Spring Break
Germ warfare: Are we going over the top in our quest for cleanliness?
Issue date: 1/26/07 Section: Health
Originally published: 1/25/07 at 10:27 PM EST Last update: 1/25/07 at 10:27 PM EST
Infectious diseases have always been with us, Bell said. There's always been a risk of getting sick from tainted food or water, always the possibility of catching something from other people or animals.
But a lot has changed for the better. In the Civil War a soldier with an infected wound was likely to lose a limb or die. Now, we expect that antibiotics will defeat any infection. We expect clean drinking water. And there've been many improvements in "our hygiene infrastructure" the last couple of centuries, Bell said.
Yet we fret about germs.
This is fine with Bell, who said that as a society, we'd perhaps become a little too blase, "a little distanced from the realities of infectious diseases."
So, actually, those of us engaged in daily germ warfare — we who use tissues to touch door handles or make guests remove their shoes — might represent "a fairly reasonable return to normal thinking," Bell said.
But keep in mind that not all germs (a catch-all term for bacteria, viruses, fungi) are bad, and in any case you can't escape them, no matter how much Purell you slather on.
"Germs are everywhere," said Alan Salkind, a professor of medicine in the infectious diseases section at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. "They're in the air we breathe. They're in the water we drink. They're on the surfaces we touch. We share an environment with germs."
Your mouth, for example, is swarming with bacteria, hundreds and hundreds of microscopic living organisms. And to think you kiss your mother with that mouth.
But that's the way it's supposed to be.
"There's that balance between the (body's) healthy state and the germs," Salkind said. "They kind of coexist together."
Overall, our bodies are well equipped to fight bad germs. As we're exposed to them, we build up immunities to them. Even Kati Vanderhagen recognized that. "If you become too germ-phobic, you're going to end up having no antibodies and you will get sick," she said.
But a lot has changed for the better. In the Civil War a soldier with an infected wound was likely to lose a limb or die. Now, we expect that antibiotics will defeat any infection. We expect clean drinking water. And there've been many improvements in "our hygiene infrastructure" the last couple of centuries, Bell said.
Yet we fret about germs.
This is fine with Bell, who said that as a society, we'd perhaps become a little too blase, "a little distanced from the realities of infectious diseases."
So, actually, those of us engaged in daily germ warfare — we who use tissues to touch door handles or make guests remove their shoes — might represent "a fairly reasonable return to normal thinking," Bell said.
But keep in mind that not all germs (a catch-all term for bacteria, viruses, fungi) are bad, and in any case you can't escape them, no matter how much Purell you slather on.
"Germs are everywhere," said Alan Salkind, a professor of medicine in the infectious diseases section at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. "They're in the air we breathe. They're in the water we drink. They're on the surfaces we touch. We share an environment with germs."
Your mouth, for example, is swarming with bacteria, hundreds and hundreds of microscopic living organisms. And to think you kiss your mother with that mouth.
But that's the way it's supposed to be.
"There's that balance between the (body's) healthy state and the germs," Salkind said. "They kind of coexist together."
Overall, our bodies are well equipped to fight bad germs. As we're exposed to them, we build up immunities to them. Even Kati Vanderhagen recognized that. "If you become too germ-phobic, you're going to end up having no antibodies and you will get sick," she said.
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