Is Your Toothbrush a Breeding Ground for Bacteria?

When it comes to dental health concerns, your toothbrush has a huge part to play. Unfortunately, your toothbrush is loaded with germs. This is according to researchers at the University of Manchester, who have found that, in just one uncovered toothbrush, there can be more than 100 million bacteria. Yup, every time you brush you may be putting your wellbeing at risk to nasty bugs, including E. coli bacteria, which can cause diarrhoea, and staphylococci (Staph) bacteria that cause skin infections.

 

However, wellness experts are quick to point out that your mouth isn’t exactly sterile to begin with. Gayle McCombs, RDH, MS, associate professor and director of the Dental Hygiene Research Center at Old Dominion University, comments, ‘The bottom line is, there (are) hundreds of microorganisms in our mouths every day.’ And that’s no big deal; the only time you have to worry is when you have an unhealthy balance of bacteria in your mouth. Dentist Kimberly Harms, DDS, consumer advisor for the American Dental Association, notes, ‘It’s important to remember that plaque – the stuff you’re removing from your teeth – is bacteria. So you’re putting bacteria on your toothbrush every time you brush your teeth.’

 

R. Thomas Glass, DDS, PhD, professor of dentistry and pathology at Oklahoma State University Centre for Health Sciences, points out, ‘The action of brushing your teeth, especially with an electric toothbrush, actually pushes these organisms beneath the skin in your mouth.’ This may not cause a new disease – unless you share a toothbrush with someone else – since many of these germs are on your toothbrush because they were already in your mouth. However, Glass says they play a role in recurring illness: ‘When your resistance is low, that’s when this becomes clinically important. In essence, you are re-infecting yourself.’

 

So is your toothbrush making you ill? Regardless of how much bacteria you have in your mouth, your body has a number of natural defences in place that make the possibility of you developing an infection simply from brushing your teeth highly unlikely. Kimberly Harms, DDS, consumer advisor for the American Dental Association, consoles, ‘Fortunately, the human body is usually able to defend itself from bacteria. So we aren’t aware of any real evidence that sitting the toothbrush in your bathroom in the toothbrush holder is causing any real damage or harm. We don’t know that the bacteria on there are translating into infections.’

 

Nonetheless, you should still exercise a certain degree of common sense when storing your toothbrush. McCombs asserts, ‘You don’t store your plates and glasses by the toilet, so why would you want to place your toothbrush there? It’s just common sense to store your toothbrush as far away from the toilet as possible.’ But don’t think it’s safely stored in your toothbrush holder; these containers pick up bacteria that swirl through the air after the toilet is flushed, and they are frequently overlooked when cleaning the bathroom. This is the finding of study researcher Rob Donofrio, director of Microbiology at NSF International.

 

1. So what’s the best way to store your toothbrush?


2. Wash toothbrush with tap water thoroughly every time you use it.


3. Make sure your brush has a chance to dry thoroughly between brushings.


4. Harms says, ‘Bacteria love a moist environment,’ so avoid using toothbrush covers, which can be a breeding ground for bacteria.


5. Store your toothbrush upright, rather than lying it down.


6. Never share a toothbrush, no matter how close you are to the other person.


7. Don’t even store your toothbrush side-by-side in the same cup with other people’s brushes – whenever toothbrushes touch, they can swap germs.

Categories: american dental, Bacteria, breeding ground, common sense, consumer advisor, dds consumer, dental association, harms dds, kimberly harms, storage, Toothbrush, toothbrush holder

Lifestyle Changes For Long Term Weight Loss

When someone says the word ‘diet’ to you, what do you imagine? For most people, the word ‘diet’ has extraordinarily negative connotations, probably because we think of losing weight as being an arduous and horrible thing. Perhaps when you think of a diet you think of eating only greens and salads. Or do you think of cutting your portion sizes in half and eating food that you hate? It could even be worse where you exchange some of your meals for shakes and don’t even get proper food for one of the main meals of the day. If you do think like this maybe it is no surprise that there is such a hatred for the idea of diets.

 

The simple fact is that if you are trying to lose weight or tone up by using some sort of diet and you are thinking of the sort of thing that has described above, then you’re in for a long and highly disappointing process. The problem is that attempting these sorts of diets can only go one way. Even if it results in some weight loss at first, the fact is that regimes like this with draconian rules on what you can eat and how little of it you must just aren’t sustainable. You’ll slip back into old habits because there is no sensible way of staying with that sort of diet.

 

But does that mean that there is no hope for dieting? Does it mean that we are all doomed to gain weight constantly and never achieve the look that we want for ourselves? Well, no, it does not mean that. But what it does mean is that you can’t rely on fads and tricks for losing weight. It means that if you want to shed those pounds you need to start using your mind and not a dieting miracle cure. Common sense and long term changes in your lifestyle are the only way forward if you want to achieve weight loss for any length of time.

 

So, what does ‘common sense’ mean in dieting terms? Well, everyone knows that eating more fruit and vegetables is good for you and you need to bring more of them into your life if you want to slim down. It’s not just that they don’t contain as many calories, fat or sugar as some of things that you might currently eat – it is also that they are packed with nutrients that make your body stronger, fuller for longer and faster at metabolising the food that you do eat. Eat more fruit and vegetables and you’ll be on the path to genuine weight loss that you’ll be able to stick to.

 

Another common sense assessment of the weight loss situation is that you’re going to need to exercise more. If you’re not losing weight it simply means that you’re taking in more calories than you’re burning off. So, it’s simple – you’ve got to burn off more calories. Exercise is great for you, it will make your muscles stronger as well as improving your lungs and other facets of your body, and you’ll naturally feel after a workout, so it is definitely worth doing.

 

So it’s time to start thinking sensibly. You know that the best and easiest way to lose weight is the only sensible way that anyone ever does – eat more good things and do more exercise. It doesn’t matter if you slip up and have a huge pizza one day or a tub of ice cream. Just dust yourself on and get back on with living the healthy way.

Categories: common sense, exercise, Long term, Lose weight, Losing Weight, loss, nbsp, weight, Weight Loss, word diet