A new study has found everyday objects such as telephones and kitchen faucets can transfer high levels of potentially dangerous bacteria to the hands. And from the hands, bacteria often end up on the lips. A related study by the same researchers found that oddly enough, you are more likely to contaminate your hands when making dinner than after using a public restroom.
In one of the studies, the researchers looked at coliform bacteria, including fecal coliforms, on the palms of volunteers' hands after making dinner, cleaning the house, doing laundry, using a public restroom, petting a dog or a cat, or returning home from elementary school.
In all cases except the last, the volunteers' hands were disinfected before the activity.Surprisingly, they found that people had the least amount of microorganisms on their hands after leaving a public restroom, while people had the most after making a meal.
After making a meal, cleaning the house ranked next with transferring the most bacteria, because people are touching objects contaminated by other family members.
Next came petting a dog or a cat (dogs transmitted the most germs of the two), returning home from school, doing the laundry (because of handling underwear), and using a public restroom.
In the other study, the investigators added a mixture of bacteria and a virus to everyday objects such as sponges and telephone receivers and found that telephone receivers and kitchen faucets transferred high numbers of the organisms to the hands.
Squeezing out a sponge transferred over 100,000 to a million organisms to the hands, they noted, while other activities such as cutting up a carrot and removing laundry from the washing machine transferred much less.
When they added the mix of organisms to volunteers' fingertips, they found that 35% to 40% were transferred to the mouth. This is a dose large enough to cause infection with organisms that cause colds and diarrhea.
The researchers said that they plan to use this information to calculate the daily risk of getting disease after handling these everyday objects. Although their studies did not specifically show that the contamination caused disease, Other studies have linked things like public toilets and day care centers to disease outbreaks.
Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology May 22, 2000 Los Angeles, CA
Some practical advice here on staying healthy. It is wise to reduce your bacterial exposure and this is best done by making sure your hands are clean after exposing them to items that might be contaminated.
This should be done with caution however in those with dry skin and in the winter as frequent washing will damage the skin which actually increases one's risk of developing an infection.
So it is best to keep your fingers away from your nose and your eyes and your mouth, because that's the simplest way to transfer these bacteria or viruses to you so you can get disease.