Awash in advice…

There’s no way you can walk around these days without being reminded to wash your hands and not touch your face. And with very good reason. But why is this? Our hands seem pretty clean, right? Washing after using the bathroom or before preparing food, sure, but why more often than that? What is it that makes washing our hands so important?

It turns out there are microbes all over the place, they get on our hands, and then we touch our face. That’s the short story. There are basically two ways to stop those bugs that would do us harm. The first is to decrease the amount of bacteria, viruses, and other types of microorganisms attached to you. We do this by lathering with soap and rinsing with water. Soap’s chemistry helps remove microorganisms from our hands by accentuating the slippery properties of our own skin.

Soap can also kill the container of some viruses, which is the second strategy. The second strategy is to kill the microbes. We do this by using products with an antibacterial agent such as alcohols, chlorine, peroxides, etc. However, these all work differently, depending on the bug involved. 

There’s a clear need to be washing our hands regularly, but it’s important to note that the presence of some microbes isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact many of the microbes that live on or within us are essential for our health. We live in a microbial world and the trillions of these little things are very useful for our overall health.

The bottom line is that washing with plain-old soap and water is a very effective way to keep the good microbes in and the bad ones out. Stay healthy, eat good food, wash your hands and brush your teeth, of course! Call us today to schedule an appointment so we can keep our good habits and stay healthy inside and out.