United States – The bad news first: Toilet handles and toothbrush holders in an average bathroom showerhead contain an uncountable number of very rich accounts of viruses, many of which are new, new research has shown, also reported by HealthDay.
Now, the good news.
Phages and Antibiotic Resistance
These are known as bacteriophages or ‘phage-nature. They pointed out that this is a virus that targets bacteria.
He said that phage has recently attracted interest in view of the fact that bacteria have developed resistance to most of the commonly used antibiotics.
“This is going to be just absolutely bonkers,” said lead researcher Erica Hartmann from Northwestern University in Chicago, civil and environmental engineering.
“We found many viruses that we know very little about and many others that we have never seen before,” Hartmann added in a Northwestern news release. “It’s amazing how much-untapped biodiversity is all around us. And you don’t even have to go far to find it; it’s right under our noses.”
To achieve this, the researchers collected toothbrushes and sample swabs from shower heads to identify what sort of germ was present.
“This project started as a curiosity,” Hartmann said. “We wanted to know what microbes are living in our homes. If you think about indoor environments, surfaces like tables and walls are really difficult for microbes to live on. Microbes prefer environments with water. And where is there water? Inside our shower heads and on our toothbrushes.”
Surprising Biodiversity in Your Shower
DNA sequencing showed that the samples contained more than 600 different viruses, and no two samples were alike.
“We saw basically no overlap in virus types between shower heads and toothbrushes,” Hartmann said. “We also saw very little overlap between any two samples at all. Each shower head and each toothbrush is like its own little island. It just underscores the incredible diversity of viruses out there.”
Potential Benefits
Still, the samples had more mycobacteriophage than other types of phage, the researchers pointed out.
Mycobacteriophage targets mycobacteria, a bacterial species that produces ailments such as leprosy, tuberculosis, and chronic lung infections. Thus, these viruses are useful, especially attacking bacteria that are pathogenic to humans, according to the researchers.
“We could envision taking these mycobacteriophage and using them as a way to clean pathogens out of your plumbing system,” Hartmann said. “We want to look at all the functions these viruses might have and figure out how we can use them.”
In the meantime, they shouldn’t worry about those unseen clusters of bacteria lurking in the bathroom, Hartmann added.
People who are very particular can use vinegar to clean their shower heads of calcium deposits or just use soap and water, according to Hartmann. Wipe the germs out to none by executing the mistake of using bleach.
Embrace Your Bathroom’s Microbial Life
There are also many wonderful products from people’s daily lives that they do not even think about how and when to properly change parts of the toothbrush. Use a regular toothbrush, Hartmann advised, and avoid an antimicrobial toothbrush — it can lead to antibiotic resistance among germs, also reported by HealthDay.
“The more you attack them with disinfectants, the more they are likely to develop resistance or become more difficult to treat. We should all just embrace them.”
