Does Mouthwash Cause Oral Cancer?

Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. Every weekday, we make sense of the confusing world of wellness by analyzing the headlines, simplifying the latest research, and offering quick tips designed to make you healthier in less than 5 minutes. If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free daily email here.

Today’s Health Upgrade

• What most people misunderstand about fatigue

• Is mouthwash a health risk?

• The Pump Club book club

• When the hard times hit…

Fitness
The Misunderstood Relationship Between Lifting Heavy Weights and Fatigue

If you think lifting heavier always leads to more exhaustion, think again. The way you train could be causing more fatigue than you realize—even in muscles you didn’t use.

Research suggests training with lighter weights to failure may cause greater fatigue than using heavier loads.

In most exercise circles, the old belief is that heavy weight training causes more “central nervous system fatigue,” but that isn’t what most studies have found. In this study, participants performed resistance exercises with either heavy weights (75 to 90 percent of their max) or lighter loads (30 to 50 percent of their max) to failure. The scientists analyzed what caused the most fatigue in the working muscles and limbs that weren’t directly involved.

Those lifting lighter loads to failure experienced more immediate and prolonged fatigue—not just in the muscles they trained but also in non-exercised limbs. The researchers suggest this occurs due to central nervous system (CNS) fatigue, which impacts overall neuromuscular performance.

Several factors cause greater CNS fatigue from lighter weights. When using lighter loads, you tend to push yourself further and do more reps, leading to a greater accumulation of metabolic stress. This leads to more muscle damage and inflammation, which increases overall fatigue. 

On the other hand, heavier weights led to muscle exhaustion but didn’t significantly affect non-exercised muscles.

This doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t use lighter weights and higher reps, but you should be aware that training to failure can increase total-body fatigue and impact overall performance.

Health
Is Mouthwash Putting Your Health at Risk?

We all strive for fresh breath and a clean mouth; for many, mouthwash is a key part of oral hygiene. But could it have unintended consequences?

New research suggests that while general mouthwash use does not increase oral cancer risk, frequent and prolonged use might be associated with a higher risk.

Researchers analyzed 15 studies involving 6,515 cases. The findings indicated no significant association between general mouthwash use and oral cancer risk. However, there appears to be a point where how much you use and for how long changes the risk.

There was an increased association with oral cancer among individuals using mouthwash three or more times daily and for those using mouthwash for more than 40 years. 

The researchers suggest that high-frequency and long-term mouthwash use could potentially increase risk due to factors like the alcohol content in some mouthwashes, which can be converted to acetaldehyde—a known carcinogen—in the oral cavity. Additionally, frequent use might disrupt the oral microbiome, leading to an imbalance that could contribute to carcinogenesis. ​

If you use mouthwash, moderation appears to be key to overall health. You’ll want to limit mouthwash use to once or twice daily, at most. And, ideally not every day. Also, opt for alcohol-free mouthwashes to reduce potential risks associated with alcohol-containing products. In mouthwash without alcohol, there’s a lack of research suggesting a connection to oral cancer. 

Your best bet for oral healthcare is to focus on ​regular brushing, flossing, and dental check-ups. 

Community
The Pump Club Book Club

Our most recent selection for The Pump Club book club is the recent New York Times bestselling book, The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom. 

On Friday, March 21, Sahil will join all members of The Pump app for a live Q&A and a virtual Q&A in the app. It’s free for all members. 

Be sure to pick up your copy, and if you want to discuss it with Sahil and the community, join us next Friday, the 21st. We hope to see you there!

Adam’s Corner
When The Hard Times Hit, Fight For Your Portal

For two years, life kicked my ass. 

It’s easy to read these newsletters, see that I created The Pump Club with Arnold, and assume that everything in my life must be great. But that’s the thing about the internet and real life, we rarely know what others are going through. 

My past made me think I could handle whatever life threw my way. Because for better or worse, I’ve battled several health problems. For 30 years, I’ve learned to co-exist with rare and undiagnosed disease. Over the years, it’s been compared to cancer and other severe illnesses. Doctors worldwide have studied me, but no one has solved the puzzle (yet). My illness gives me fevers that last for 60 to 80 days. I view it as the enemy within trying to destroy me. But, those battles have shaped who I am and made me stronger and more committed to my health. 

But one unknown illness is just one part of the fight. I've broken my back…and then broke it again…and then I built a path to better health that wasn’t listed as an option. No one said a guy with a twice-broken back could deadlift 570 pounds pain-free, and that’s why I did it. I could go on with the injuries, but that’s not the point. Overcoming each hurdle made me think I could absorb all the hard knocks.

Until I found myself in an Endgame scenario. If you don’t like Marvel films, I promise this has nothing to do with superheroes. At the end of Avengers Endgame, Captain America is fighting a seemingly unstoppable enemy. He’s bruised, beaten, and covered in dirt and blood. As you watch the scene unfold, there’s no chance this ends well.

My endgame battle started in 2023. My wife had a miscarriage, and it hurt me more than those other health issues. The pain was no longer just mine to manage but ours. Still, we had to move forward, and that’s what we did. 

Then we had another miscarriage. There was a feeling of helpfulness I can’t describe. A few months after the second miscarriage, my wife rushed home to be with her sick father. The very next day, my father-in-law passed away. As I prepared to travel to be with my wife's family, I got viral pneumonia, couldn’t breathe, and was hospitalized. I was so sick I couldn’t attend the funeral, which still bothers me today.

A month later, my grandfather passed away. He lived an amazing life, but it stung because my father (his son) was battling brain cancer. 

At the same time, we tried IVF as infertility persisted. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Again, helplessness and frustration. My wife and I are fortunate; we have two wonderful boys. We love them and are grateful for them. But we wanted more children. And the room for understanding that reality — both having kids and wanting more — was challenging to navigate, not just as a man who will never know what it’s like to carry a child, but also in supporting my wife as she’s gone through loneliness and hell.

Sometimes, “just be grateful” sounds good on paper, but it doesn't solve the pain or frustration. 

And finally, the final straw broke. After a long battle with brain cancer, my father passed away. 

Putting your superhero into the ground at a relatively young age (my dad was only 68) changed me. It’s still changing me, but it doesn’t feel like a motivational quote or poster.

It’s more like, “Life is sometimes sad and painful. And that’s what also makes it beautiful.”

Make no mistake: I love my life and am thankful for it every day. I have many privileges beyond anything I could’ve ever asked for. However, that doesn’t mean I’m immune from being kicked in the teeth. As my wife points out frequently, there’s no such thing as a hierarchy of pain.

Hurt is hurt, and for more than two years, we were hurting. I am my father’s son, which means I hate complaining and am allergic to pity. I put my head down, trust myself, and think I can do everything. 

But those two years were different. It was Captain America vs. the end. If I wanted to survive, then I needed to accept reality. And that is not the same thing as settling for defeat. This was about realizing how my stubbornness was no longer serving me.

When you give it all you have, and it still doesn’t work, it’s time to reassess. You keep fighting and stop acting like a superhero who can do it all. For me, that meant accepting that sometimes, the harsh realities of life get the best of us. And that’s OK. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s not a weakness to admit when things are bad, complex, or crushing. 

We all have moments where life is kicking our ass, and an army is waiting to finish us off. Maybe you’ve been there before, hell you might be in it right now or will find yourself in the fight down the road.

I don’t want you to feel alone if this moment of reckoning and doubt arrives. Pain, doubt, and struggle are woven into the fabric of the human experience; we just rarely share them. 

But as Arnold says: we have the strength to lift the world. And when you can acknowledge the ass-kicking and understand that you can survive and get through, something powerful happens.

Real life isn’t social media life. No 17-step routine will solve the hardest moments in life.

But there is a way through. I genuinely believe that life only gives you challenges you can handle — but it’s your job to believe it.  

When that happens, you pick yourself up and figure out where to find the strength.

It doesn’t have to be pretty, and there doesn’t have to be a deeper lesson. The lesson is survival and knowing that bad times don’t last forever. 

Sometimes, winning isn’t about beating the opponent as much as it is about outlasting it. And if you find yourself tapping a dry well of resilience, it’s helpful to know that it likely won’t get better all at once.

Even if you’re doing the right things, that doesn’t mean life will turn around immediately; you might get kicked in the face again and wonder why you put up with the beating. You do it because your portal is coming. 

Remember that scene with Captain America? He stood up, strapped on his half-broken shield, and looked at the enemy, preparing to fight an impossible fight.  He wasn’t going to lie down and give up. Because then he would have no chance at all. That’s when a portal opened behind him.

Because this is a movie, many portals opened and the other Avengers descended upon the battle scene when he least expected it. At the moment when things looked most dire, hope and opportunity appeared. 

Real life isn’t like the movies, but we all have portals. They aren’t magical. And they don’t happen by accident, either. The portal is the byproduct of finding a way to keep going when life tries to break you. 

Long after IVF doctors told us we couldn’t have a baby, we received a miracle. We got pregnant, and last October our daughter was born. 

It might seem easy for me to share this now, but I originally wrote many of the words you’re now reading back in January of 2024 — before we got pregnant or my portal had arrived. 

On that date, when I shared these thoughts with the amazing community in The Pump app, I wrote:

I’m still getting my ass kicked. But the script has been written. I don’t get to choose when the reinforcements come. I just have to keep getting up until they show up.

And wouldn’t you know it — the portal came. 

Sometimes we go through hell. There is no explanation and usually no blame. Just a simple truth: Get up. Grit your teeth. Stare your enemy in the eye. Keep fighting. Put in the work. Trust that you are strong enough for the struggle. And know that if your hardest punch doesn’t deliver a knockout, you must find a way to survive until the fight ends.

I originally wrote this for myself as a reminder. But I decided to share it because my battle was lonely. 

Social media doesn’t like the dark corners of life and that’s why we created the positive corner. This is why it’s important to keep lighting candles rather than cursing the darkness. 

Ultimately, it's on you to keep getting back up. But it's on us to remind you that you're not alone, that grief is ok, that sadness is a part of life, and that your worst moments do not have to define who you are and what you can become.

Because when you least expect it, the odds seem stacked against you, and defeat is undeniable — if you can find a way to keep standing — that is when a portal will open. And then, victory will be yours. -AB

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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell