Man, oh man, as if there's not enough worries in this world, we now have to wonder whether

mouthwash causes oral cancer and whether mouthwash reverses the benefits of exercise.

All right, let's talk about oral cancer for a moment.

The big, big risks out there is tobacco. Another big risk factor is alcohol,

which we'll put a pin in because mouthwash often contains alcohol. Of course, we all know that

HPV infection is a major modern cause of oral cancers. And so basically everything fun causes oral cancer.

It even turns out that chronic sun exposure can cause lip cancer specifically, as you would imagine.

And then there's your immunosuppressed patients, people that have HIV,

and then all the patients we have on immunosuppressive drugs, people that have HIV, and then all the patients we have on

immunosuppressive drugs for all kinds of things like transplants. Now, of course, people that have

immunosuppression have higher rates of multiple different kinds of cancers, but oral cancer is one of them.

Right. So since a lot of the traditional mouthwash brands contain alcohol, we're talking about

your Listerine and your scope and all that.

That question then comes up, if alcohol is a major cause of oral cancer, should we be using

mouthwash with alcohol in it? And is it better to use one without

alcohol in it, or should we just not use mouthwash at all? And maybe it's first worth asking how much

alcohol are we talking about in these brands of mouthwash? So let's step back from mouthwash for a second, maybe just talk about

beer. When you drink your average beer, maybe about 5% alcohol, 10% alcohol in a really strong

beer, wine somewhere around 12 to 15% alcohol. How about the mouthwashes? Listerine original

antiseptic, 27% alcohol content.

Listerine Coolment, 21% alcohol content.

Scope, classic original, about 19% alcohol content.

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