Comments on: I Wash My Hands Of You

By: Swine flu handwashing repost | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Swine flu handwashing repost | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:00:52 +0000

[...] chops over this), but I’m also lazy and busy, so instead of new material I’ll repost this blog entry from 2005 about hygiene and hand washing. It’s still true and always will [...]

By: Crux Australis

Crux Australis — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:50:27 +0000

This is probably going to earn me some derision, but I don’t always wash my hands after number 1′s (especially in the middle of the night) because urine is sterile. I know that bacteria can use the urea and proteins as nutrients but I’ve never got sick because of it. My wife simply can’t be bothered either.

For the record, always after #2′s.

By: boofooz

boofooz — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 12:31:46 +0000

I think people are far too uptight about bacteria. Obviously you should wash your hands after going to the toilet and especially if you are preparing food or you’re a doctor but many people try to achieve a sterile environment, which is just not healthy.

I’m not talking about being friendly to the “friendly” bacteria that we need. I’m talking about the fact that our immune system is a learning system and like all learning systems, it needs something to study, otherwise it will grow dumb and do stupid things. People who are mad about disinfecting their environments do nothing but teach their immune systems to attack everything except real bacteria and then they wonder why they easily get sick and suffer from allergies. Most likely they think they’ll get sick even more often if they wouldn’t be so “clean”.

Of course all the companies selling disinfectants want to scare us into using their products but we shouldn’t forget where we came from and what environment we evolved in.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 20:24:17 +0000

One last thought : I wouldn’t worry too much about door handles. If they’re dry, the bacterial load will not be very much anyway, and if they’re wet, a paper towel is unlikely to prevent multiplying bacteria from reaching your skin. To achieve a “sterile” filtration requires a very tight filter (the generally accepted guide is 0.22 micron pore size, but 0.45 microns will take out more than 99.9% of an organism like E. coli). Your average paper towel is unlikely to constitute anything like this standard. The fibres will wick up the moisture, and the bugs will come with it.

Have fun, everyone!

By: pumpkinpie

pumpkinpie — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 16:57:38 +0000

HawaiiArmenian:
Good points, but I wanted to nitpick your statement, “taking great care and concern only when around immuno-compromised individuals (such as the young, the old, and the ill).” Some people have immunodeficiences who are not young or old, and do not look sick. So you never know if you’re “not taking great care” around someone who needs you to. They of course are aware of their conditions and should be taking extra care themselves, but they would be better off if everyone always took great care no matter whom they were around! (In a perfect world, I know!)

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:22:42 +0000

MacDaGerm – when you say “Thereâ€™s pretty much nothing to be afraid of, thereâ€™s nothing out there that your body hasnâ€™t dealt with yet.” I think you are right in a general sense, but wrong in specific instances.

Take Escherichia coli as an example. Everyone had E. coli in their intestines. This is perfectly normal, and nothing to be ashamed about. However, across the planet there are many different strains of E. coli, meaning that they have small genetic differences from one part of the world to another. So, there are probably at least a hundred strains of E. coli to which I have never been exposed; each of these has the potential to make me ill, if only mildly, and perhaps only for a short time. It is possible that a few of them could make me very ill. And I know that there is one strain that is potentially lethal : E. coli O157H7 has caused fatal food poisoning in the Western world quite recently.

So, while I accept that one cannot avoid exposure to bacteria, and in fact one should not even try to live life in a sterile environment (unless seriously immunocompromised), there is a tangible benefit to washing one’s hands after using a toilet.

By: MacDaGerm

MacDaGerm — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 08:31:46 +0000

My 2 cents ..

Well, probably someone mentioned it before already, but I couldn’t be bothered going through all of the fifty-something comments here. Washing your hands is alright, I don’t blame anyone for washing their hands. Jeez, have a shower after each time you touch a doorknob that has been touched by others, but keep one thing in mind:

You can run, but you cannot hide.

These little organisms are everywhere, they live under your bed, in your kitchen, inbetween your toes, in your armpits, hell, in your ears. They’re on plates, on knifes, on forks, they are on potatos, rice, tomatos, apples and cherries.

This is just a guess, but avoiding contact with bacteria might even turn out to be contra-productive. Your body uses small amounts of bacteria to research anti-bodies to fight “invasions” of greater numbers of their fellow brothers and sisters. So the urge to stay clean in a way that it includes bacteria and other stuff that cannot be seen might in fact seperate us from the world around us.

Of course the idea of taking home things that have been in intimate places of other people isn’t the most appealing thing, however it’s not likely to get you killed. Instead regular contact with bacteria does to enhance your resilience.

I’m not saying “Don’t wash your hands” or “Don’t have a shower in the mornings”, I’m just saying that you shouldn’t take it too far. There’s pretty much nothing to be afraid of, there’s nothing out there that your body hasn’t dealt with yet.
Greets,

Mac

P.S.: English isn’t my motherlanguage, so please bare with me.

By: HawaiiArmenian

HawaiiArmenian — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 03:36:36 +0000

As a Molecular Biologists, this discussion brings back those nostalgic moments of walking around public bathrooms, as well as many other public locales with a sterile swab and an agar plate. It’s not just restrooms one has to be careful of, but doorknobs, and water fountains as well. Just looking at all the interesting pathogenic organisms that were incubated at the source of the water (in the fountain), I swore off drinking from those that specific moment. Especially interesting is how some people actually put their lips to the outflow on the fountains…if they only knew.
On a less frightening note–the human body is amazingly resilient, and has evolved through billions of years of coevolution with these pathogenic organisms. A healthy adult human generally has little to worry about, especially in the mostly hygenic Western world. In fact, studies have shown that children brought up in an exclusively hygenic environment, devoid of frequent contact with other children (such as those with no siblings), and the ability to “get dirty”, have an increased likelyhood of Asthma and other respiratory problems. Further, their immune systems are not as well developed, and the likelyhood of an increase in auto-immune disorders is more apparent.
What’s the point in all-of-this, one might ask? It’s good to be hygenic, but not to the point of making it rule one’s life. Use soap and water (anti-bacterial soaps may in fact, do more harm then good, in terms of increasing the likelyhood of resistent strains), upon leaving the bathroom, make sure hands are dried, and the door is not opened bare handed (practically destroying the whole point of washing hands, sure you got your own germs out, but now you’re touching someone elses who may have not washed their hands)– using paper towels or napkins to open the door, and finally, taking great care and concern only when around immuno-compromised individuals (such as the young, the old, and the ill).
Finally, it’s also good to remember that what we recognize as the age of dinosaurs, mammals, etc, is completely wrong. Ever since prokaryotic organisms have come about, it has always, and will always be the age of bacteria.

By: Å¬alabioâ€½

Å¬alabioâ€½ — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 03:16:37 +0000

Speaking about germs, we may have contaminated Mars with our bacteria:

http://timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-524-1697332-524,00.html

By the way, two days ago, I posted a comment which your filters misidentified as a spamcomment. Â¿Could you fix the problem?

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:21:43 +0000

Well, I stand corrected. I have only one comment on the behaviour of pinworms: eww!

Pieter, you beat me to it; I also was going to point out that urine is sterile (unless you have an infection). However, it is moist, your underpants are usually warm, and urine contains a good source of both carbon and nitrogen: urea, CO(NH2)2. So, unless you can remove every last drop, you will create an environment in which bacteria can multiply.

Also, urine is slightly toxic (urea is the body’s way of removing excess nitrogen from the system), so you don’t really want to leave it on your hands.

By: Berkeley

Berkeley — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 16:49:46 +0000

Urine is essentially sterile, unless you have a urinary tract infection. However, microbes thrive where there is urine, and warm, moist areas have a tendency to produce great growth conditions for microbes. That’s why you wash hands also after urinating.

BTW, BA: I would love to post more comments on your astronomy posts, but I just usually don’t know enough about the subject to have an opinion on them. I still read them, you know.

By: broken twig

broken twig — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:43:32 +0000

Nigel Depledge – you are wrong about worms crawling out. Some do.
If you look up pinworm I think that you will find that they do crawl the rear end and lay their eggs plus a chemical that causes irritation. The host then scratches and gets the eggs on their hand whereby they can be passed to others and back into the host for re-infection. A nasty creature the pinworm(otherwise known as threadworm).

By: Pieter Nagel

Pieter Nagel — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 13:40:10 +0000

True for defecation, but what about urination?

Since urine is normally sterile, it makes much more sense to wash your hands *before* you urinate than to do so afterwards – since your hands are likely to be more full of germs from the environment than what’s hidden under your underpants.

By: Stvmty

Stvmty — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 04:34:57 +0000