We need to take in germs in order to get resistance to them. So aren’t we don’t a disservice by washing our hands all the time? Obviously, we need to from time to time but not on the regular
I remember a Colbert Report guest advocating for this several years ago. I think his take was also that frequent hand washing destroys the natural good bacteria that live on your hands and keep your skin healthy. I think he was saying he only washes his hands when he knows they are contaminated. No precautionary pre-meal hand washing or anything like that.
So if I understand correctly, washing hands does several things–
- physical exfoliation, which removes some portion of the outer skin layer, along with any bacteria or micro-organisms riding along, 2) by using soap, a base is introduced which temporarily changes the pH of the skin’s natural acidic layer (which is defensive against germs), 3) soap being antibacterial in nature, additional bacteria that remain are killed.
So yeah, good question about how much of an impact frequent hand-washing makes in terms of healthy bacterial biome. I would speculate that in terms of the overall skin layer health, not much. But in terms of ingested germs, especially if one is eating with their hands, such as a sandwich, pizza, etc, I would guess there would be the bigger impact.
source: just a layperson!
I’ve seen a paper that showed that some useful bacteria were killed when you frequently wash your hands with soap. I’m surprised that it applies to general hand washing as well.