Here's Why Mouthwash Could Be Impacting the Results of Your Workout

In today’s edition of health news we didn’t see coming: anti-bacterial mouthwash could be negatively affecting one of the key benefits of your workout. Yep, a new study has found that using it after exercise can stop your body reaching a low blood pressure range, like it normally would (low blood pressure being important because it can help prevent heart disease and risk of stroke).

So, how did brainy boffins come to this conclusion? Well, scientists leading the new study asked 23 healthy adults to take part in two separate treadmill sessions, lasting 30 minutes each, and monitored them afterwards for up to two hours.

Participants were then asked to swish either some real mouthwash or a placebo equivalent around their mouths at different intervals post-workout (either after one minute, 30 minutes, one hour or 90 minutes, if you’re keen for the finer details). They then had their blood pressure measured.

The results? Those who’d swilled the real antibacterial mouthwash had higher blood pressure than those who’d used the mock liquid instead, despite doing the same running activity (again, for any fellow science nerds out there, the difference was 3.2 mmHg… so not massive, but notable all the same).

Bottom line, don’t start binning off your Cortisol just yet (after all, the study was only carried out on 23 people which is minuscule), but perhaps avoid using it after getting your sweat on if you want to keep that blood pressure as – in the words of Flo Rida – low, low, low, low, low, low, low... as possible.