When I was a kid, my parents told me that everyday items are always filled with bacteria, such as banknotes, tabletops, keyboards, smartphones, floor (pick up your fallen food within 5 seconds or it will be infected with bacteria), I grew up told there are millions of bacteria under the fingernails all the time, is this really true? How can they be always there and survive that long if they are on the floor, banknotes etc.? They are living organisms, need to eat something, right? For my thinking there is nothing to eat on the banknotes normally. Can anyone bust this myth or confirm? Thanks in advance.
In: Biology
Bacteria technically are everywhere yes… however there are exceptions. bacteria do need food and what not to multiply and survive so that needs to be present for bacteria to stick around to an area.
The other thing is initial contamination. Some areas that people think are “dirty” for example are actually sterile from bacteria, fungi and viruses, (but not environment pollutants) so like if you have an air purifier in your home that removed airborne bacteria, and you have a high up shelf that’s really dusty..? Chances are it’s sterile from bacteria because bacteria wouldn’t survive there and if it did it likely is just dead (along with the skin cells making up that dust)
bacteria however are actually extremely beneficial to humans and outside of the common bacteria they use in probiotics, it’s actually theorized that the more diverse of bacteria you ingest from stuff like food consumption (IE carrots straight out of the dirt, potatoes, etc) that you will have a healthier immune system to protect against actual bad bacteria like food poisoning, listeria, salmonella etc. AND better digestion.
This theory however also ideally is associated with introducing that bacteria as young as possible (like as a baby) so as the body grows over time, it realizes that that bacteria must be the bacteria it needs to aid in digestion. Of course testing that could an issue because imagine trying to get ethical approval to purposefully have newborns “infected” with different types of bacteria to see if that becomes part of their gut microbiome
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