Article: Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies. A
new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on
their hands than men do. And everybody has more types of bacteria
than the researchers expected to find.
"One thing that really is astonishing is the variability
between individuals, and also between hands on the same
individual," said University of Colorado biochemistry assistant
professor Rob Knight, a co-author of the paper.
"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands
of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the
greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women,"
added lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor in
Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology.
The researchers aren't sure why women harbored a greater
variety of bacteria than men, but Fierer suggested it may have to
so with the acidity of the skin. Knight said men generally have
more acidic skin than women.
Other possibilities are differences in sweat and oil gland
production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or
cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production, he
said.
Women also may have more bacteria living under the surface
of the skin where they are not accessible to washing, Knight
added.
Asked if guys should worry about holding hands with girls,
Knight said: "I guess it depends on which girl."
He stressed that "the vast majority of the bacteria we have
on our body are either harmless or beneficial ... the pathogens are
a small minority."
I thought it should be the other way round, Man should have more
bacteria considering them holding their dick when urinating!!! and
i don't even know whether they wash their hands properly or
not...