With the beginning of the winter upon us, it is that time of year in which the common cold/the flu are likely to occur. Two good ways to try to prevent the spread of illness is washing your hands with soap and water thoroughly or, using alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Both can reduce your risk of spreading the common cold but, could partaking in both reduce the risk even more?
Researchers in New Zealand set up an experiment to discover just this. These researchers got 68 primary schools, consisting of over 2,400 students, to participate in the experiment which lasted around 20 weeks. All of the students had to attend a 30 minute hygiene class. The research split the 68 schools into two controlled groups. One half had to wash their hands with soap and water. The other half washed their hands with soap and water as well but in addition, this group had to use hand sanitizer before they ate a meal, sneezed or coughed. Whenever a student missed school, the school had to find out if it was due to illness.
Over the 20 week period the amount of absences due to illness were extremely similar between the two groups. The results show that, in areas in which there is clean water, using hand sanitizer after washing your hands with soap and water does not add any additional medical benefits. This is not to take away any significance from hand sanitizer however. If clean water and soap is not available to someone hand sanitizer is a great second option. Overall, anything to reduce the spread of germs and illness is a good thing.
References
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/12/hand-sanitizer-doesnt-help-in-schools/
I have always be on the fence between whether to use hand sanitizer or hand soap and water. Hand sanitizer ads state that it kills 99.9% of germs and who wouldn’t want to believe that? I liked that they did a control group and did it with children. When I sometimes think of children, I think of toys with germs on them and their little greedy hands that need to touch everything! I think if you use a good amount of soap and knew how to properly wash your hands (i.e. for how long and where germs hind the most) there can be benefits from just soap and water. In a previous comment, disadvantages of hand sanitizer was listed. But then I found a website here: http://time.com/96112/why-im-breaking-up-with-hand-sanitizer/ that stated soap may have a problem of its own. Triclosan, a synthetic compound found in soaps, deodorants, even toothpaste, may have health issues of its own. Bacteria and germs could sit around on this soap, increasing everyday. Therefore, how can I truly know which one is safer?
For some reason I always believed that washing our hands with soap and water is the best way in getting rid of germs. I find hand sanitizers a bit gross because I feel like the germs still remains on our hands. So imagine my surprise at the result of the experiment, hand sanitizers actually have the same affect as soap and water. From your blog I like how you mentioned that the study group consists of 2,400 students. This is a very large study group and it makes the experiment more accurate. However, because this experiment is an observational study, we can’t rule out the possibility of response bias, which can lead to inaccuracies. At the end of your blog, you mentioned that in areas without clean water, hand sanitizers are great second choices. I agree with your statement and I hope organizations like Unicef can donate hand sanitizers to these areas. Good job on the blog post!
Are there possibly negative effects to hand sanitizer since it is not natural like water is? Yes. The smell can be toxic, alcohol levels can be too high, it can be extremely harmful if someone swallowed some on accident and it can damage skin. Here is some info about this: http://www.thehealthsite.com/diseases-conditions/hand-sanitizers-9-reasons-you-should-think-before-using-them/
I do not think that hand sanitizer are that good. They lower our resistance to disease and they are supposed to be used in emergency cases instead of a substitute to soap. Hand sanitizer kills all the germs on people’s hands. The concentration of alcohol in a bottle has to be above 60%, which is why people have to read the content before buying them because if it’s not above 60%, it does not have the same effect.
In this article, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/health/21cons.html?_r=0
Scott Reynolds’s did an experiment about hand sanitizer, you should take a look at it!
Hand-washing and cleanliness are extremely important this time of year because cold and flu season is in full swing, and a new strain of Norovirus is circulating. Hand sanitizing isn’t the same as washing your hands but it is definitely a great second option. I checked out WebMD to further research the effects of hand sanitizer and Aaron E. Glatt, MD, executive vice president of Mercy Medical Center said, ”Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are clearly a very useful and important method to prevent most bacterial and viral infections, with rare exceptions,”. (http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20130208/hand-sanitizers-germs) The one thing I have a problem with is I believe some hand sanitizers aren’t as effective as publicized. In my microbiology class we learned that anti-bacterial hand sanitizers were losing effect because the bacteria are getting used to and becoming immune to the hand sanitizer (much like antibiotics). I still think that washing your hands frequently is your best bet to stay healthy this flu season because you are basically brushing the germs off.
Very interesting, I was unaware that water and soap could eliminate 99.9% germs as it’s counterpart hand sanitizer advertises. But for the study, would the type/brand of hand sanitizer have an impact on how much germs it eliminates. The part of the study i’m having a hard time understanding is that, how could hand cleansing be correlated to sickness, per se if it was a virus of sort.
I found an article that supports your theory. When it comes to bacteria and germs, “size matters” according to this article (http://info.debgroup.com/blog/bid/270757/Hand-Washing-or-Hand-Sanitizer-Which-is-Better-and-Why). Some bacteria picked up by hands can be very large (in terms of microscopic organisms) and sanitizer easily takes care of this. However, for smaller pathogens, vigorous hand-washing can remove them from hiding within the small cracks and crevices in your hand. Obviously, a poor hand-washing job will not be better than hand sanitizer in this case, but people should definitely consider washing their hands frequently as the best alternative to avoid getting sick.
I never thought about this topic, which is extremely interesting to me. So now I know (even though I don’t think I would ever perform this) to not waste hand sanitizer after I wash my hands. Did you read anything about if washing your hands was better than hand sanitizer? Because it seems that you suggested hand sanitizer is the “second best” option. I found an article on the disadvantages of hand sanitizer here: http://www.livestrong.com/article/94967-disadvantages-hand-sanitizers/ . However, I didn’t read anything about potential drawbacks of washing your hands! Very interesting post.