Strollerderby : bacteria

Does Your Family Follow the Five Second Rule?

JeanneSager — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:22:00 GMT

I am not that parent. The one who starts shrieking when her daughter picks a piece of banana off the floor and shoves it in her mouth.

We are firmly in the five second rule camp, helped along by Amy's recent reassurance that a little dirt never hurt anyone.

Oh hush. While you're screwing up your nose in disgust, I've got news for you - I'm not alone. A survey performed by Kelton Research for Oreck (folks I'm not embarrassed to admit I'm not too familiar with) showed sixty percent of Americans eat right off the floor, following the three-second rule. I would have put that number a lot higher myself.

Maybe it was their terminology - really, have you ever heard of the three-second rule? Me neither. A 2003 survey by a University of Illinois grad student granted an extra two seconds of leeway, and rustled up ten percent more grubby Americans for a whopping seventy percent of us eating off the floor. Yum!

Of course Oreck threw this little thing together to sell more vacuums; the way they see it, if we're going to eat off the floor anyway, it might as well be clean. And did they mention their handy dandy new germ-killing product? This isn't a review - I haven't tested the thing (see above), so I can't tell you how clean it makes your floors.

I can tell you their scary numbers don't really change anything. Bacteria schmacteria. I'm hard-pressed to see how letting my daughter pick her cereal up off the floor and eat it is any worse than her drinking her own bath water (ewww, I know, we're working on that one). I find it even harder to believe that any parent out there is able to watch their kids SO carefully that they NEVER eat anything off of the floor. So go check out their ick factor if you're interested. Or would you prefer to stay in my camp for the next five seconds or so?

Image: OnNetworks

They Say: See Your Dentist to Avoid Pre-Term Labor

Miriam Axel-Lute — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

A new study from the Journal of Clinical Microbiology is estimating that up to 80 percent of pre-term labors could be caused by mouth bacteria—the kind that are usually in your mouth and don't cause much trouble there, but can apparently cause an immune reaction and labor if they get into the bloodstream, say through a cut in the gum or cheek.

Assuming further research bears this out (which it may or may not), it's one of those findings that I have very mixed feelings about.

On the one hand, given all the various problems that we know prematurity, even late prematurity, causes, identifying a reason for it is huge and exciting.

On the other hand, I can just see every woman with a preemie being told it's her fault for not brushing her teeth enough. Do we need another thing for pregnant women to freak out about? Especially since this is normal mouth bacteria, and it's probably going to get into the bloodstream from time to time no matter what you do. In fact, I'll bet that obsessive attempts at oral hygeine would probably backfire (think about those bleeding gums if you haven't flossed in a while).

Of course the other approach the article mentions—prophylactic antibiotics—sounds like a prescription for resistant bugs and nasty yeast infections unless you could target high-risk people pretty carefully.

The one fairly concrete takeaway from the article is the suggestion to see a dentist before pregnancy to make sure you don't have peridontal disease, and clearing it up if you do. That could be a useful thing to add to general pre-conception recommendations. Anything else, I think I'd want a separate study showing it really worked before anyone began adding another item to the pregnancy "thou shalts."

Photo by martinhoward.

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Why They Shouldn't Eat the Snow

JeanneSager — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Another one of our fondest childhood memories has lost its luster in 2008. Thought your kids were alright as long as they steered a wide berth around the yellow snow? Guess again.

The Chicago Tribune has rounded up a series of experts to tell us exactly why we shouldn't send them out to fill a bowl with snow and dig in. Yeah, I wanted to call grinch on them too.

Growing up in the frozen hinterlands of upstate New York (or, as fellow Strollerderby blogger Madeline has referred to the Catskills, "God's country"), we favored snow for everything for brushing our teeth when the electric went out to soaking in maple syrup and eating for a midnight snack.

But then I started reading the list of just what you're ingesting when you munch on a bunch of white fluff. It reads sort of like one of those "The Truth" ads about cigarettes. Come on, who doesn't want to suck down a spoonful of acid rain, bacteria, sulfates, nitrates and lead?

Bet they taste really good with maple syrup.

Image: MagerLeague

Source: The Chicago Tribune

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No Antibiotics for You!

Adrienne Martini — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Dr. Alan Greene over at the New York Times Well Blog insists that most earaches don't require antibiotics. He cites the reasons we've all become familiar with -- they are bad for the good bacteria in your body, they are bad for the environment, they are ineffective, etc. But two things leap out at any reader.

First, if parents can't approach an earache with antibiotics, what should they do?

And, second, how freaking cool is it that "a typical healthy child carries a pound or two of rapidly evolving microscopic bacteria in his or her body?" Now that is a fact to know and share.

Photo credit: www.ilovemybaby.org

Yucky The Snowman

Brett Singer — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:30:00 GMT

This article might make you think twice the next time your kids stick out their tounges to catch snowflakes. According to a study released in the journal Science, the main thing that causes snow to stick together and be, like, snowy, is... bacteria.

One scientist says that sometimes over 85 percent of the "ice nuclei" in snow is bacteria, usually Pseudomonas syringae (say that ten times fast), which can "cause disease in several types of plants including tomatoes and beans."

It doesn't sound like there's any immediate danger. Mostly it's just kind of, you know, gross. But if you consider that most kids eat dirt, sand, and things from the floor that skirt the 5-second rule by several minutes, odds are they'll be fine. (In case you were wondering, this does not qualify as medical advice.) Still, I think I'm glad winter's almost over.

image: Snowman Clipart, and my very own kindergarten-level drawing skills

Diet Coke With A Twist - Of E-Coli

Amy S.F. Lutz — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:54:00 GMT

Ever consider those ubiquitous lemon wedges perched on the rim of the water, soda and alcoholic beverages you order in restaurants?

Me neither, until I heard about this study by microbiologist Anne Lagrange Loving.

Loving tested 76 lemons from 21 different restaurants. Almost 70% tested positive for bacteria, including e-coli. Loving also found traces of human fecal matter, skin and saliva on the lemons - which most likely come from lots of different grubby fingers cutting and handling the lemons. Contaminated cutting boards probably also contribute to the bacteria load.

Experts point out that, unless you have a compromised immune system, the lemons are unlikely to make you sick.

Still . . . gross.

More on the Five Second Rule: Maybe it is Okay After All

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 20:14:00 GMT

A while back I wrote up a study on the five second rule. You know, the rule where if you drop something as long as it is on the floor for less than five seconds it is still okay to eat. The study I was looking at then suggested that five seconds could be about five seconds too long if your food is touching bad germs.

Well thank God (or your preferred deity) for NPR and Tom Regan. Tom found a Connecticut College study that I like much better. This study says that wet foods like apple slices are good after they have been on the floor for 30 seconds and if you have hard food, or candy like Skittles of M&Ms they can stay on the floor for even longer without becoming contaminated.

Really what I'm getting out of the study is that candy is much safer to eat than fruit is. Of course, I wouldn't tell my kids that.

Cell Phones Are Dirty! Ew!

Karen Murphy — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:55:00 GMT

OMG! Cell phones, you know, those things we give our kids to play with whenever they demand them (at least in my house...my three-year-old routinely dials up all sorts of people and then holds imaginary conversations with them)? They're...dirty! Ew! Yep, completely germ-ridden!

Apparently wiping it off on the leg of my jeans isn't doing much to disinfect my phone. (What?? Doesn't everyone do that?)

But yeah, apparently your phone may be rife with Candida albicans, or maybe the bacteria that causes...acne. So, ew. Wipe it down a bit before you give it to your baby to suck on. And maybe after, too. Whatever.

[this breaking, earth-shattering news brought to you by Gizmodo]

Five Second Rule

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:34:00 GMT

Admit it. You apply the five second rule. You use it for yourself and you use it for your kids. And do you really even count to five? I don't. This article sites two different studies of the five second rule. The results? You don't want to know.

I'm not kidding. It is gross. Of course they infected the surfaces that they dropped things on, and of course the food they left on the floor for five seconds was waaaaaaaaaay less contaminated than the stuff they left down for ten seconds, but that doesn't change the fact that gummi bears and cookies both picked up E. coli bacteria within five seconds.

Maybe we should rethink this rule. Harold McGee of The New York Times says we might want to rethink eating that piece of food even if it was only on the floor for five seconds.

Of course, if it is chocolate it might still be worth it.