People would do everything necessary to keep themselves healthy and they don’t want to get sick. For this reason, hygiene could take a big part of their daily attention. We touch many things with our hands and fingers; making them among the dirtiest parts of our body. Most of the time, bacteria on our hands are relatively harmless and won’t cause real problems when ingested. But in areas where potential diseases are more rampant, it is a good idea for us to keep our hands clean. Consumers are spending billions of dollars for anti-germ products. These products are available in many forms, including as liquid/bar soaps, jellies, creams and others.
Numerous tests have shown that these products will never be able to completely kill germs on our hands. We should be aware that it’s actually quite “unnatural” to have germ-free hands. For millennia people have bacteria-infested hands; so we shouldn’t be too concerned with this. Sanitizing our hands are essential for specific situations, such as doctors before handling patients, before eating something, before handling infants and others. However, there is no real hazard of having “normally” dirty hand, if we don’t plan to use our hands for eating or handling something delicate.
We should be aware that some manufacturers may use lethal chemicals in their antibacterial products. It is questionable whether these substances are safe for us. We may use the product before eating something, making it possible for us to ingest harmful chemicals. In fact, bacteria on our hands could be less harmful than the chemicals in antibacterial products. Soaps may also have anti-bacterial substances, but much of the bacteria will be swept away by water. Also, anti-bacterial substances can’t kill viruses. However, most of bacteria on our hand reside on dried mucus and other organic traces that can provide these microorganisms with sources of food.
We can rub our hands vigorously to scrape away any traces of oil and organic materials. The water will remove the bacteria, leaving our hands relatively clean. It is also recommended to use liquid soap, than bar soap. Bacteria may reside in bacteria soap, although it contains anti bacterial substances. Some organic matter could shield bacteria from direct contact with the antibacterial substances in soap. With liquid soap, we can make sure that the soap inside a closed contained is protected against repeated contamination. Also, anti-bacterial cream and gel products are less effective in killing small organisms.
It is much better to involve clean water in the process. It can mechanically remove germs from the surface of our hands. Much of the nuisance that we get from bacteria is foul body odor and more serious skin illnesses due to bacteria don’t occur to average people. Other than regularly using antibacterial substance, we should also make sure that we have the proper immunity to destroy bacteria when it enters our body. Skin is the first line of defense against microorganisms and it does it jobs really well. Our defense system also requires strong internal immunity system and this is something that we need to consider.