(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Charcoal.
It's grainy, it's chalky, it's bitter,
it's not something you'd want in your toothpaste,
or your food, or your bedsheets right?
But charcoal, or rather, activated charcoal,
has been rising in popularity
as the trendy addition to everything from
ice cream to bedding.
It's origins as a detoxifier have sparked claims
that it can whiten teeth, cure hangovers,
and even keep bed odors at bay.
Some claims are valid,
and others, well, the science is still out.
Here's everything you need to know
about activated charcoal.
Let's start from the beginning.
Charcoal is a black residue that forms
when you burn something that has a lot of carbon in it,
think coal or coconut shells.
Activated charcoal is just charcoal
that's been treated with a special gas
during the production process,
when it's burned at a very high temperature.
The chemical reactions from the fire
rearrange the carbon atoms to form a ton of tiny pores.
As a result, this new activated charcoal
has a huge surface area.
One gram of activated charcoal typically has a surface area
of about 1,000 square meters.
Some types can have a surface area
as large as 3,500 square meters.
That's well over half the size of a football field.
- Wow. - This expansive surface area
allows the charcoal to trap certain molecules
with a process called adsorption.
Yep, you heard that right,
that's adsorption, not absorption.
With absorption, chemicals get trapped inside something.
Say, water getting trapped in a rag.
But with adsorption, molecules bind to the surface
of another solid or liquid.
In the case of activated charcoal
it's massive surface area acts as one giant,
ugh, what's the best way to--
- Activated charcoal is a little bit like
a giant ball of tape,
or a sponge covered in glue.
(glue splatting)
- [Narrator] Right.
So, if a chemical is adsorbed,
it's not going anywhere. (glue splatting)
This makes activated charcoal
great at collecting molecules that contain carbon,
like most poisons.
Until recently, it was mainly used as a detox product
in emergency rooms for patients
who had accidentally ingested poison.
- If you've been poisoned,
then you've got a whole bunch of poison
sitting around in your digestive system.
If you just took a whole bunch of activated charcoal in,
it just soaks up all the poisons.
- [Narrator] Around 2014 though,
activated charcoal began to gain popularity
outside the ER as a cleansing ingredient for foods.
Things like charcoal lemonades,
cleansing chais, and blackened pizza crusts.
And remember those photo's of black ice cream
that monopolized your Instagram feed?
(camera shutter clicking)
Those were usually activated charcoal too.
But there haven't been many scientific studies
on the long term health effects
of charcoal infused foods.
Relatively speaking,
the idea of ingesting charcoal recreationally,
as apposed to using it as a
save your life kind of detoxifier
is still a pretty new thing.
- Activated charcoal sticks to everything
without discrimination.
Or rather, it sticks to things
without discriminating whether they're good or bad.
And so, if you're constantly taking activated charcoal--
- [Narrator] As in, adding it to your food.
- Then it's gonna stick to a lot of nutrients.
At best, I believe it makes you constipated.
At worse, it might give you a mild nutrient deficiency.
- [Narrator] In June of 2018,
the New York City Department of Health
began to more strictly enforce a ban on activated charcoal
in food and drinks in all of the city's restaurants.
Citing an FDA rule prohibiting it's use
as a food additive or coloring agent.
Someplace else you may have seen
activated charcoal recently, toothpaste.
The toothpaste trend really began to kick off
at the end of 2016.
Some toothpaste brands claim that activated charcoal
could whiten teeth and detox your mouth.
But a 2015 study conducted by Lake Eerie
College of Osteopathic Medicine
tested charcoal against a generic brand
of whitening toothpaste.
And it concluded that there was potential
for the charcoal residue to embed in tissue,
leaving a gray coloration.
The abrasive nature of the charcoal was also found
to potentially lead to gum recession over time.
According to Matthew Messina, a practicing dentist at the
Ohio State University College of Dentistry,
and a spokesperson for the American Dental Association.
Activated charcoal can also thin down a tooth's enamel,
which can result in teeth looking yellow,
instead of that promised pearly white.
Experts say that the loss of enamel
can lead to issues like tooth decay
and increased sensitivity.
In addition to foods and toothpastes,
you may have noticed a growing number
of facial products containing activated charcoal
that claim they can decongest skin and refine pores.
But, like food and toothpastes
there isn't a whole lot of research to back this up.
- They could potentially draw out oil from pores
a bit better than a regular cleanser.
I think they work pretty similarly to like a clay mask.
But I don't think they'll give any
real detoxing benefits like drawing
toxins out of your skin,
apart from the oil in the pores,
which a clay mask would do as well.
So while eating, brushing,
and cleansing with activated charcoal
might still come with it's share of TBD's,
research suggests that activated charcoal
can be used to kill dust mites and eliminate odors
thanks to, you guessed it, adsorption.
A 2012 study introduced live house dust mites
to culture dishes that contained activated charcoal fibers,
and concluded that all house dust mites
attach to the charcoal fibers
and began to shrink instantaneously.
Doctor Brent Stockwell, chemistry and biology professor
at Columbia University,
says that theoretically, charcoal infused fibers
could adsorb odors in the same way.
- [Brent] Odors are basically,
odorant molecules in the gas phase that your nose detects.
In theory, if you coated an entire room,
the walls, the floor and the ceiling with charcoal,
it would probably reduce any odors in the room,
because everywhere the gas in the room is hitting,
those molecules are gonna be adsorbed onto the surface.
- [Narrator] Same idea if charcoal is impregnated
into fabrics like towels or bedsheets.
At the end of the day,
if you want to eat trendy charcoal foods,
it's not that big of a deal.
Just don't make them part of your daily diet.
As for charcoal toothpaste and face masks,
there's still a bit of research to be done
about just how effective they are.
Charcoal infused fabrics are a great investment
if you're looking to reduce dust mites and odors.
Shop smartly out there.
(soothing music)