Recently, It seems that the habit of using cotton buds has become omnipresent. Most people, armed with a cotton swab, gently clean their auricle and ear canal daily. But, years of scientific research have shown that this is precisely what you should not do at all! Or at least, you should not use cotton swabs.
Scientists have successfully proved that plastic cotton buds are far from the best invention of humanity.
Up until recently, it was believed that uncleaned ears and the presence of sulfur in the ear canal generated the loss of hearing. Children and school children even loved to say the phrase “ears need to be cleaned!”
In the past, due to the lack of cotton buds in shops, caring mothers had to do with improvised means. Using cotton wool wrapped on a regular match, they cleaned the ears of their offspring with unusual zeal. So why is the long-standing tradition of cleaning your ears, become the object of recent critics? Well, we are going to illustrate some of the numerous reasons bellow.
As experts from the American Academy of Otolaryngology have proved, inserting a cotton swab into the ear, we clean out only a small part of the sulfur. The bulk, we unknowingly push deeper into the ear, thereby contributing to the formation of sulfur plugs.
- “Poking,” scrolling and pushing a cotton swab into the ear, we, without suspecting it, regularly disturb the eardrum, touching it.
- wielding a cotton swab in the area of the thinnest tissues and organs, we risk significantly impairing the hearing, causing a malfunction in the auditory organs.
- as scientists have proven, earwax produced by the body is actually beneficial. After all, one cannot argue with the fact that everything the body produces has a precise role.
- earwax, regularly formed by the body, significantly reduces the risk of injury to hearing organs by foreign objects.
- insects such as bees, mosquitoes, and even flies, will not be able to penetrate the depths of the ear since it is sulfur that protects this organ.
- for the modern human, so prone to various fungal diseases, the risk of getting a fungus in the ear canal is significantly reduced. According to Seth Schwartz, a specialist from the Academy of Otolaryngology, it is sulfur that guards in this situation, since it copes with such threats perfectly.
- itching, dry skin of the auricle, inflammation of the ear tissues – all this will not happen to you, because earwax acts as a natural moisturizer in the ear canal.
- the more often we clean our ears, the more sulfur the body will secrete. The production of too much ear wax is called hypersecretion of sulfur. The leading cause of hypersecretion is a skin irritation of the ear canal. And the main reason for this irritation hears aids and cotton buds.
After such stunning discoveries by scientists, a logical question arises: how then to remove sulfur from the ears? There is only one answer! It does not need to be deleted.
If you doubt your ears are clean, whether there are sulfur plugs in your ear canal, or if you feel a strange sensation, the right decision is to seek the advice of a specialist.
Plastic cotton buds – spoil the environment
For those who are not convinced by the list of reasons why cotton buds are extremely dangerous, here is one more argument. Everyone knows cotton buds are made of plastic, and plastic is the main threat to the environment. And this problem, having reached a global scale, became the main topic at the meeting of the European Commission in Brussels.
It was in May 2019, when the Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, published a list of plastic products to be prohibited from now on, including cotton buds. According to him, the ban on these products should also help “solve the problem of plastic garbage in the oceans.” Plastic products make up more than 80% of garbage.
