just to add, my phsycology teacher once told me the biggest plasebo in american is germ-x

strains of bacteria have grown so strong that germ-x is useless but people say it still works. If anything, it's fucking with our hormonal process

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1) If you are going to wash your hands for under 30 seconds, it is best to use cold water - Warm water opens your pores and makes your hands sweat, which increases bacterial growth.

2) Washing your hands increases the amount of bacteria in average settings, because the majority of people do not dry their hands well enough. When you leave the washroom with damp hands after a light rub with a paper towel, or if you plan to air dry, you will wind up with more bacteria on your hands.

3) If you're going to touch the paper towel dispenser afterwards, don't even bother. Dispense towel, and THEN wash your hands, then grab the towel.

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In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed.

You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

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Facts about washing hands (based on testing I have conducted by swabbing samples are incubating them to grow bactera)

1) If you are going to wash your hands for under 30 seconds, it is best to use cold water - Warm water opens your pores and makes your hands sweat, which increases bacterial growth.

2) Washing your hands increases the amount of bacteria in average settings, because the majority of people do not dry their hands well enough. When you leave the washroom with damp hands after a light rub with a paper towel, or if you plan to air dry, you will wind up with more bacteria on your hands.

3) If you're going to touch the paper towel dispenser afterwards, don't even bother. Dispense towel, and THEN wash your hands, then grab the towel.

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That is very interesting. So, even though warm/hot water activates the suds better, you think cold water would work well enough and all the more to getting rid of bacteria? A good tip on the paper towel dispensing, also.

So, even though you may have experienced increased bacteria growth for latter options, do you know if that bacteria was bad in the first place, considering most bacteria is beneficial? Interesting study though.

The benefit of hand washing all depends on your environment. If you spend your life in a room filled with nothing but salmonella and mycobacterium tuberculosis, you'd better be washing all the time. If you live in the average environment, but you think you've touched something especially contaminated, it might be a good idea to wash. However, if you go out for a walk in the woods and get covered in friendly bacteria, then go home and soak your body in rubbing alcohol, you're just going to get sick faster if you then go to the hospital and have someone cough up blood on you. There would be no good bacteria on your skin to protect you.

It's easy to really screw yourself up with careless washing. You can see this in people with acne problems. They're told that if they keep their skin absolutely sterile, the acne will go away. Of course, your skin is never supposed to be absolutely sterile, but they wash in irritating detergents and antibacterial soaps in chlorinated water which causes their skin to become oily while attempting to protect itself. Then they dry their faces on towels that sat in the dark all day which is infected with the superbugs that survived the last wash, then they go for a nap in their nice dark bedroom on an oily p. acnes infected bed. Guess what happens!?

Post edited at 2:02 pm on Oct. 18, 2008 by shadowpool

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You create your past.

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Quote: from 4est at 10:26 pm on Oct. 17, 2008

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Facts about washing hands (based on testing I have conducted by swabbing samples are incubating them to grow bactera)  

 1) If you are going to wash your hands for under 30 seconds, it is best to use cold water - Warm water opens your pores and makes your hands sweat, which increases bacterial growth.  

 2) Washing your hands increases the amount of bacteria in average settings, because the majority of people do not dry their hands well enough. When you leave the washroom with damp hands after a light rub with a paper towel, or if you plan to air dry, you will wind up with more bacteria on your hands.  

 3) If you're going to touch the paper towel dispenser afterwards, don't even bother. Dispense towel, and THEN wash your hands, then grab the towel.

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That is very interesting. So, even though warm/hot water activates the suds better, you think cold water would work well enough and all the more to getting rid of bacteria? A good tip on the paper towel dispensing, also.

So, even though you may have experienced increased bacteria growth for latter options, do you know if that bacteria was bad in the first place, considering most bacteria is beneficial? Interesting study though.

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The most significant increases were in yellow bacteria (which comes from finger oils) and mold (which does not and is bad).

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In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed.

You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

 But I kind of forgot why.
 It doesn't go back to your hands that easily though. I mean, imagine: If money had dropped into a toilet bowl, most people would pick it up. Think about all the bacteria your hand is in contact with and when you brush your hand across a small tiny wound in your skin the bacteria gets in and you get infection.
 Even if they move right back...at least the amount doesn't grow bigger and bigger, since basically most of bacteria is harmless. And who knows when a harmful bacteria gets onto you?

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Crunchy leaves.

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Quote: from Vintorez at 2:03 pm on Oct. 15, 2008

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yes, its common sense, theres your evidence

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Wrong. Common sense is not evidence, common sense is biased superior reasoning.

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yes and you're inferior, now go wash your dirty hands

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American badman in England

1. Shocker: normal soap doesn't kill the bacteria on our hands. Not even "antibacterial" soap. It washes them off which is all soap is intended to do. If you intend on killing the microorganisms on your hands, use Purel or Isagel with high alcohol content. This is the only way to gain temporary sterility on your hands. There are harsh detergents that can lyse cells but we run into problems using those on our hands since they are made of cells as well...

2. A bacteria called S. aureus is present in/on our skin all the time. It is the so called "yellow" bacteria that hokie mentioned. There is no way nor reason to get rid of it. For the most part, it is utterly harmless and outcompetes other microorganisms that are potentially harmful.

3. Let's consider the scenario in which you wash your hands with warm water, no soap. If you do a swab and grow the bacteria you will find more bacteria than before. Why? Because while you may wash off the bacteria that were on the surface of your dead skin cells, you are revealing the live tissue underneath the dead skin cells which contains many times more bacteria. However, you must keep in mind that the bacteria already present inside your skin is harmless; the random bacteria you pick up from doorknobs or whatever, which gets washed off, may potentially be harmful. Now you do it with cold water and no soap. Same thing. Now you do it with soap, both cold and warm, same thing. The only thing that will decrease the bacterial count is using hand sanitizers with high alcohol % as I mentioned earlier.

The following ideas are wrong:
1. You are killing the bacteria on your hands by washing them.
2. You should wash your hands with cold water if you wash less than 30 seconds in order to decrease harmful bacterial counts.
3. Washing your hands increases bacterial counts because you aren't drying your hands properly. Drying has nothing to do with it. It's the fact that you are revealing living tissue underneath dead skin cells.

Edit:  Keep in mind that bacteria are but one of very many more harmful things you need to worry about.  You may be picking up various chemicals that could be damaging.  Hand washing will remove many of these.  If you're dealing with livestock or anything outside, really, you have to worry about parasites.  Their eggs are extremely resilient and microscopic; washing will remove them.  Washing your hands is a good idea for many more reasons than bacteria.

Post edited at 11:10 pm on Oct. 25, 2008 by Bobman21

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As I walk through the valley of death, I fear no one, for I am the meanest mother fu*ker in the valley. -Gen. Patton

Washing your hands (soap and cold/warm water) only increases bacterial count. Hand sanitizer with alcohol removes bacteria which could also include the removal of other nasty chemicals you don't really want on your skin that aren't beneficial. It does not kill the bacteria, simply removes some. So, washing your hands, overall, doesn't make a difference? Now, let's say the hand sanitizer removes some bad bacteria and other nasty stuff, but does it also remove some beneficial bacteria as well? Enough so to counter the removal of bad?

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Washing your hands (soap and cold/warm water) only increases bacterial count.

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Yes, but keep in mind that we are strictly talking about bacterial count.  The statement makes no claim about what kinds of bacteria are found among this count.  The truth is that while you may get a diverse range of bacteria before you wash your hands, after hand washing you will end up with essentially all one type of bacteria: S. aureus which, again, is for the most part, harmless.  You will never be able to (nor would you ever want to) remove it from your body

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Hand sanitizer with alcohol removes bacteria which could also include the removal of other nasty chemicals you don't really want on your skin that aren't beneficial.

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Yes the hand sanitizer will kill the bacteria but no it will not necessarily remove nasty chemicals.  Hand sanitizer is just the stuff you rub on your hands (the way you would with moisturizer), except that it dries quickly.  Since there is no rinsing that occurs, anything that was there initially will also remain there.  The bacteria technically remain there as well, it's just that they're dead

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So, washing your hands, overall, doesn't make a difference? Now, let's say the hand sanitizer removes some bad bacteria and other nasty stuff, but does it also remove some beneficial bacteria as well? Enough so to counter the removal of bad?

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Washing your hands does make a difference.  It will remove foreign bacteria but it just allows native bacteria to surface.  So you are in essence allowing the harmless bacteria to survive while ridding yourself of potentially harmful, foreign bacteria.  Hand sanitizer will kill some of those but remember that your skin tissues are rather thick and there are bacteria living throughout.  It would be impossible to kill them all.  So it will kill everything including the foreign bacteria, but the native ones, again, will simply replace their lost cousins and continue to live on you in peace and harmony while the potentially bad ones will go away.  Hand washing makes a difference but it is a fallacy to assume that it makes a difference because it's killing the bacteria.

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As I walk through the valley of death, I fear no one, for I am the meanest mother fu*ker in the valley. -Gen. Patton