How Australian National Health and Medical Research Council discovered that Listerine kills Gonorrhea

“If daily use of mouthwash was shown to reduce the duration of untreated infection and/or reduce the probability of acquisition of N. gonorrhoeae then this readily available, condomless and low-cost intervention may have very significant public health implications in the control of gonorrhoea in men who have sex with men”

Comments by the authors of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council on the effectiveness of Listerine in killing oral gonorrhea

Looks like oral sex lovers, both homosexual and heterosexual all over the world this December 2016 can rejoice......and gargle longer than a minute with Listerine! Also disclaimer, I'm not a homosexual as I love women, especially when shaved and coated with chocolate, whip cream or Ice Cream! So cue the song Peaches and cream by the group 112 from the album Part III (2001).

Researchers at the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council have just proven that Listerine, the popular mouthwash, kills Gonorrhea as reported in the article “Got Gonorrhea? Try Gargling With Listerine -- No, Really”, published December 21, 2016 by Tara Haelle, Forbes.

This helps to prove a claim made by the manufacturers of Listerine since 1879 that their produce does indeed cure Gonorrhoea. And just in time too, as the bacterial infection rate for the disease is on the rise globally, not just in the USA alone, thanks to increasing pervasiveness of oral sex among heterosexuals and homosexuals, which brings you in direct contact with the body fluids of your sex partner.

Now before you go on a gay bashing rampage while reading this, keep in mind that heterosexual also get gonorrhoea via oral sex as well.

With the prevalence of condom-less sex, this research is relevant to both parties, as it opens up the door for the use of off-the-shelf non-prescription interventions to reduce the spread of the disease to paraphrase the researchers comments, quote: “Interventions such as this are urgently needed in the context of rising rates of gonorrhoea in men who have sex with men and the likelihood that condom use may fall further as condom-free HIV preventions are more widely adopted.”

Good to note here, the researchers aren't even sure what ingredient in Listerine i.e. alcohol or eucalyptus kills or if it is a combination of ingredients in Listerine that killed the N. gonorrhoeae bacteria.

But one this is sure; Listerine reduces the bacteria' ability to survive beyond the mouth, the usual source of the infection among oral sex partners as implied by the authors of the study, quote: “In addition, if the load of N. gonorrhoeae was reduced by the mouthwash after a single dose then one might expect that daily mouthwash over weeks would potentially reduce the viable number of N. gonorrhoeae, and hence reduce further transmission or reduce the mean duration of infection”.

So how exactly did they conduct their experiment?

Gonorrhea – a Quick history about a really painful STD

Gonorrhea is caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a bacterium that is transmitted through:

1.      Unprotected Sexual intercourse i.e. no condom or dental dam

2.      Infected Body Fluids

So strictly speaking, it’s not a STD but a contact virus, like the common cold. This means anyone coming in contact with an infected person's body fluids can get infected, even the unborn baby in a mother who's infected with gonorrhea.

 

N. gonorrhoeae can grow and multiply easily in mucus membranes in places such as:

1.      Cervix

2.      Uterus

3.      Fallopian tubes

4.      Urethra

5.      Mouth

6.      Throat

7.      Anus

According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) there are approximately 700,000 new cases in the USA, with teenagers who exchange in unprotected sex i.e. anal, oral, being the group with the highest infection rate. The disease is prevalent not just because of the groups it infects, but also because symptoms may take between ten (10) to thirty (30) days to manifest in women but two (2) to fourteen (14) days in men.

Untreated gonorrhea can cause serious and permanent problems in both women and men.

Symptoms for men include:

1.      Burning sensation when passing urine

2.      Yellow or Green discharge during sexual intercourse

3.      Swollen private parts

4.      Lower abdominal or pelvic pain

5.      Conjunctivitis (red, itchy eyes)

6.      Swollen glands in the throat (due to oral sex)

Women have similar symptoms:

1.      Burning sensation when passing urine

2.      Yellow or Green discharge during sexual intercourse

3.      Swollen private parts

4.      Very painful sex

5.      Excessive Bleeding during periods

6.      Bleeding between periods

7.      Lower abdominal or pelvic pain

8.      Conjunctivitis (red, itchy eyes)

9.      Swollen glands in the throat (due to oral sex)

According to the CDC, it's the leading cause of pelvic inflammatory disease which can cause:

1.      Tubal infertility

2.      Ectopic pregnancy

3.      Chronic pelvic pain in women

4.      Epididymitis in men

It can scar inside the inside the urethra, making urination difficult. If it spread to the blood or joints can cause a condition that looks a lot like jaundice. The virus also seems to be a calling card for HIV, which can lead to AIDS.

It also increases the risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, which is already on the rise in Jamaica thank to our archaic Health policies as it relates to prostitution as noted in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “Why Jamaica must legalize Prostitution as Ministry of Health dealing with silent HIV-AIDS and STD’s Outbreak”. 

So now that you are thoroughly and truly scared, what exactly did the researchers at Australian National Health and Medical Research Council discover?

Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and Listerine - A Gonorrhea killer

The researchers at Australian National Health and Medical Research Council used Listerine Cool Mint and Listerine Total Care in their experiments. Good to note here that both of these brands of Listerine have 21.6% alcohol, which is the equivalent of Port, Madeira, Sherry and other Fortified Dessert Wines as shown in the infographic below:

Original Source: Alcohol Content in Wine | Wine Folly

They then diluted it into concentration ranging from 1:2 dilution to a 1:32 dilution. Then they placed the Listerine in a petri dish with another petri dish as a control and added the N. gonorrhoeae bacteria. Surprisingly (like Duh!), at even very low concentrations of 1:2 and 1:4, it killed the bacteria.

Then the researchers got a randomized controlled trial with 196 homosexuals and gave them throat and tonsil swabs. All of them were given a standard treatment of antibiotics ceftriaxone and azithromycin for gonorrhea. The experimenters split up the group as follows into experiment and control:

1.      104 were told to gargle 20 mL of Listerine Cool Mint for one minute as far back in their throats (Experiment)

2.      92 were told to gargle 20 mL of Saline for one minute as far back in their throats (Control)

Five minutes later, the researchers swabbed the 104 and noted only 58 of the men tested positive for gonorrhea in throat and tonsil swabs. So they then tested these 58 men split between the Experiment and Control as follows:

1.      33 who gargled with Listerine

2.      25 who gargled with saline

The test results were as follows:

1.      52% of the Experimental group (Listerine Cool Mint) tested positive result for gonorrhea

2.      84% of the Control Group (Listerine Cool Mint) tested positive result for gonorrhea 

Basically this small study implies that approximately 50% of men that test for gonorrhea bacteria in their mouths will have no detectable levels of gonorrhea bacteria in their mouths after gargling for 1 minute with Listerine Cool Mint.

Point proven after 147 years; Listerine does kill 99% of germs in your mouth! 

Listerine kill gonorrhea - Killing power may be alcohol-eucalyptus Listerine complex

This is a very small study, the first thing their research has going against them.

It also is only 50% effective and only on oral gonorrhea, so it's no cure, as you can't inject it like an antibiotic or use it to cure the genital manifestation of the bacteria. Remember, this is 21.6% alcohol, which is the equivalent of Port, Madeira, Sherry and other Fortified Dessert Wines; it's dry out your genitals before it kills any bacteria.

Still, Port, Madeira, Sherry and other Fortified Dessert Wines is good for sanitizing your genitals kisses down there, as per Kelly Rowland song!

Most troubling is that they tested for the presence of the N. gonorrhoeae after five (5) minutes, so the bacterium ingested via body fluids may probably be able to survive longer than five minutes after a 1 minute gargle with Listerine. Still, I do gargle with Listerine longer than a minute, so it might be more effective the longer you gargle.

This comes as no surprise; Alcohols, even methanol, has known antibacterial and antiseptic capabilities. And Menthol, an extract of the Eucalyptus plant and one of the main ingredients in Listerine, is known to even kill insects as detailed in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “How to use Mint Oil to ward off Mice and kill Spiders, Cockroaches, Ants and Wasps”.

The main thing that interests me is the killing power of Listerine and its ability to reduce the oral transmission of gonorrhea. This may be a possible cure for gonorrhea, once they can make nanoparticles of the Listerine molecular complex and attach it to a liposome molecule coated with antibodies of the cells that the N. gonorrhoeae attacks.

This would replicate the work of the Washington University School of Medicine who used Melittin (bee venom) to develope a cure for HIV AIDS as described in my blog article entitled “How Washington University School of Medicine Researchers use Liposomes and Melittin to kill HIV”.

More expensive and more involved studies are needed, as with the killing power of Listerine being confirmed against gonorrhoea, it opens up the possibility of using it as a new class of antibiotic, possibly using nanotechnology to make it effective!