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The Winter Guide to Staying Healthy STORY BY

Karen Krakower

En Espanol

Headlines blaze with threats of long-overdue pandemic. We feel helpless and confused. But the Number One weapon against any infection is just a faucet away.

If you want to ward away most all infectious diseases, just return to your inner-child, and re-learn how Grandma taught you to wash your hands, say infectious disease experts at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

Americans have become obsessed with “germ-fighting” antibacterial, antimicrobial suds that promise disease-free living. And who can blame us? With recent shortages in flu vaccine, smarter flu viruses that mutate or worse—jump species barriers (let’s not even list the bacteria strains...) we feel primed for plague.

But all the super-soaps on the shelves can’t help us if we just wash them down the drain. They may even be creating unnecessary and hazardous bacterial resistance, similar to that of oral antibiotics.

“The average household does not need antibacterial agents on their hands as much as they need plain soap, water and a refresher course on hand-washing,” says Edward Septimus, clinical professor of medicine at UT Medical School at Houston, and medical director at Memorial Hermann Healthcare System.

No study has yet to prove that the addition of actual antibacterial agents to our soaps has reduced disease transmission in our homes. In fact, according to several studies, they may be inhibiting our natural immune responses to ordinary exposure to everyday bacteria.

Clean Hands 101

“The key to bacterial reduction on your hands and body is in the length of time you vigorously wash,” Septimus says.

Are we too clean for our own good?

There is concern that we have now succeeded in breeding super-germs that are becoming resistant to antimicrobial agents because of our overuse of some them. “Triclosan is the ingredient that has shown some concern,” Septimus says.

Researchers used to believe that ticlosan, available according to some reports in up to 75 percent of all store-bought soaps and detergents, killed bacteria in a broad-based way, similar to alcohol or bleach. But later studies showed that triclosan worked more like an antibiotic, targeting a specific gene in the E. coli bacteria, for instance, that prevented it from replicating, but resistance has developed to triclosan.

Though hospitals have used antibacterial agents for years to prevent the spread of bacteria, including resistant bacteria, it is the explosion of the home market that might be creating the problem. “It used to be that resistant bacteria was somewhat relegated to hospital settings. We used strong antibacterial agents in a specifically targeted area. The average home does not need to be using these bigger weapons to fight household pathogens. In this case, we might be creating a resistance to bacteria that wasn’t even a problem in homes in the first place.”

We have to remember that bacteria predate the human being. Bacteria are everywhere, and some forms of it are actually helpful to us, even necessary for our very survival.

“What you have to look for before you get paranoid is if there are any major outbreaks. When we see mushrooming outbreaks in a focal area, [like a meningitis outbreak in just one school] then there is something we need to be concerned about. But the average home is loaded with resident and transient bacteria that simple soap and vigorous hand-washing can quell.”

Last Updated: 11-04-2005