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Taking Showers Can Be Harmful To Your Health
TheClockworkSoul writes "According to both the BBC and NewScientist, showering may be bad for your health. Apparently, dirty shower heads can be an ideal breeding ground for Mycobacterium avium, a bug responsible for a type of pulmonary disease more prevalent than tuberculosis in developed countries, cases of which have risen in parallel with the rise in showering. Tests revealed nearly a third of devices harbor significant levels of the critter."
they keep dipping the shower heads in that stuff and it's magically shiny! maybe it'll kill bugs too?
Taking showers 'can make you ill'
Showering may be bad for your health, say US scientists
OMG! OMG! Wait, the article goes on to say:
"These bacteria [â¦] rarely cause disease in healthy people. Further work will need to look at whether finding these organisms is associated with any increased risk of infection."
Thanks, BBC.
I guess a couple of co-workers are actually just taking good care of their health. I'm pretty sure one of them doesn't come anywhere near this bacterium more than twice a year.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Secretly, some geeks knew this all along, hiding from the masses the real reasons they didn't shower. Now their cover is blown!
now there will be more smelly IT nerds walking around. Wait.... nevermind
If it ain't broke, DON'T fix it.
Creation of showerhead disinfection industry in 3...2...1...
+++ATH0
Finally the medical community is backing my position on showers ... and I know it's just a matter of time before some new study proves I'm right about the Doritos and climbing the basement stairs.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
I know most people, myself included, run the water for a minute or two before stepping into the shower. (Due to the time it takes for the water to heat up, etc.) Would this help avoid getting sprayed with a build up of bacteria or is the stream of germs constant? Also, hot water + soap + friction can kill a lot of germs, wouldn't the fact that you're already showering help the situation?
Germs are EVERYWHERE. Hospitals do all kinds of disinfection that you wouldn't and couldn't do in your own home, and people still get staph infections.
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sponge baths, given by sexy barely legal nurses in underwear, now that's healthy, in more than one sense of the word.
Onda Technology Institute
This article does NOT mean you have an excuse to cease bathing.
This article also does not provide justification for the cessation of: tooth brushing, hair cutting, shaving, fingernail clipping, or deodorant usage.
Regards,
Society
In defense of the article, it's not imbibing these germs, it's inhaling them. The force of the water coming out spreads the bugs around getting them into the air which you breathe in. I'd wager, without bothering to look it up, that either HCl is not a plesent environment for these or they just can't attach to anything in the digestive system as opposed to the resporatory system.
I have so many questions that this article doesn't answer.
1) Where was the sample taken? UK showers? World wide? Third world countries?
2) Is there an information on different kinds of shower heads? for example, is this more common on massaging heads, low flow/high pressure heads, etc?
3) Does hot water kill this bacteria? Is it more common for people who take colder showers than people who take hot ones?
4) I always start the shower first before getting under it, since it takes about 5+ seconds to warm up... any ideas if this affects infection? (Thats more of a study question than a question from the article).
5) Any real way to prevent the growth? Someone already asked if CLR kills it. If this is so common, mind telling me how I can help myself?
I've never read a BBC article that left me with more questions.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Between red wine for the health of it and no showers no wonder the worlds oldest person in recent history was that 121 year old French woman.
Not to be stereotypical here but I don't shower regularly right now, on account of the whole "unemployed, no need to interact with people right now" part of my life.
After a couple "cycles" of only showering once every other/third day, my body acclimated to the different bathing. I found/find that my skin is, overall, much clearer (lifelong acme sufferer) as well as substantially less oily. I no longer feel like there's grease in my eyes by the time I go to bed, and my skin feels 'healthier'.
I wonder if routine shower cleaning would help fix the problem? I'd think that the chlorine in the water would help dissuade bacteria from growing. I wonder if that 1/3rd can be accounted for by low chlorine levels, or well water? We have non-chlorinated well water here, as do both my parents and grandmother, all in different parts of the country.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Here's a copy of the abstract, for my fellow bio nerds:
The environments we humans encounter daily are sources of exposure to diverse microbial communities, some of potential concern to human health. In this study, we used culture-independent technology to investigate the microbial composition of biofilms inside showerheads as ecological assemblages in the human indoor environment. Showers are an important interface for human interaction with microbes through inhalation of aerosols, and showerhead waters have been implicated in disease. Although opportunistic pathogens commonly are cultured from shower facilities, there is little knowledge of either their prevalence or the nature of other microorganisms that may be delivered during shower usage. To determine the composition of showerhead biofilms and waters, we analyzed rRNA gene sequences from 45 showerhead sites around the United States. We find that variable and complex, but specific, microbial assemblages occur inside showerheads. Particularly striking was the finding that sequences representative of non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and other opportunistic human pathogens are enriched to high levels in many showerhead biofilms, >100-fold above background water contents. We conclude that showerheads may present a significant potential exposure to aerosolized microbes, including documented opportunistic pathogens. The health risk associated with showerhead microbiota needs investigation in persons with compromised immune or pulmonary systems.
Not true, this is an opportunistic bacteria that lives in stagnant water. It can find the stagnant water without being introduced through the water supply (through air or other contamination). Since a person with dirty hair is only inches away from the shower, it's not hard to see how it might get contaminated. In the same way it can get inside your lungs (aerosol), it can also get inside your shower head.
The shower head is sitting idle most of the day, and since the chlorine in the water quickly dissipates in air, the water left remaining when you turn the shower off is quite welcoming to the bug. Yeah, it gets hit with chlorinated water at least once a day (you do shower regularly, right?), but the amount of chlorine in the water at-delivery is way too little to kill entrenched bacteria (that happens at the treatment plant, with much higher concentrations of chlorine, and UV treatments). You might kill a small amount, but the strong survive.
This is a real problem - it's already known that sources of stagnant water can be breeding grounds for Legionnaire's Disease, so why not yet-another lung infection?
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
This is all based on a study out of CU Boulder. As a Denver resident, I can attest that the dirty hippies at CU Boulder are on a never-ending quest to justify their poor hygiene. Don't be fooled! Shower every day!
-Peter
sponges are also full of germs. better stick to a good hand-rubbing. ;-)
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
I declare this a victory for Open Source. Now - on to making beards, sandals with black socks, and red suspenders fashionable again!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
If the shower is run once a day the residual chlorine would sterilize any colony before it could establish. If the shower isn't run once a day and properly drains the environment won't remain wet enough long enough for the colony to establish. The only time a colony could establish such that the residual wouldn't kill it is if the shower isn't used daily and doesn't drain properly. Even then I doubt it could effectively establish because the amount of food in the water for the bacteria is going to be near zero, at least for properly treated water. The BOD (Biologic Oxygen Demand) requirements for potable water are very very low in the US. Only the water systems that are the worst of the worst (no residual chlorine, high BOD) in the US would even have the possibility and then you need a bad shower head and infrequent showering to make this happen. The probability is very low IMO.
Metal shower heads are most likely safer due to the Oligodynamic effect.
At first I thought that you could just "disinfect" your shower head by running it scalding hot for 30 seconds before jumping in. However, Mycobacterium Avium has a 90% survival rate in water at 120F, the typical temperature in your water heater. Bleach and CLR won't help either, since Mycobacterium Avium is much less affected by it than other competing germs, so you end up worsening the situation.
There's also talk of health risks due to taking hot showers. Supposedly that releases chlorine and chloroform gas creating a health risk, particularly for those with asthma. I guess that's why there are chlorine filters for shower heads. Then again a filter would likely be a breading ground for bacteria so pick your poison...
How is a kitchen faucet any different than a shower head? I can honestly say that the shit I put in my sink is a hell of a lot dirtier than my hair. Wouldn't sticking your glass underneath the faucet and then going straight to your face with it pose just as much of an inhalation hazard as a shower?
Disinfecting a shower head is trivial. Pour some bleach in a bag, with enough water to immerse the shower head, put the shower head in the bag, use a twist-tie to hold it in place for a couple of minutes.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The Dept of Health and Human Services has released guidelines to prevent this phenomenon.
The General Order Lessening Dirty Elevated Nozzles is now in effect and mandatory for all.
Everyone will be required to take G.O.L.D.E.N showers henceforth.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
If I took your advice, and my wife found out, my condition would be pretty far from "healthy"
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
...this is only going to be true where the water isn't properly sanitized. Most US systems are designed to have residual chlorine all the way to delivery...
The NY Times version of the same article says, "[Mycobacterium] avium tends to be a particular problem in municipal water supplies, Dr. Pace said. The reason is that cities treat their water with chlorine, a poison that kills most bacteria but gives avium a selective advantage."
Sure, but once your shower evolves the ability to speak, it's just nag, nag, nag:
You're fat.
Wash behind your ears.
Having you been getting enough sleep?
Where have you been?
Have you been showering in another bathroom?
It's better to just apply a regular scrubbing and avoid the headaches altogether.
This problem of the dirty shower head is easily solved by my approach. Instead of hooking up to a city water tap, I just had a giant tank of bactine installed that I use instead. Best part: no soap required, just a wire brush and a brillo pad and you're in and out as fast as you can say, Where'd all my skin go?
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
The thing I'm wondering is, why would you *replace* the shower head, when most likely, can you deal with this problem as simply as soaking the shower head in a bleach-water solution once a month or something (might not even need to do it that often)?
While I generally agree with the point about immune systems, even a perfectly healthy person with a fine immune system could succumb if exposed to a sufficient concentration of these bacteria. Wouldn't an occasional cleaning of the shower head be more than enough to prevent such a dangerous buildup? Wouldn't that be simple, common sense ( I've always been taught that cleanliness is important to remain healthy, and that includes keeping kitchen, bathroom, etc clean)?
If you think that the above is flamebait then you are a hippie who needs to take a shower. I am from Santa Cruz and may use the word hippie as much as I want because people all over the world automatically think I am one. I do exhibit many of the characteristics; I do, however, shower.
If you were offended by my frequent overuse of the word hippie, you'll hate these jokes even more:
Q: How do you hide money from a hippie?
A: Hide it under the soap.
Q: How do you know a hippie has been on your couch?
A: They're still there!
Now grow up, and allow your sense of humor to drop out of the cavity it's hiding in.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"