…one of the most powerful weapons against the new H1N1 virus is summed up in a three-word phrase you first heard from your mother: wash your hands.<\/p>\n
A host of recent studies have highlighted the importance and the scientific underpinning of this most basic hygiene measure. One of the most graphic was done at the University of California, Berkeley, where researchers focused video cameras on 10 college students as they read and typed on their laptops.<\/p>\n
The scientists counted the times the students touched their faces, documenting every lip scratch, eye rub and nose pick. On average, the students touched their eyes, noses and lips 47 times during a three-hour period, once every four minutes.<\/p>\n
Hand-to-face contact has a surprising impact on health. Germs can enter the body through breaks in the skin or through the membranes of the eyes, mouth and nose.<\/p>\n
The eyes appear to be a particularly vulnerable port of entry for viral infections, said Mark Nicas, a professor of environmental health sciences at Berkeley. Using mathematical models, Dr. Nicas and colleagues estimated that in homes, schools and dorms, hand-to-face contact appears to account for about one-third of the risk of flu infection, according to a report this month in the journal Risk Analysis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thanks to the fact that I don’t have a face-touching habit, I manage to stay extremely healthy… it’s rare for me to catch a cold and even rarer to contract the “24 hour flu” or other enteric “bugs”.\u00a0 But it’s equally rare for people to be this fastidious – for example, the students in the study discussed above\u00a0touched their faces approx. once every 4 minutes!\u00a0 I notice\u00a0this behavior\u00a0all the time in places that are “high risk”, too, like at the grocery store, my daughter’s school, and – of course – the gym.<\/p>\n
The gym is an especially risky place.\u00a0 Let’s face it, it’s filthy: countless people throughout the day grip the dumbbells, barbells and handles on the various machines.\u00a0 No matter how often the equipment is wiped down, there’s no way to keep the surfaces (especially those knurled bars) clean and (relatively) germ-free.\u00a0 Yet people seem oblivious to the risk: I often see\u00a0them rubbing the sweat off their faces with their hands, fumbling with the mouthpieces of their water bottles, or popping a stick of gum into their mouths.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Needless to state, I\u00a0NEVER leave the gym without thoroughly scrubbing my grubby paws, and I repeat the process when I get home.\u00a0 Ditto other public areas: supermarkets\/stores, restaurants, etc.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So do yourself a favor this Fall\/Winter: a)\u00a0\u00a0make an effort to keep\u00a0your hands away from your face; and b) do plenty of hand washing – particularly in public areas where viruses are likely to be spread via commonly handled surfaces. This isn’t paranoia – it’s plain common sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From a personal health perspective, I was fortunate in my choice of career…\u00a0since I\u00a0worked with bacteria, viruses, animal blood\/tissue samples and a large number of hazardous chemicals,\u00a0I rapidly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,28],"tags":[41,397,795,1177,1207,1600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2626"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9668,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions\/9668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}