[MTC Global] Obsession with cleanliness

Dear friends,

Good morning.

Our obsession with cleanliness.

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Warning: Being clean is bad for your health

Should we microwave our kitchen cloths to kill germs? Such is our concern over superbugs and killer viruses that many of us probably considered the idea put forward last week by U.S. scientists. But according to PROFESSOR CHARLES PENN, a microbiologist at the University of Birmingham, it's a waste of time and we should stop being so obsessive about cleanliness.

Creating a sterile environment is difficult, but we go to great lengths to try to achieve it. Only last week, I watched with some amusement as Gillian McKeith zipped herself into a hooded sleeping bag in an attempt to protect herself from the dust and dirt in one of her 'victim's' homes.

• Microwaves turn kitchen cloths into germ killers

It was a ridiculous thing to do and typical of our misinformed views on germs. Microbes are, by definition, so minute as to be invisible to the human eye. A sleeping bag offers no protection, as microbes float on tiny dust particles in the air.

Indeed, our mouths and intestines contain huge numbers of bacteria - far outnumbering the cells in our bodies - which are totally beyond our control.

But more important, there is no need to keep every spec of dust at bay. In fact, we need bacteria: they are essential for boosting our immune system, so it's lucky that we can't escape them entirely.

We're born with relatively naive immune systems, but as we mature and are exposed to the world at suggests that people who work in the abattoir industry, for instance, develop strong immunity to salmonella and E. coli because they come into contact with these bacteria while slaughtering animals. While I don't want to recommend wallowing in mud, at the other extreme, it's positively unhealthy to worry too much about cleaning.

I've seen people rub the handles and baby seats of supermarket trollies with antibacterial wipes before using them. This is going too far - and making someone a lot of money.

Antibacterial combat is becoming an industry in itself - the global market was valued at £13billion in 2004 - with companies keen to capitalize on people's fears of bacteria with pseudo science and mumbo jumbo. Most of these products don't do much harm - but they don't do much good, either. And some can potentially 'arm' germs even further.

Triclosan is a disinfectant used to impregnate kitchenware and was heavily promoted by Sainsbury's some years ago. It's now thought that if you overuse these disinfectants they lose their effectiveness and encourage other forms of antibacterial resistance.

Hygiene is important - we all know inadequate sanitation can lead to major health problems, as is seen in Third World countries. But we in the Western world are taking things too far. Sure, kitchen cloths can be a hazard if they're not properly washed after being used to wipe up meat blood.

My job involves studing E. coli and campylobacter, bacteria that can contaminate raw meat, and in the laboratory we have to clean according to particularly high standards to avoid infection.

We have to sterilise containers in flames, wipe up spillages with pure alcohol or oxidising disinfectants and dispose of cultures in an appliance-like a pressure cooker that heats everything to 121c.

But while I am careful in the kitchen about keeping implements and cloths clean, there's nothing sophisticated about my approach - I just wash them in hot soapy water and leave them to dry. And once or twice a week I soak them for an hour in bleach.

Detergents are perhaps the most important aspect of cleaning. Simply disinfecting without washing is not enough - disinfectants can't penetrate thick layers of grease and in fact can be deactivated by grease and other food debris.

Some chemicals used to defend us against bacteria, such as bleach, can also be harmful to humans.

It's certainly not necessary to put kitchen cloths in a microwave. In fact, this is probably not a terribly reliable way of killing bacteria since microwaves may not heat things evenly all the way through. And it's been recently reported that one man who did this actually set fire to the offending cloth.

The latest hygiene obsession is MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus). In fact, like so many other bacteria, this is all around us all the time.

It comes from humans and the majority of us harbour it in our noses - and now, many people carry the methicillin-resistant form, MRSA itself, as well. So it's pointless to buy anti-MRSA gels or wipes for use in the home.

And it doesn't usually affect people who are healthy - it's only people who have had serious surgery and therefore deep wounds which can be accessed by the microbes, or who are debilitated in some way, that are likely to become infected.

If people adhered to old-fashioned, Victorian standards of hand washing and regular cleaning with soap and disinfectant, and didn't allow dirt to build up, we'd all be better off.

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With regards,

 

Dr. K. Sampath Kumar,  B.A. (Economics), BGL, M.Com., M.Phil., Cert. A.I.I.B.,
                                        MBA (Finance), MBA (HR & Marketing),  ACS, FCMA, Ph. D.,
Professor, SSN School of Management
C/o. SSN College of Engineering
Rajiv Gandhi Salai (OMR)
KALAVAKKAM - 603110
Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu, India
Landline :  044-24860668
Mobile    :  9094405733
 
Success consists of getting up
just one more time than you fall
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