Bar Soap More Effective At Killing Bacteria Than Anti-Bacterial Sprays

Next time you clean your kitchen, you might want to ditch your bottle of anti-bacterial spray in favor of a regular bar of soap. According to the Telegraph, it can take only 20 minutes for any remaining bacteria to recolonize after you wipe down your countertops. 

Some bacteria can divide every 20 minutes so it doesn't take long for one cell to become one million cells - in fact it would only take around 6.6 hours.

Dr. Clare Lanyon helped conduct an experiment for the BBC show Trust Me I'm A Doctorwhich found "dramatic growth" of bacteria just 12 hours after surfaces were wiped cleaned with anti-bacterial products. 

She said that in her tests bar soap did a better job of killing bacteria and keeping it from recolonizing because the soap contains "ingredients that broke down cell walls" of bacteria.

Lanyon explained that it is impossible to keep your kitchen completely bacteria free because "the minute you walk around the kitchen you're shedding bacteria and fungi into the area again and it's just recolonizing." She added that some exposure to bacteria is important to keep "the immune system healthy and strong."

The point of the show is you don't need to be so fastidious in cleaning your house from top to bottom because you can't actually remove all bacteria and nor would we want to - exposing ourselves to everyday pathogens is good in keeping the immune system healthy and strong.

Lanyon said it is essential to "thoroughly" clean your kitchen after handling raw meat, but instead of using expensive sprays and disposable wipes, good old-fashioned soap and water will do just fine. 

Photo: Getty Images


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