Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but the way we wash our hands is certainly not going to destroy many germs. Despite the national preoccupation with staying germ-free, especially during flu season, microbial expert Dr. Bill Miller told C2C on 9/1/15 that traditional hand washing may not be the answer. Most people wash for a few seconds under hot water with a bar of soap and think that'll do the trick.
Not so, Dr. Miller told George. The only way to thoroughly clean-up is to vigorously scrub for a full 20 seconds. The only people who actually do that (and more) are doctors preparing for surgical procedures, he said. And instead of isolating yourself in a seemingly sterile environment, we're better off getting exposed to all kinds of microbial organisms to build up an immunity. Children in the old days used to play in the dirt, subjecting themselves to anything and everything. But with modern "child proofing" there's said to be a marked increase in childhood asthma and other ailments, Dr. Miller noted.
While we may have billions of microbes and bacteria crawling all over us and inside - the "microcosm within" - Dr. Miller explained that this "vast constellation of life" actually helps keep humanity alive despite Nature's many attempts to destroy us. For more, listen to the 9/1/15 show in its entirety. Not yet a Coast Insider? Sign up here.