Is your phone making you sick?

Uhhhh…. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve been to the doctor twice, taken all the medication he prescribed, but I just can’t seem to get away from this stuffy nose and sore throat. Oh crap. I need to go lie down…

Sound familiar? If so, you might want to stop looking around for a mysterious person who is secretly poisoning you — and start looking at the device you’ve been pressing close to your face. That’s right; your hand phone might just be the thing that is making you sick and keeping you from getting better!

A phone company in the UK undertook a study that revealed our hand phones are dirtier than the average toilet seat!

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The study was conducted by taking swab samples from various everyday items and analyzing the bacteria found on each one. The disgusting results found that there’s more filth on our hand phones than, among other things, the average door handle, computer keyboard, or even a toilet seat.

The study also confirmed the presence of skin bacteria including staphylococcus aureus on the phones, computer keyboards, toilet seats and door handles. The phones in particular contained more skin bacteria than any other object; this could be due to the fact that this type of bacteria increases in high temperatures and our phones are perfect for breeding these germs as they’re kept warm in our pockets, handbags and brief cases. These bacteria are toxic to humans, and can cause infections if they have the opportunity to enter the body.

Another study was done in Turkey that screened 200 Health Care Workers; samples were taken from the hands of 200 participants and 200 mobile phones were also cultured. The results showed that Health Care Workers’ hands and their mobile phones were contaminated with various types of microorganisms and that mobile phones used by Health Care Workers in daily practice may be a source of nosocomial infections in hospitals. In total, 94.5% of phones demonstrated evidence of bacterial contamination with different types of bacteria!

According to Joanne Verran, Professor of Microbiology at Manchester Metropolitan University, “Mobile phones, like many everyday objects such a telephones and computer keyboards, harbor bacteria. However, being ‘mobile’, they are stored in bags or pockets, are handled frequently, and held close to the face. In other words, they come into contact with more parts of our body and a wider range of bacteria than toilet seats!”

For many people today, our very livelihoods depend on using hand phones. We take our phones everywhere, and because they are in close contact with our mouths, hands and faces they are bound to collect all sorts of nasty germs.

So what should we do to guard against dirty hand phones? The answer is that we must take special care and clean our phones on a regular basis by using either an anti bacterial spray on the face of the hand phone and then wiping it off, wiping it off with an anti bacterial wipe or simply wiping it off with an alcohol rub. It’s as easy as that!

Hopefully this article has helped to open your eyes to the fact that even the most simple things can be easily overlooked. Just because something looks clean, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is!

Yours in health,
Bacteria Buster

2008 09 edition
quick weight loss is a dark and seductive circus for the senses