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.
"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. 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. [End of report]
Well for me personally, the findings of so many species of bacteria on the hands wasn't really surprising. I know for a fact that a lot of people in this country doesnt wash their hand properly, and when I say properly, I mean washing their hands with soap as well. Most of the people here as far as Im concerned will only wash their hands without using the soap, and even worst, there are others who doesnt wash their hands at all after using the toilet. I mean that is really disgusting. Its OK with me if you dont want to use the soap but not to wash your hands at all is beyond disgusting I think. So it is no surprise that the study discovered many different species of bacteria on the hands of the people they did the study with, but I am quite surprise they found out that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men. There are no concrete proof yet that the reasons offered by the researchers can be link to the discovery or not, but I would like to think that is the case. I think that it would be unfair to say that women are much more lazier than men when it comes to washing their hand, though I always thought it is very much the opposite. I would not like to shift the focus on the topic a little bit and look at the bigger picture here, and that is the importance of washing your hand with the right steps.
This is an issue that is very close to me because Im a man who like to put my cleanliness as one of my priority in my life, and that means that I will always remember to wash my hand with soap everytime after I use the toilet or any other things that I touch or use that could get any bacteria on my hands such as the broom for example. So my question to you now is, how many of you actually wash your hands with soap after doing your business? The importance of washing your hands correctly should not be overlook at I think. I know some of you take such things very lightly because its not really that important to you as you can read from the report, the vast majority of the bacteria we have on our body are either harmless or beneficial. However, that doesnt mean you can forget about it entirely. That is why right now we have the Global Handwashing Day, which was started by the United Nations. It was celebrated for the first time ever in October this year and its main aim is to promote the practice of handwashing with soap, especially among the children in African countries and South Asian countries, where basic sanitation are very poor. Unicef says using soap to wash hands, particularly after contact with excreta, can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by over 40% and respiratory infections by 30% and this affect everyone not just the children.
I did some research and found out that according to a recent survey commissioned by hygiene products maker Unilever, three out of every 10 Singaporeans do not wash their hands after using the toilet. That for me is a worrying statistic. The least you could do after using the toilet is to wash your hand. I dont know why it is so difficult for people to do that. Its not as if our country is lacking of toilets especially in public places. Just go to any shopping mall or a coffeeshop and you can wash your hands with soap. I blame it on the laziness of our people. So remember guys to wash your hands with soap everytime after you use the toilet. According to the UN, washing hands with water alone is not enough because you fail to wash off the germs. And if you have smaller brother or sister, do educate them on the right way to wash their hands because they are the group that will be put at risk most if they are not told to do the right. I hope I have get the message across. Anyway if you want to know more about the Global Handwashing Day, you can visit its website at http://www.globalhandwashingday.org/ where you can find a lot of useful information about washing your hands with the right way.
*The report was taken from Associated Press.
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