BiotiQuest® Gut Health & Probiotics Blog with Martha Carlin

Consumer Guide to Quats in Cleaning Products

Martha Carlin | Mar 04, 2026 |

Quaternary ammonium compounds — often called “quats” — are widely used disinfectants found in household cleaners, wipes, sanitizers, and many institutional cleaning products. While effective at killing microbes on surfaces, growing scientific evidence suggests that repeated exposure may disrupt the body’s own microbial ecosystems and delicate cellular membranes.

Because these chemicals are now so common in homes, schools, hospitals, and food environments, it can be difficult to know where exposure is coming from — or what practical steps can reduce it.

We created this Consumer Guide to Quats to help you understand where these chemicals are used, why they may matter for gut and immune health, and simple steps you can take to reduce everyday exposure.

Download the guide here to learn more.

With gratitude,

Martha Carlin photo Martha Carlin, is a “Citizen Scientist”, systems thinker, wife of Parkinson’s warrior, John Carlin, and founder of The BioCollective , a microbiome company expanding the reach of science and BiotiQuest, the first of it’s kind probiotic line. Since John’s diagnosis in 2002, Martha began learning the science of agriculture, nutrition, environment, infectious disease, Parkinson’s pathology and much more. In 2014, when the first research was published showing a connection between the gut bacteria and the two phenotypes of Parkinson’s, Martha quit her former career as a business turnaround expert and founded The BioCollective to accelerate the discovery of the impact of gut health on all human disease. Martha was a speaker at the White House 2016 Microbiome Initiative launch, challenging the scientific community to “think in a broader context”. Her systems thinking background and experience has led to collaborations across the scientific spectrum from neuroscience to engineering to infectious disease. She is a respected out of the box problem solver in the microbiome field and brings a unique perspective to helping others understand the connections from the soil to the food to our guts and our brains.

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