• Question: Hi if is better for immune system to have your hands super clean or a little bit dirty?

    Asked by pandaboy to Mark, Sarah, Panos, Michael, MarkF on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      I would say a little bit dirty, as long as the dirt does not contain any really nasty bacteria

      Our immune systems need to see bacteria to prepare defenses against them, so if we don’t ever see them we’ll be causght unprepared and have a far more serious illness

      also there are lots of protective oils on the skin that are washed away if kept super clean, plus we have found that if you put your hands on an agar plate, then wash your hands and place you hands on another agar plate, more bacteria of certain types grow after washing beacuse thy’ve been pulled out of the skin

      Generally our skin is a fantastic barrier to bacteria and as long as you wash your hands before eating , a bit of dirt is better in my opnion

    • Photo: Panos Soultanas

      Panos Soultanas answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hi, it shouldn’t really matter that much. The middle ground is always the best. Just normal hand hygiene should be fine.

    • Photo: Sarah Burl

      Sarah Burl answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      In my opinion a little bit of dirt is good but this depends on the type of bugs that are in the dirt. It is very important to wash your hands after going ot the toilet or when you have been out playing in mud and dirt but I would eat a biscuit that has been dropped on the floor if picked up immediately. In school if one person has a cold and doesn’t wash their hands after using a tissue then they could easily spread the virus onto door handles and then to others in the school therefore it is better to keep you hands clean to not get the same cold. However getting the cold would also mean that you would build up immunity to this strain of the virus and not get it again so there are benefits to being super clean and benefits to allowing yourslef to get certain, not so dangerous infections. In addition If you get a cold then your immune system is working hard to get rid of it which means it is more vulunerable to getting other infections such as a bacterial infection. Have you ever had another infection after getting a cold where the doctor has given you antibiotics? That is called a ‘secondary (bacterial) infection’ which can happen when the primary infection is a cold (which is a viral infection).

    • Photo: Mark Travis

      Mark Travis answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Well, there is an idea that is very popular with a lot of scientists called the ‘hygiene hypothesis’. It is used to explain the fact that in most countries in the Western world, in recent years there has been a massive increase in the number of people who have allergies in inner cities whereas this isn’t seen in people who live in more rural areas (i.e. on farms). Some scientists claim that this is due to us being too clean now-a-days; children in inner cities today don’t see as many bacteria and other microbes as kids in older days, as people are more careful about sterilising everything and keeping everything super clean. So, when the immune system sees an allergen like pollen or nuts, it goes crazy and causes an allergic reaction. Whereas people in less developed countries (and those on farms) don’t live in such a clean environment (so they say), so their immune systems are tickled all through childhood. So, when they see something that can cause an allergy, they ignore it.
      Bit complicated I know, but basically there are a lot of people who think we are too clean now-a-days…… but we have to be careful because if we aren’t clean enough we can get infected with microbes that can really make us ill as well!! I think there is some truth to us being too clean, but wouldn’t recommend letting babies roll about in the mud…..

    • Photo: Mark Fogg

      Mark Fogg answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      It depends what you’ve been doing with your hands 😉

      Seriously though
      The short answer to your question is probably ‘a little bit dirty’

      The longer answer tells you why I think that.
      It’s a mistake to try and make yourself sterile. You need bugs in your body to help you live properly and the current research suggests that if you are not exposed to bugs, your immune system doesn’t work as it should. The immune system is like the brain, it learns and gets better from experience, but if that experience starts too late in life, it doesn’t learn properly. This can lead to an over reaction of the system when you encounter things that are just irritating rather than dangerous, and could be why there is an increase in allergies. The immune systems of people with allergies can’t tell the difference between the mild irritation of pollen, for example, and a real infection, their immune systems didn’t learn the difference when they were very young; it reacts the wrong way to the wrong thing.
      However, it’s important to wash your hands before a meal, after going to the loo and when you’ve coughed or sneezed. It’s not nice to pass on bugs to other people if you can help it, especially if there is something like the recent outbreak of swine flu going around. You wouldn’t want someone to get ill and die, just because you couldn’t be bothered washing your hands.

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