Follow Mom’s Advice: Wash Hands For Health

Howard Hughes was a genuine eccentric. He let his hair and fingernails grow to amazing lengths. He was so paranoid about germs he refused to shake people’s hands or touch doorknobs.
When this kind of germ phobia is carried to extremes, it can turn a person into a recluse like Howard Hughes. Even people who aren’t hermits may need psychiatric help if they wash their hands compulsively dozens of times a day.
But most Americans could stand to be a little more careful about handwashing. When asked, the majority of us claim to be diligent about washing before meals and after using the bathroom, just as Mom told us to do. But researchers actually observing people in public restrooms found that a lot of them hurried away without stopping to scrub. In 1996, 60 percent of those using a bathroom in New York’s Penn Station washed their hands before leaving. Four years later, only 49 percent did so.
Why does it matter? Most colds are spread by contact with germs left behind when someone stifled a cough or sneeze with a hand, and then touched the doorknob or the telephone receiver before washing up. Day care centers that are careful about handwashing after nose wipes and diaper changes and before snack preparation have lower rates of infection among children and staff.
Even more serious, some diseases are spread from patient to patient in hospitals when busy health professionals don’t take the time to scrub their hands. Those who do wash may skimp on suds time. And many patients are too intimidated by the hospital milieu to ask doctors, nurses and other personnel to wash first before any procedure.
Manufacturers use our national fear of germs to sell antibacterial soap. It has become ever more difficult to find liquid hand soap without an antibacterial agent, but a recent study found no long-term advantage in healthy people using antibacterial soap rather than regular soap. Just washing with soap and water for 15 seconds-long enough to sing the alphabet song or “Twinkle, twinkle little star”-dramatically reduces germs on hands.
Some hospitals have given up urging health professionals to use soap and water and are turning to a new technology for hand hygiene. Alcohol-based rinses don’t require anyone to stand at a sink and are just as effective as ordinary soap and water. Presumably because they are easy, health professionals appear more likely to use them between patients.
Using an alcohol-based cleanser in school can result in 20 percent fewer days absent because of illness. Perhaps this is because kids seem to like the squishy clear gel and actually use it more often than they usually wash with soap and water.
Most experts don’t recommend switching to waterless gels at home, though they are very convenient for travel. After you handle a menu or the buttons on an ATM machine, you might want to consider washing up, and the gels make it easier. If you opt for soap and water in a public restroom, use a paper towel to turn off the water and open the door to leave. Otherwise, you could acquire someone else’s leftover germs on your freshly washed hands.