[jrabone]

So anybody who happens to have a compromised immune system gets to fight your personalised microbes, perhaps fatally? How very ... Darwinian ... of you.

Soap and water have saved more lives than any medication, ever. I now have no spleen (6 months ago I lost spleen, gallbladder and half my stomach as well as sundry peritoneal membranes to cancer) and nearly died as a result of post-operative infections. I take daily antibiotics, possibly forever. As a society, we don't just cleanse ourselves for our own well-being, we wash for others.

[criley2]

"So anybody who happens to have a compromised immune system gets to fight your personalised microbes, perhaps fatally? How very ... Darwinian ... of you."

What a sadly unscientific and ignorant answer.

There are literally MILLIONS of types of bacteria. We REQUIRE millions of bacteria to simply exist and live as human beings.

Not all bacteria is evil and will kill you. Most won't! In fact, if you kill all of your personal awesome bacteria, the harmful stuff can move in because you don't have any anymore. (Well if you "killed all of your own bacteria", you'd very likely be dead as well...)

You get to fight my bacteria, and every humans bacteria, every day of your life. It's as normal as breathing air and eating food. Your mother colonizes you with bacteria at birth and through feeding. Our foods help us build immunities. Our friends and being outside and playing and working and everything we do exposes us to bacteria. Being exposed to bacteria isn't evil or wrong. Being weak to bacterial exposure is like being weak to sunlight-- it is going to dramatically change your life and make you very "abnormal" as a human. That's not our fault.

"Soap and water have saved more lives than any medication, ever."

Proper hygiene has saved those lives, of which soap and water played a role. You put the cart before the horse. HYGIENE saved lives -- soap and water was the mechanism used to achieve hygiene.

" I take daily antibiotics, possibly forever. As a society, we don't just cleanse ourselves for our own well-being, we wash for others."

This article isn't about giving yourself leprosy and then infecting immunocompromised people.

For you to conflate "bad" bacteria with "good" bacteria is ignorant and massively hurtful to the cause of human health.

If you had read the article, you would know that they're supplementing personal flora with Nitrosomonas eutropha.

If Nitrosomonas eutropha can hurt you, you need to be in a bubble and NEVER exposed to any air, or the outside, or dirt, or any other humans.

Herd immunity won't save you from something so common, normal and helpful to humanity. And hurting all of us just to help you, denying us the necessary and amazing flora that makes our lives possible, is selfish and Darwinian in it's own way.

PLEASE respect that bacteria is ESSENTIAL to human life, and managing our own flora is ESSENTIAL to health and thriving. Just because someone wants to be healthy doesn't mean you have a right to accuse them of attacking you. If you're that sensitive, you need to protect yourself with heavy isolation. We're humans, not hermetically sealed robots. We are alive because of bacteria. Period.

[tripzilch]

Actually the above commenter is kind of right.

Why do you think we wash our hands after toilet usage?

It's not because touching your own genitals, urine or even faecal matter will make YOU ill. You are most probably clean to yourself. We promote the habit because if we all do it, we are much less likely to make each other ill.

Same goes for infectious diseases. You wash your hands because even though you might have a healthy immune system (as do I), some of my colleagues might not. Or my grandma. Or in fact some random person I shake hands with.

The concept of herd immunity doesn't just apply to vaccinations. We do keep clean for others.

[XorNot]

The article is about surface external bacteria - which are very, very different to the bacterial colonies which live inside your digestive system (and also only there - if any of those get inside your circulatory system that's where most "flesh eating bacteria" horror stories start from).

There's a naturalistic fallacy heavily at play here, because humans have never before lived in such close proximity in such high density dwellings as they do today. The idea that this doesn't merit some forward thinking on how we manage personal hygiene standards is ridiculous.

[graeme]

Do you have any evidence for your beliefs? Skin flora is largely beneficial to hosts. Like internal bacteria, it can be disrupted and become pathogenic.

Do you know of any studies that show that frequent washing with soap decreases pathogens and promotes beneficial skin flora?

The anecdotal experience of people like me who stop washing with soap is that we smell better. This suggests that soap was disturbing our skin flora.

I'm willing to be proven wrong on that point, but you need actual evidence. Calling something "a naturalistic fallacy" without evidence of your own is a perfect example of a fallacy fallacy.

Edit: To be clear, I'm not just saying I smell good. Women spontaneously tell me "you smell good!" without knowing about my non-soap habit.

[XorNot]

A naturalistic fallacy is simply appealing to "this is way it is before we do anything". Others have presented the counter-evidence - i.e. human hygiene and life-expectancy and disease rates got way better with the introduction of hand-washing and soap.

I'd think carefully about your anecdotal evidence. The social contract is we don't comment on matters of hygiene directly, and I know I couldn't smell how bad me and my schoolmates smelt after a couple of days field-trip out camping. That didn't mean we didn't.

[graeme]

I edited my response to clarify that I've had spontaneous compliments on how I smell, particularly since I switched. This is without people knowing I don't use soap.

And I thing hand-washing is good. We have clear evidence it works.

But is there any evidence that washing the whole body with soap on a daily basis is beneficial? The counter-evidence you speak of refers only to hand-washing.

[dllthomas]

Strictly speaking, that is an "appeal to nature", which is a different thing than the naturalistic fallacy.

[Goronmon]

Really? I understood them to be the same thing.

[jrabone]

You get to fight my bacteria, and every humans bacteria, every day of your life.

Not to a significant extent. In cases where people are exposed to other people's bacteria in quantity, they generally become (mildy) ill quite quickly while developing immunity - see fresher's flu etc.

If you had read the article, you would know that they're supplementing personal flora with Nitrosomonas eutropha.

And HOPING that N.Eutropha will out-compete their dangerous-to-others bacteria.

And hurting all of us just to help you, denying us the necessary and amazing flora that makes our lives possible, is selfish and Darwinian in it's own way.

I'm not suggesting you shower in bleach, just that you wash yourself with something more effective than fairy dust.

[criley2]

"Not to a significant extent. In cases where people are exposed to other people's bacteria in quantity, they generally become (mildy) ill quite quickly while developing immunity - see fresher's flu etc."

Again with the ignorance and nonscientific answer.

Fresher's flu is what happens when LARGE GROUPS of people from GEOGRAPHICALLY DISPARATE areas come together. All kinds of new bacteria are introduced. And again-- this is normal. This is humanity. This is us, there is no other way to handle the complexity that arises from our biological systems. That's the facts. Fresher flu isn't curable, it's the integration of bacterial culture. It's natural, and its inevitable. To use it as a negative is ignorance: it's a byproduct of our nature and evolution itself.

Even so, it is in no way equatable to you meeting ONE person or normal meeting of people from similar areas. Not on any level. Also your "not to any significant extent", I reject that. I'm sorry but you're wrong about that too.

"I'm not suggesting you shower in bleach, just that you wash yourself with something more effective than fairy dust."

This is simple: There is one human being alive responsible for your safety. You'll find him in a mirror. I, and every other living being is absolved of responsibility for your health.

I'm sorry, but if your personal defects make it dangerous for you to be near humans in a normal social setting, I suggest protecting yourself instead of a) blaming others or b) suggesting others protect you on your behalf.

You might find this weird but attempting to enforce a monoculture of hygiene because you think it's right is draconian, impossible, and naive to me.

[tripzilch]

Hi! In the future, would you please try making your point by showing some compassion and empathy? It tends to make HN a nicer place.

Prefixing "I'm sorry, but" to an otherwise cold-hearted statement doesn't make it better.

[dllthomas]

Those situations are also where they are exposed to viruses and pathogenic bacteria. I don't think you make a very good case that exposure to a "healthy" but unfamiliar skin biome is likely to lead to illness.

[headShrinker]

> not to a significant extent.

You do realize there are literally trillions of bacteria in and on you right at this very minute, don't you?

[Steer]

I am sorry that you got cancer and had to remove those parts of your body. I am also happy that you now seem better (and I am guessing and being hopeful here).

That said, I do not think it is right to try to guilt people into using things they do not want to use because you think it could possibly aid your health. If you had provided links to research that proved that soap and shampoo use in the larger population made people with a defective immune system safer I would not have a problem with your comments, but I am just not sure that is the case.

If I try to give an example, there are people that are hyper-allergic to peanuts and they will die if they are exposed to peanuts. Why do we, despite this, allow peanuts in our society? It is not a necessity.

Edit; Just to be clear; we are not talking about vaccination; I think that is a completely different thing.

[logfromblammo]

I also find the argument to be spurious. Indiscriminate disinfectants kill benign microbes as well as pathogenic microbes, leaving a clean surface to be colonized by the first species that land on it, whether good or bad.

The fine article details a practice wherein rather than apply a scorched-earth policy to all microbes, known good species are intentionally cultivated to both deny a beachhead to invading pathogenic microbes, and for other benefits, such as removal of unpleasant body wastes.

Centuries of scientific inquiry has shown that there really is no such thing as a clean and sterile surface outside of certain specially-constructed rooms with carefully managed airflows. Soaps and shampoos simply favor species able to spread and multiply quickly. when used frequently enough, they also prevent humans from becoming a disease vector.

That frequency is a matter for investigation. It may be that only physicians, nurses, and hospital staff who always wash thoroughly before each and every patient contact are actually contributing to public health, and that people who wash every time they pass a sink during the day--maybe once per 3 hours--are simply breeding for triclosan resistance and favoring the tenacious and rapidly multiplying species.

[XorNot]

That isn't how resistance works.

Resistance to anything has an evolutionary cost - the most resistant species tend to breed slowest, the hardiest environmentals even slower.

Organisms which can live in volcanoes usually die when given mild conditions but competitor species instead.

Your statement also begs the question: given we're assuming you can reasonably disinfect yourself, why not simply re-innoculate with an optimum colony of bacterial species and short-circuit the negative effects?

[logfromblammo]

Leaving aside my pet peeve of people using "begs the question" inappropriately, your question is answered by the article.

An optimum colony of bacteria is hard to maintain and propagate outside the optimum environment--namely, on your skin. The colony also reacts negatively to being disinfected. The experiment is to establish such a microbiome and then leave it the hell alone.

[edoloughlin]

That said, I do not think it is right to try to guilt people into using things they do not want to use because you think it could possibly aid your health

There is a case to be made for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

[Terr_]

No, Herd Immunity is for infection risks which are SHARED across the whole herd. The point is to prevent the infection from reaching "critical mass".

What we're talking about here is different, it's a risk which applies to a small minority of specific individuals.

[criley2]

Herd Immunity has nothing to do with our personal bacteria cultures!

We are bacteria through and through! So much of our bodies and lives are dependent on bacteria.

You can't get herd immunity to a building block of our existence. You shouldn't want it.

[dllthomas]

The key point for herd immunity is epidemiological - keep resistance high so that most people will never encounter the bad pathogen even if they may be unusually weak against it. That doesn't apply to bacteria that are already prevalent everywhere and known to be less bad than other bacteria they're likely to replace.

[Fomite]

"Edit; Just to be clear; we are not talking about vaccination; I think that is a completely different thing."

Why? We're talking about controlling someone's potential infectiousness in the name of public health.

While I might disagree with the OP, the principle looks pretty similar.

[bmelton]

> Why? We're talking about controlling someone's potential infectiousness in the name of public health.

Because, as has been posted above, one's personal biome is never going to be aided by herd immunity.

In short, if I have Polio, the chances of it spreading to a mostly vaccinated society is lessened because any immunized individual breaks the infection chain.

They're slightly similar in concept, but not really. Beyond that, the argument seems to have been the result of a misunderstanding that has persisted beyond its correction. Not washing skin and hair with soap and shampoo is a dramatically different matter than not washing one's hands with soap and water.

[jrabone]

I'm still alive, that's as far as it goes. 30% + chance of recurrence and it's not like I can have those organs removed a second time. However, it's an improvement on the initial diagnosis which was stage 4 adenocarcinoma with peritoneal metastasis (ie. a Kaplan-Meyer survival of about 5 years max).

It's not just immuno-suppressed people, it's everyone, and a risk/benefit comparison with peanut allergies is spurious. If everyone smeared themselves in peanut butter before they left the house each morning, you'd have a closer comparison.

Plenty of studies at http://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/publications-data-stats.html - click on "Improved Health".

[rosser]

You're creating a false dilemma between not washing your hands and destroying your skin biome. TFA is about the latter, but you're citing studies about the former.

[jrabone]

TFA doesn't contain enough detail about hand-washing as opposed to body & hair, in much the same way that most people don't like talking about wiping their backsides vs washing them after defecating.

[Steer]

I must say that I feel bad discussing this with you, I do not enjoy trying to be objective when discussing with someone stricken by cancer like you. You have obviously been through a trauma and you are still living it. If I were religious I would pray for your recovery, but since I am not I will just say that I do hope that you live and prosper.

I am not convinced that an increased use of soap and shampoo would lead to a healthier society overall, much like an increased use of antibiotics does not seem to make a healthier society overall.

[DanBC]

> I am not convinced that an increased use of soap and shampoo would lead to a healthier society

Food poisoning can be fatal and can have severe consequences.

Some food poisoning is a result of poor hand washing hygiene.

People washing their hands correctly would reduce the amount of problems of food poisoning.

[dllthomas]

I don't know that this was intended to preclude hand washing.

[marvin]

The big question is whether decreased use of soap and shampoo leads to a less healthy society overall. Just as with modern vaccines and antibiotics, modern first-world people just have no idea how bad things were before the invention of soap.

The researchers in this article are definitely onto something - a better understanding of microorganisms' symbiosis with humans could have great benefits - but let's not forget that playing with this on a large scale is a massive experiment with potential negative consequences. The precautionary principle holds.

[jrabone]

Thank you (I'm not religious either). I'm sorry you feel uncomfortable, that's not my intent at all. In purely objective terms, there's obviously a benefit to culling the weak.

I wouldn't necessarily advocate for _increased_ use of soap and shampoo (and certainly not for antibiotics). I also believe there is an argument that partial disinfection is much worse than nothing, when viewed in terms of selection pressure on a microbial population, and I don't think daily use of antibiotic soap is a good idea (although Triclosan is actually pretty useless anyway).

However, I definitely don't think we should be encouraging _less_ hygiene, even though I'm obviously biased.

[sukuriant]

I think an important question to be answered now is "which is less hygiene"? There have been a few one-offs of people that forewent not showers, but soap in the showers, in preference of scrubbing themselves, but not using modern cleaners. Them doing that was probably a much slower version of what was happening in this experiment's case.

It didn't go into details; but, if the flora and fauna on our bodies actually protect us from the bacteria that is bad for us, then it is beneficial to have a layer of it. If instead, we're just carrying around animals that just happen to be there and don't do anything, then it may be a moot point. That said, if it is beneficial, then the population is actually less healthy for not having the layer; and if we had the layer, we'd get sick less often and be in less danger.

hygiene and rubbing chemicals all over yourself, while certainly related, aren't the same thing

[XorNot]

The issue is there's a lot of interesting science which looks suspiciously like it's being monetized into some handwavy - and potentially dangerous - claims.

For example the idea of bacteria protecting you is not so simple. They don't target "bad organisms" - there really aren't bad organisms. Monocultures are bad because they have no competitors. A mixed-ecology where you have several or many species which do compete usually inhibits the ability of any 1 type to take over successfully.

Of course, this is all happening on the surface of your skin, and how stable is that environment anyway? History says not very - and on top of that pretty much all of these things are really nasty if they successfully get under the skin.

One successful way to treat IBS-like symptoms for example is to take a course of antibiotics which are known to be mild - that is, they tend to have a balancing effect on the gut's fauna. I can personally attest this makes all the difference in the world.

Conversely, it's not at all clear that probiotics do anything - for reasons similar to the above. In a crowded environment, they can't easily take over, and bacteria are all about film-forming and quorum sensing and the like - isolated cells are much less active.

On top of those issues, there's a scale one. Humans basically regard about 150-500 people as being actual human beings like them (Dunbar's number). Historically we tribalized on that sort of scale but almost every culture started to use various scents or cleansing practices when they built larger and larger groupings. Sure, maybe we can get by with intact surface cultures, but can we get along? The human nose is important. Try being in a room with someone who has a bad smelling odour - the urge to simply leave is powerful. The urge to try and wash it off is powerful. Its not clear that we'd be at all tolerant of people who smelt sufficiently different - and I suspect that's why we standardized on a zero which we can all achieve.

[dragonwriter]

> If I try to give an example, there are people that are hyper-allergic to peanuts and they will die if they are exposed to peanuts. Why do we, despite this, allow peanuts in our society?

Because the combination of decent emergency response and site-specific limitations on peanuts in places where there is a particular likelihood of them affecting someone who is hyper-allergic is currently viewed as an effective- enough mitigation to the hazard posed, not because people have an unrestrained entitlement to act as they want even when it is harmful to other's health.

[dublinben]

>we are not talking about vaccination; I think that is a completely different thing

Why is it so different? They both contribute to societal health, and personal hygiene is much less painful than getting your complete battery of vaccines.

[logfromblammo]

Vaccines are specifically targeted. General hygeine practices can impact benign or neutral species as much as the pathogens, whether the latter are present or not.

[rsync]

"So anybody who happens to have a compromised immune system gets to fight your personalised microbes, perhaps fatally?"

Yes, and that is true ipso facto whether they are using soap or not. You will also be fighting the microbes of school aged children (a preschool is one hell of a petri dish), animals (domestic and wild), as well as the entire biosphere you inhabit in general.

If you have a compromised immune system, your neighbors decision to follow a soap-free cleansing regime (which is NOT appealing to me, btw) is the very least of your worries.

[jrabone]

Soap and water is very good at removing faecal contamination. In the absence of small children and pets, and the taking of a prophylactic dose of antibiotics daily, my main concern is whether the people I share work and living space with are spreading their own faeces over surfaces I interact with. If their cleansing regime is as effective as soap and hot water, all is well.

[DanBC]

CDC say soap and not hot water is fine too. They prefer running water.

[ufo]

Fair enough. However, it is possible that the microbiome that results from showering could be more deadly than the one that results from not showering - its not only a matter of how many bacteria there are but also what kind of bacteria they are.

[pinko]

This is the key point many people miss.

Assuming a basic level of sanitation, less faecal contamination (there is never zero) + less bacterial competition may be worse in practice than more faecal contamination + more bacterial competition.

The key advance in urban human sanitation, as I understand it, was not the use of surfectants so much as getting the open sewers off of the streets.

But I am not an expert on such things. I'd be grateful to be corrected by anyone who is.

[FreedomFiber]

When you have a population of beneficial microbes, they push the harmful ones out. The ones that cause acne, odor, etc...

When you take antibiotics it kills bacteria nonselectively, good and bad. This can lead to an overgrowth of harmful bacteria when you stop taking the antibiotics. Also good luck when the strain of bacteria you're fighting become resistant to the antibiotic you're taking... Maybe then you'll reconsider microbiomics.

[jrabone]

Your fecal coliforms will kill other people, simply because they're yours, not theirs. They'll kill you if they don't stay in the gut (mine tried, along with a carbapenem-resistant strain of streptococcus introduced via a central line).

[FreedomFiber]

"A regime of concentrated AO+ caused a hundredfold decrease of Propionibacterium acnes"

The way I see it, both methods (using detergents or probiotics) are achieving the same effect: a decrease in harmful bacteria. The only difference is when probiotics are used, there is a lessened chance of a harmful microbe overgrowth.

[jrabone]

I can't reply directly to "rosser" due to max comment depth, but fecal transplants don't generally involve introducing gut bacteria to anywhere other than the gut.

[rosser]

Then why are physicians performing fecal transplants?

[Fomite]

Fecal transplants are typically done with stool either very similar to your own in terms of the microbial makeup (preferably a family member that lives with you) or with synthetic, cultured stool that has been made free of pathogens.

It's still not a fun procedure, and the side effects are unpleasant. They're just less unpleasant than recurrent C. difficile.

[ekianjo]

> When you have a population of beneficial microbes, they push the harmful ones out. The ones that cause acne, odor, etc...

What is your basis to say that the ones that cause odor are harmful ? It's a pure hypothesis.

[FreedomFiber]

Define harmful however you like. Some people might think smelling bad is detrimental to their well-being.

[keithflower]

Please stop spreading harmful misinformation.

Antibiotics do not and never have destroyed "all bacteria".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_antibiotics

[FreedomFiber]

*Most kill nonselectively. Thanks for the nitpicking correction. My point still stands.

[keithflower]

There is nothing "nitpicking" about my correction of your misinformation (which you've now edited), and no, your point doesn't stand.

Taking an antibiotic does not kill ALL bacteria in a host, which is what you said before you edited your post. Nor can it be accurately said that antibiotics kill "nonselectively", whatever that means.

As a physician, when I've prescribed an antibiotic for your streptococcal infection or your pneumonia or whatever, you haven't been at any particular risk for "bacterial overgrowth" (whatever that means), "acne", or even "odor". But please feel free to link to some package inserts that list the relative risks and data for "bacterial overgrowth", "acne", and "odor" from popularly prescribed antibiotics.

And no, you're not at risk for "bacterial overgrowth" from washing with soap and water, of all things.

Antibiotics ARE overused. Antibiotic soaps are silly. Both help create antibiotic-resistant strains.

But scaring people who might benefit from antibiotics with misinformation about risks from "bacterial overgrowth" and simply washing with soap and water, while pushing "probiotics" puts people in about the same camp as the anti-vaccine anti-science crowd.

This entire N=1 post is laughable psuedo-science, which appears to have brought out the rest of the "reason from anecdote" crowd.

[FreedomFiber]

Wow, you've managed to make so many false assumptions about my original comment that I won't even bother to correct them all. Did you even read it thoroughly enough to comprehend my point? I guess not. Also have you ever heard of Broad-spectrum antibiotics? Yeah, those are nonselective.

Here are a few good links to read up on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110419214734.ht... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora#Effects_of_antibiotic... http://www.naturalnews.com/042769_antibiotics_healthy_gut_fl...

[dbingham]

There are many bacteria that are not the sort that are going to attack your immune system, defective or not. No matter how much you wash or use antibiotics you never eradicate bacteria from your environment. Rather, you select for the bacteria most resistant to the chemicals you apply to them.

The bacteria in the sorts of microbiomics discussed in this article are (usually) totally symbiotic. They aren't going to harm you, they are going to help you. They are going to be a secondary immune system and provide you a layer of protection. Removing them is actually more dangerous for you than encouraging them. In removing them, you create a vacuum that is easier for harmful and parasitic organisms to invade.

Edit: I haven't actually seen the research (and it might not have been done yet) on the specific species mentioned in the article. So I edited to speak more generally.

The idea many of us have been indoctrinated with that all microorganisms are potentially harmful invaders is not only completely false, that belief has lead us as a society to take action that was potentially very harmful to us. There's an entire ecosystem down there, and much of it evolved in symbiosis with us. We provide them a home, and in return they protect and clean us. They don't want to destroy their home, they would die, too.

We could learn a thing or two from them in that regard.

[jamesaguilar]

I don't think this is accurate. Many bacteria that are symbiotic with immuno-normal humans are parasitic and harmful to immunocompromised humans.

That said, it's unclear that regular washing with soap removes the kinds of bacteria that have the potential to be harmful -- I know for sure that skin is constantly covered with bacteria, with and without washing. So I don't know if GP's objection is realistic.

[dbingham]

Yes, there are some species that are only symbiotic in the right circumstances, but are very harmful if they escape their niches. But there are also thousands of species that are evolved for very specific niches with in our bodies and cannot survive outside of those niches. When in those niches, they are helpful. When outside of them, they are harmless. Immunocompromised or not.

But you're right, I don't actually have the evidence to say whether the bacteria discussed with in the article are of the sort that are always harmless or of the sort that can be very harmful in the wrong circumstance. I'll edit the comment. I do think it is likely that they are largely harmless, because of the ammonia based metabolism. That would be pretty limiting. Also, their apparent fragility.

[jrabone]

We provide them a home, and in return they protect and clean us. They don't want to destroy their home, they would die, too.

Sorry but that is absolute, unmitigated rubbish. I spent 2 weeks in intensive care, with a surgical scar from my sternum to my groin which de-hisced (burst open) because my own bacteria tried to kill me.

While they might be symbiotic in the right place (eg. the gut), they'll kill you pretty quickly if they get out.

[dbingham]

You are over generalizing while also making appeals to emotion based upon your (admittedly terrifying, painful and difficult) experience. I'm sorry you had to go through that and hope life gets better for you.

But applying that emotional appeal to this argument is not valid. Yes, some bacteria are symbiotic in certain environments but extraordinarily dangerous if they escape into other parts of the body. There are particular gut bacteria that are especially notable in that regard. But there are thousands of species of bacteria that live in all parts of our body. The vast majority of these are harmless or even helpful, period. If they find themselves in an environment that isn't the specific niche they evolved for, they die.

While I haven't seen the research on the particular species discussed in the article, it is entirely possible (I would say likely) that it is one of those. Rather than one of the species that can wreck havoc if it escapes its proper environment.

[jrabone]

For hopefully the last time, I'm not talking about the bacteria in the product. All human beings defecate. Many (most?) clean themselves afterwards with their hands. If you do not practise adequate hygiene with a surfactant-based cleanser, those faecal bacteria are still stuck to the skin afterwards and transfer to anything you touch, where they may be picked up by someone else who is not in a position to deal with them. This is not an appeal to emotion, it is a fact which I happen to have had personal experience of.

[dllthomas]

And again, the article doesn't speak clearly to handwashing specifically. It would seem that ideally, if someone believes in this kind of thing, the appropriate behavior when faced with handling something likely loaded with bad bacteria (which cleaning after defecation would include) would be to subsequently clean your hands with soap and hot water, and then reapply the N. eutropha.

[dllthomas]

By stating that the gut is the "right place" for these particular bacteria, you are begging the question. It is unquestionably the case that there are bacteria in our gut flora that we definitely do not want anywhere but the gut. It does not follow that this applies to all bacteria.

Compare pathology of the bacterium under discussion (http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Nitrosomonas_eutroph...) with one that more clearly doesn't belong anywhere but the gut (http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Escherichia_coli).

[Periodic]

There is apparently problems with the opposite that may be occurring now in our society.

The bacterial ecosystem of our guts is very poorly understood. However, we are starting to discover that some forms of obesity, irritable bowl and related disorders such as Crohn's Disease may be linked to an imbalance of gut bacteria. Possible culprits include overuse of antibiotics particularly in milk and meat; extreme cleanliness; and Cesarean sections as your gut bacteria is inherited from your mother during birth. We also know that there are some bacteria which have very positive effects, the so-called probiotics.

We need these things to survive properly and in a lot of cases it is more about having the right balance than getting rid of them.

I speak as a spouse of someone with Crohn's Disease who has been largely treated through diet and bacterial management. I don't have quite the grounding in the science as she does, but we have seen the effects.

In short, excessive cleanliness in our modern society may actually be making people ill. We need to find the right balance.

[XorNot]

Crohn's disease is an autoimmune condition.

It's managed through diet and fauna control, but it sure as heck isn't caused by bacterial imbalance.

It's also worth noting that bacterial imbalance is usually treated with gut-balanciing antibiotics, which a single course of did wonders for me when I used to suffer severe gutache nearly daily.

Articles like the one here though sound far more ideological then scientific though.

EDIT: Also worth noting, there's scant scientific evidence that probiotics do anything. Near as anyone can tell the only effective things have been antibiotics, or faecal transplants.

[gwern]

> Crohn's disease is an autoimmune condition. It's managed through diet and fauna control, but it sure as heck isn't caused by bacterial imbalance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis

[msandford]

I didn't see anything in the article that said "I stopped washing my hands after I used the bathroom" but I did see plenty about "I stopped using soaps and shampoos and other SHOWER related items".

I think you misunderstood the goal of the experiment and the method by which she did so. Culturing less-harmful bacteria which might crowd out more-harmful bacteria is actually a great thing.

The ultimate situation is where we're all covered in incredibly weaksauce bacteria that can be killed quite easily if need be, but in the meantime they out-compete all the truly nasty ones which are antibiotic-resistant. That way if someone gets an infection antibiotics (or scrubbing) will go a long way towards curing it in the rapidly-post-antibiotic era that some doctors think we are entering.

[pbnjay]

There's a blog post with more quotes: http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/julia-scott-on-...

Specifically, she did wash her hands with soap:

> Every time I touched my hair, I had to wash my hands (I did wash my hands with soap).

[jerf]

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Nitrosomonas+eutropha+inf...

Note how first Google can't find any results, then redirects you, and how none of the redirects I see are talking about any infection either.

I doubt an ammonia-eater is very long for the inside of our bodies, regardless of the status of the immune system.

The whole "life will find a way" concept is really a horrible way to understand bacteria. Bacteria are, in fact, incredibly fragile, almost incomprehensibly so. They gain strength both in their sheer numbers, which makes it hard to get all of them off or out of something, and the sheer diversity of the various species (and to a lesser extent, within species), which means that for any given condition, there's probably some species that can survive or thrive there. Bacteria in general are extraordinarily powerful and resilient... but those properties do not extend to bacteria in specific. In specific, I see no reason to suspect this species even shows on the threat meter, as compared to any ol' cold virus or conventional bacteria infection. I reserve the right to change that assessment if someone provides more evidence.

[jrabone]

Not talking about the bacteria in the product, I'm talking about the faecal bacteria (your own personal gut microbes) that are still stuck to the skin afterwards due to not using a surfactant-based washing product. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7785997 further down the thread.

[jerf]

Touche.

[jessaustin]

I haven't had a spleen in over twenty years. In my experience, asplenia has not led to sickness any greater than the norm. I have kept up with recommended vaccinations, but I'm personally not a very "clean" person. I get sick a couple of times a year, which seems typical, and I've only been memorably sick a couple of times since I lost my spleen. Certainly you and others have different experiences. Perhaps your antibiotic requirements are more related to surgical wound healing?

[jrabone]

No, it's standard UK practice, especially for the first 2 years after splenectomy. It does seem to vary around the world though.

[jessaustin]

Hmmm, it seems there is a nation even nuttier about antibiotics than we Americans. I've taken antibiotics twice, for a few days each time, since I lost my spleen: wisdom teeth and a three-week sickness. Perhaps for that reason, I completely recovered from my three-week sickness within hours of taking the first pill. IANAP, but I really wonder about a standard of care that includes two years of antibiotics for a common, uncomplicated condition. What if the newly-asplenic actually got an infection while on that regimen? How would they be treated then?

[headShrinker]

I'm really sorry to hear of your condition and hope you recoup as much as possible. Without being cruel, I would like to point out the irony that it is likely antibiotics that will do us in and not lack of hand washing. Really hope you get better.