household items like toothbrushes may represent an unconventional route of hepatitis C transmission. Although some of the earlier studies had shown conflicting results, the difference in the results may be due to the analytical methods used.

Above study notwithstanding, I wonder how many people in general population (with or without hepatitis C) do share toothbrushes. I would like to know your thoughts.

Wall Street Journal Best Seller Dr. M's Seven-X Plan for Digestive Health

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