[snips and summaries]
More than 300 new infections emerged between 1940 and 2004, according to the journal Nature.
2008 study found three and a half times more bacteria on office computer mice compared with 2005. During cold and flu season, one third of office phones housed cold viruses.
Q: Is it true that it?s safe to eat food off the floor as long as it?s been less than five seconds?
A. Although the number of bacteria on the food did increase with time, potentially illness-causing contamination was virtually instantaneous. ?If you drop food, the best policy is not to eat it,? says Paul Dawson, Ph.D., professor in Clemson?s department of food science and human nutrition.
Q: If I take a sip of someone else?s wine, does the alcohol kill the germs?
A. Unfortunately, no. ?It?s the glass that?s more likely to transmit germs than the wine,? notes Harley Rotbart, M.D., a physician in Denver.
Q: Could smooching my puppy (or cat
) make me sick?
A. The American Veterinary Medical Association in Schaumburg, Illinois, warns against putting your mouth on any part of your pet. And wash your hands after handling Fido and his pooper-scooper, as well as his food and bedding, because pets may track germs in from outside.
Q: Is it bad, germwise, if I don?t dry my hands after washing them?
A. Germs love moisture and live longer on moist hands. ?Part of the benefit achieved by hand washing depends on adequate drying,? Dr. Rotbart says. ?Drying physically removes additional germs and takes away the favorable moist growth environment.? Paper towels are better at germ swiping than air dryers.
Q: What?s the single germiest surface that I touch on a daily basis?
A. Gerba cites home offices, teachers? desks and kitchen sinks ? which, due to contact with raw food, harbor more fecal bacteria than the toilet bowl!
You can never infect yourself. Your toothbrush is full of germs, but they are yours; replacing it frequently won?t help you avoid illness. ... if you catch a cold this winter, you can?t get sick again from the same germs. ?But disinfecting is important to protect others,? Dr. Rotbart says.
The (infective) dose varies with the germ: If only one hepatitis A virus gets past your defenses, it can make you sick (the upside: Most people develop immunity after one exposure). It would take as few as 20 cells of salmonella, many hundreds of cells of campylobacter and E. coli, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of the bacteria that cause typhoid and cholera.
Granted, some bacteria have worked out ways around our multiple lines of defense; because they reproduce every 20 minutes, they have had millions of generations to figure out strategies. The foodborne illness listeria, for instance, has adapted to technology: Although most bacteria prefer warm places, it grows best in food that is refrigerated. But even in this case, Dr. Tauxe notes, unless you are pregnant or otherwise immune-compromised, ?you could probably swallow a large number of listeria organisms of the most virulent kind and not become ill until you got up to around 1 billion or more cells ? and then it would give you only fever or diarrhea.?
Full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29166897/
More than 300 new infections emerged between 1940 and 2004, according to the journal Nature.
2008 study found three and a half times more bacteria on office computer mice compared with 2005. During cold and flu season, one third of office phones housed cold viruses.
Q: Is it true that it?s safe to eat food off the floor as long as it?s been less than five seconds?
A. Although the number of bacteria on the food did increase with time, potentially illness-causing contamination was virtually instantaneous. ?If you drop food, the best policy is not to eat it,? says Paul Dawson, Ph.D., professor in Clemson?s department of food science and human nutrition.
Q: If I take a sip of someone else?s wine, does the alcohol kill the germs?
A. Unfortunately, no. ?It?s the glass that?s more likely to transmit germs than the wine,? notes Harley Rotbart, M.D., a physician in Denver.
Q: Could smooching my puppy (or cat
) make me sick?A. The American Veterinary Medical Association in Schaumburg, Illinois, warns against putting your mouth on any part of your pet. And wash your hands after handling Fido and his pooper-scooper, as well as his food and bedding, because pets may track germs in from outside.
Q: Is it bad, germwise, if I don?t dry my hands after washing them?
A. Germs love moisture and live longer on moist hands. ?Part of the benefit achieved by hand washing depends on adequate drying,? Dr. Rotbart says. ?Drying physically removes additional germs and takes away the favorable moist growth environment.? Paper towels are better at germ swiping than air dryers.
Q: What?s the single germiest surface that I touch on a daily basis?
A. Gerba cites home offices, teachers? desks and kitchen sinks ? which, due to contact with raw food, harbor more fecal bacteria than the toilet bowl!
You can never infect yourself. Your toothbrush is full of germs, but they are yours; replacing it frequently won?t help you avoid illness. ... if you catch a cold this winter, you can?t get sick again from the same germs. ?But disinfecting is important to protect others,? Dr. Rotbart says.
The (infective) dose varies with the germ: If only one hepatitis A virus gets past your defenses, it can make you sick (the upside: Most people develop immunity after one exposure). It would take as few as 20 cells of salmonella, many hundreds of cells of campylobacter and E. coli, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of the bacteria that cause typhoid and cholera.
Granted, some bacteria have worked out ways around our multiple lines of defense; because they reproduce every 20 minutes, they have had millions of generations to figure out strategies. The foodborne illness listeria, for instance, has adapted to technology: Although most bacteria prefer warm places, it grows best in food that is refrigerated. But even in this case, Dr. Tauxe notes, unless you are pregnant or otherwise immune-compromised, ?you could probably swallow a large number of listeria organisms of the most virulent kind and not become ill until you got up to around 1 billion or more cells ? and then it would give you only fever or diarrhea.?
Full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29166897/