Wash your hands: Motherly advice supported by science

When I was a child, my mother used to frequently remind me to wash my hands before eating dinner. Sometimes I ignored her advice. It seemed hard for me to believe at the time that there were “invisible” germs that lived on my hands that could potentially make me sick. My mother was a school nurse and was always giving me advice about my health that bordered on nagging. Today, I know that Mother was not only right about handwashing, but that her advice may have saved my life.

A recent article in the American Chemical Society’s PressPac reinforced this motherly advice. It describes a new scientific study showing a connection between fecal bacteria contamination on hands, fecal contamination of stored drinking water, and health in households in a developing country in Africa. The bottom line of the article is that handwashing can prevent the spread of waterborne diseases. That’s big news for the almost half of the world’s population — over three  billion people — who have no access to municipal drinking water supply systems. They obtain drinking water from wells, springs, and other sources, and store it in jugs and other containers in their homes. Past research showed that this stored water can have higher levels of bacterial contamination than its source.  

Although most people in the United States are fortunate to have access to fresh, decontaminated drinking water, handwashing is an important practice for preventing the spread of dangerous germs. So science proves that Mother was right after all!

 Image courtest of iStock