Today at the gym I encountered a woman wiping down equipment after each use in a way that seemed excessive. She sprayed her rag with disinfectant after each wipe, using as many as six sprays per machine. I shouldn’t have gotten so annoyed by her attempt at hygiene and courtesy, but I did. I had to wait extra time for a machine she used before me, and I also felt her cleaning was unnecessary. She was wearing pants and didn’t seem to be sweating much, if at all, so was it really important to wipe down the leg pads? Even if sweat had gotten through, did the pad really need to be disinfected? Wasn’t she just adding, if only minuscully, to the problem of super-resistant bacteria?
Source: wikihow.com
To hopefully prove myself in the right, as well as increase
my scientific knowledge, I decided to research these questions. After reading
several articles, I have concluded that I may not have been 100 percent right,
but I wasn’t entirely wrong either.
Fear not:
Philip Tierno, professor of microbiology and pathology at
NYU, points out, “Of the 60,000 or so germs that people may come in contact
with, only about 1 percent are potentially dangerous.”1
Except that...
Unfortunately, that still leaves many dangerous
possibilities. Sweat can carry Hepatitis B,2 and the frightening bacteria MRSA “can survive on
gym machines between users.”3 Furthermore, a New York Times article reports, “At any given time [...] one person
in three in the United States suffers from a skin disease that can be spread to
others, even while in the incubation stage.”4
Fear Not:
One scientific finding I read about in two articles is that
sweat contains a “natural antibiotic,” Dermcidin, that “can kill a range of
bacteria.”5 So if Jane Sixpack at the gym has spread Hepatitis B
through a cut in her finger, maybe the sweat she’s also producing could destroy
the virus before Joe Jogger steps on the treadmill.
Except that...
I didn’t read anything about everyone’s sweat being able to
kill every kind of pathogen. When I wasn’t sure if sweat even carries bacteria
and viruses (I thought it probably did, but didn’t want to assume), these
articles seemed to suggest it doesn’t, adding strength to my position. But that
would be stretching this finding too far. The fact that one compound in sweat
can kill a range of bacteria doesn’t mean all sweat is bacteria-free, to say
nothing of viruses.
Fear Not:
A Men’s Health
article stated, “You only need to worry about bacteria if you touch your mouth,
eyes, nose, or any cuts before washing your hands.”6 Perhaps instead
of using disinfectant on every touched surface after any use of a machine, gym
users should just wash their hands after their workout, and maybe mid-way
through as well if they’re moving between different exercises.
Except that...
If you’re like me and don’t bother with gym towels, it’s
hard to avoid touching your face when you’re sweating. The simple solution
there, I suppose, is to start bothering with gym towels, but that doesn’t solve
the problem of an exposed cut or abrasion touching equipment contaminated by
pathogens. Not a problem for every type of exercise, but a problem for some.
Source: abduzeedo.com
Fear Not:
From a certain perspective, it’s not the tiny chance of
picking up something serious like MRSA at the gym that should be frightening,
but the problems caused by the overuse of antibiotic and antiviral products and
medications. According to Dr. Brad Spellberg of the L.A. Biomedical Research
Institute, “The more antibiotics people are exposed to, the greater the risk
that they are going to acquire and keep in their body bacteria resistant to
antibiotics.”7 Again, the idea is to wash your hands often while
cutting back on antibiotics and antibacterial products.
Except that...
The gym might be one place where these products are
justified. I still think the woman I described in the first paragraph was
overdoing it, performing the equivalent of cleaning up an overturned glass of
juice with a Clorox wipe or spritz of Lysol. But considering the risks, it does
make sense to disinfect certain parts of certain machines, and to be especially
thorough if you know you are carrying some sort of pathogen.
2.
Ibid.
Having a clean towel, bands on one's small wounds, and washing one's hands are indeed the best tools to avoid the transmission of germs. Thanks for the research! ;)
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