Wash 'em hands, please
A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do. »Possible reasons
Study: Women lead men in bacteria, hands down
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID,AP Science Writer <cite class="auth">AP - Tuesday, November 4
</cite>WASHINGTON - Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies. A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do. And everybody has more types of bacteria than the researchers expected to find.
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"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women," added lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor in Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology. The researchers aren't sure why women harbored a greater variety of bacteria than men, but Fierer suggested it may have to so with the acidity of the skin. Knight said men generally have more acidic skin than women. Other possibilities are differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production, he said.
Women also may have more bacteria living under the surface of the skin where they are not accessible to washing, Knight added. Asked if guys should worry about holding hands with girls, Knight said: "I guess it depends on which girl." He stressed that "the vast majority of the bacteria we have on our body are either harmless or beneficial ... the pathogens are a small minority." The researchers took samples from the palms of 51 college students _ that's 102 hands _ and tested the samples using a new, highly detailed system for detecting bacteria DNA. They identified 4,742 species of bacteria overall, only 5 of which were on every hand, they report on Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The average hand harbored 150 species of bacteria. Not only did individuals have few types of bacteria in common, the left and right hands of the same individual shared only about 17 percent of the same bacteria types, the researchers found. The differences between dominant and non-dominant hands were probably due to environmental conditions like oil production, salinity, moisture or variable environmental surfaces touched by either hand of an individual, Fierer said. Knight said the researchers hope to repeat the experiment in other countries where different hands are assigned specific tasks. While the researchers stressed the importance of regular hand washing, they also noted that washing did not eliminate bacteria. "Either the bacterial colonies rapidly re-establish after hand washing, or washing (as practiced by the students included in this study) does not remove the majority of bacteria taxa found on the skin surface," the researchers said in their report. While the tests could determine how many different types of bacteria were present, they could not count the total amount of bacteria on each hand. The research was funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Doorknobs, TV remotes are germ hotspots
Doorknobs and TV remotes are germ hotbeds
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE,AP Medical Writer <cite class="auth">AP - Wednesday, October 29</cite>
WASHINGTON - Someone in your house have the sniffles? Watch out for the refrigerator door handle. The TV remote, too. A new study finds that cold sufferers often leave their germs there, where they can live for two days or longer.
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Next, the researchers deliberately contaminated surfaces with participants' mucus and then tested to see whether rhinovirus stuck to their fingers when they turned on lights, answered the phone or did other common tasks. More than half of the participants got the virus on their fingertips 48 hours after the mucus was smeared. The study was sponsored by Reckitt-Benckiser Inc., makers of Lysol, but no products were tested in the research. The study, designed by doctors with no ties to the company, was an effort to lay the groundwork for future research on germs and ways to get rid of them. In a separate study, the university's Drs. Diane Pappas and Owen Hendley went germ-hunting on toys in the offices of five pediatricians in Fairfax, Va., three times during last year's cold and flu season. Tests showed fragments of cold viruses on 20 percent of all toys tested _ 20 percent of those in the "sick child" waiting room, 17 percent in the "well child" waiting room, and 30 percent in a sack of toys that kids are allowed to choose from after being good for a shot. "Mamas know this," Hendley said. "They say, `We go to a doctor for a well-child checkup, the kids play with the toys and two days later they have a cold.'" There is no proof that the remnants themselves can infect, but their presence suggests a risk, said Dr. Paul Auwaerter, an infectious-diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins University. He was familiar with the study but had no role in it.
Doctors have long advised frequent hand-washing to avoid spreading germs. Wearing surgical masks and using hand sanitizers also can help, a novel University of Michigan study found. About 1,000 students who live in dorms tested these measures for six weeks during the 2006-07 flu season. They were divided into three groups: those who wore masks, those who wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and those who did neither. The two groups who used masks reported 10 percent to 50 percent fewer cold symptoms _ cough, fever, chills _ than the group who used no prevention measures. Researchers note that the study was not "blinded" _ everyone knew who was doing what, and mask wearers may have been less likely to report cold symptoms later because they believed they were taking steps to reduce that possibility. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paid for the study. The conference was a joint meeting of the American Society for Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
