Hand sanitizer has become a staple in classrooms, offices, and homes all over the country. As you pass, you take a handful and feel instantly cleaner as you rub it into your skin. But it does more than kill the unhealthy germs on your hands – it kills the good bacteria, as well.
But don’t worry, CosmeticsDesign tells us – new technology is combining probiotics, known to have a positive affect on other organs but stretched to cover skin as well, with hand sanitizers to recolonize the skin with good bacteria. In addition, this technology can also be used to increase SPF in other products to save you from UV rays.
So keep using that sanitizer and don’t be concerned – you’re in good hands.
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yeah…. that’s not the only reason not to use hand sanitizers. If you were -trying- to create resistant strains of bacteria, it seems to me that unnecessary use of hand sanitizers would be a good way.
The people that compulsively use hand sanitizers are not, I think, going to want to re-colonize their hands, even if you tell them there is such a thing as beneficial bacteria. Unless you work in the healthcare field or have regular contact with someone who is immuno-compromised, you just shouldn’t be using them.
Totally agree with jillian.
I’m still confused by everyone using hand sanitizers though. I mean, I know I’m no crack team of scientists here, but I did my 6th grade science project on how effective antibacterial products were back when this stuff started booming. That was over 10 years ago and no matter how I tried the hand santizers just didn’t do squat. It was as effective as dumping rubbing alcohol on your hand which is to say, not much. Other products (kitchen cleaners in particular) worked great, but hand sanitizers didn’t kill a thing.
I don’t care. I’ll continue to use them. My best friend, whom passed away in 2005, had cystic fibrosis and the doctors wouldn’t let anyone near her without them using sanitizers first. So I got into the habit and I’m not going to break it.
I think there’s something with our culture that just makes us obsessed with thinking any germ is a bad germ. We are only hurting ourselves by using these antibacterial products by creating super-resistant strains. Yes, if you’re in a hospital, or around someone with a compromised immune system then antibacterial cleansers may be a good idea – but do you really need to use them anytime and everytime? No, that’s what soap is for.
Alcohol based sanitizers don’t create super bugs, that’s why they use them in hospitals. Hospitals already have to contend with super bugs so if alcohol based sanitizers encouraged that they’d be digging their own graves. But they are super drying though
Whenever I buy gas I take the small bottle of sanitizer from inside my car and hold it in my left hand while operating the machine and holding the gas hose with my right hand. As soon as I finish pumping the gas, replace the pump and replace the gas cap I squirt the sanitizer into my right hand. People put their hands in nasty places while driving their cars so I am sure to kill any germs I pick up from the pump handle and the touchpad.
*lol* Dang… What amazes me most about the mass fear created by the ever greedy medical community and media hype is that so many people are still buying into it! Regardless, if you insist on using antibacterial products, you should probably read this first: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/fda-sued-over-chemicals-in-consumer-products.html
It’s the anti-bacterial stuff in some hand sanitizers and soaps that are helping create super bugs like Triclosan.
After reading about some serious and deadly infections caused by super bugs, I’m sticking to plain soap now.
Wat?!!? Triclosan is not a super bug? I’m a dental hygiene student and so I have to be very careful about asepsis and bacterial contamination, blood borne pathogens etc. Triclosan is an antibacterial component in some toothpastes. Anyways I just took a very interesting course in microbiology and we did various experiments with different antiseptics and disinfectants. Interestingly when we swabbed “dirty” hands and then “clean” just washed hands, the “clean” hand swab culture displayed more growth than the dirty hand swab culture. The mechanical action of scrubbing disrupts the normally harmless microbial flora of your skin which actually includes Staph aureus thus exposing more bacteria to the swab on the “clean hands and creating the burst of growth when transferred to the culture medium. Not all bacteria is bad! In fact your skin and inside your body are teeming with bacteria that do not cause disease unless a broad spectrum antibiotic or obsessive use of hand sanitizer disrupts the delicate balance between good and pathogenic bacteria. Did you know that E. coli is a natural inhabitant of your gut? Probiotics sounds like a good direction to head in. Have you ever heard of opportunistic pathogens? Well when the normal microbial flora is killed off like when you take broad spectrum antibiotics you can develop a superinfection from an opportunistic microorganism like what happens in a yeast infection.
Probiotics would be more effective because normal hand sanitizers do not discriminate between good bacteria (whose mere presence can inhibit the growth of bad bacteria) and pathogenic bacteria. Normal hand sanitizers both good and bad which can cause the bad bacteria to take advantage of this opportunity to grow in place of the good bacteria. Probiotics on the other hand would not only kill off bad bacteria but also promote the growth of the good disease preventing bacteria.
I wonder if any company out there has thought of making acne treatments that contain probiotics. Don’t even know if that would work but just a thought
Sorry! I meant Triclosan was the anti-bacterial stuff.
As a frequent instant hand sanitizer user, it’s great to finally see a post that describes it as helpful! I’ve read many blog posts that claim hand sanitizers hardly help prevent the spread of germs and bacteria so this is a sigh of relief for me. The probiotics also encourage me to continue using my hand sanitizer at the gym and at work. Thanks for the useful info!