Is a Germ Free Home Healthy?

by Janet Shapan :

Everywhere I turn in today’s climate, I am assaulted from media and sometimes friends for using the wrong cleaners, using the right cleaners in the wrong way or not using them often enough to avoid disease and other germ-oriented contaminations.

Depending on who you listen to, there are now 300+ household cleaning and beauty products touting their germ killing prowess.  In the US alone, we spend something north of $1 Billion fighting the germ wars, hoping for protection and a healthier environment simultaneously.

Is the effort worth it?

Nobody is arguing the value of cleanliness.  Science and medicine have proven the value of good personal hygiene.  I just want to know how clean I really need to be and what products I should use to achieve a reasonable level of cleanliness.

Scientific American – Good Germs, Bad Germs

First, the bellicose screams of the antibacterial fighting products appear to offer no more value than good old fashioned soap and water according to studies.  And these products do not discriminate between what may be considered good bacteria versus the bad stuff. Playing on our fears is simply good marketing not necessarily fact based information.

What should not be readily dismissed however according to Stuart B Levy, a noted molecular biologist is and professor of medicine at Tufts University is “the big potential for risk.”  Levy warns that bacteria, both good and bad possess fantastic survival capabilities.  They have an incredible capacity to defend themselves and adapt.  And the fittest of the bacteria lot typically survive and pass their resistance skills to other bacteria launching a new more resilient strain.

Our urgent development of aggressive antibiotics may have created new strains of bacteria that are more than just resistant.  Some have labeled them “superbugs.”  Levy concedes that consumer cleaners have very low levels of germ killing chemicals but fears that excessive usage in the home could create the same “superbugs” that are showing up in hospital and laboratory settings.

What is the bottom to this fight?  For now more research is needed to clarify best products to use in the home and at what levels of usage is best but if science is ready to declare that antibacterial products offer little benefit in the fight and may in fact cause more severe problems in the future, then stop using them.  Stick to the basics.

About the Author

Janet Shapan, has been a publisher, writer and media designer in the special interest magazine and TV production business for over 25 years. A Boomer, her passion is identifying and sharing current innovations in health, wellness and other lifestyle categories of interest to Seniors. For more information on Senior Living, visit: http://For-Seniors.org