Excessive Hygiene And Resistance To Antibiotics
Recent research has linked excessive cleaning to increased resistance to drugs against viruses and bacteria. Find out why here.
Did you know that the number of people who get seriously ill and even die from antibiotic resistance is increasing every year around the world? In this article, we will tell you how excess hygiene influences this circumstance.
Antibiotic resistance and excessive hygiene
Before delving directly into this topic, it is important to conclude what exactly excess hygiene is. The reality is that this term is difficult to define but, in general, it is considered to be an excess of personal hygiene in the following :
- Constantly wash your hands.
- Take several showers per day without justification.
This circumstance could lead to a loss of functionality of our immune system, i.e. the skin loses its protective barrier and is exposed to all kinds of bacteria.
And what about household hygiene? Constant cleaning with the same products could generate a habit of pathogens and therefore develop resistance to them.
What is antibiotic resistance?
Antibiotic resistance occurs when they stop working against microorganisms, that is, pathogens “get used to” the drugs.
Usually, this situation occurs because of habitual use of antibiotics (and even abuse of them ). One way or another, bacteria lose their sensitivity and to fight them you have to resort to increasingly aggressive substances.
In recent years, mutations have appeared in microorganisms increasingly resistant to antibiotics. For example, in 2016, the newspaper El País published the story of a woman in the United States with a UTI that was resistant to the strongest antibiotic in existence.
The UK Department of Health has requested a situation analysis on antibiotic resistance. This analysis, known as the Antimicrobial Resistance Review, took two years and from there some interesting data can be extracted:
- Drug resistant infections are on the rise.
- About 50,000 people die each year in Europe and the United States from infections resistant to antibiotics.
- At least 700,000 people worldwide die of bacterial infections, AIDS or tuberculosis as a result of this problem.
- Resistance to the drug is said to complicate routine surgeries and long-term minor infections.
We have established that antibiotic resistance is a significant problem that endangers global public health. But what is the relationship with excess hygiene?
Relationship between excessive hygiene and drug resistance
A study by the Graz University of Technology (Austria) compared existing microorganisms and antibiotic resistance in the intensive care unit of the University Hospital Graz. The conclusions were striking:
In other words, one could consider that extreme hygiene could be counterproductive. The research mentioned above advises maintaining stable microbial diversity to counter the spread of antibiotic resistance. But how could this stability be achieved?
Experts suggest that instead of using a large amount of cleaning agents, it would be interesting to place indoor plants and regularly renew the air. In this way, bacterial diversity would be improved while the development of resistance to cleaning products would be avoided.
Regarding antibiotics, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends avoiding taking antibiotics not prescribed by a doctor and asking for medication when it is not necessary, and on the contrary to wash your hands as the main way to avoid infections.
Don’t overdo it when washing your hands. You risk removing the protection from your skin and making yourself more vulnerable. The same goes for cleaning your home: keep it clean, but don’t go overboard! The presence of certain bacteria helps us keep our immune system strong. In the long term, he would thus be in better health.
