germs

What’s Lurking in Your Refrigerator Drawers?

Posted on 04/12/2013 by | Personal Health and Well-being | Comments

Personal HealthWhich of your kitchen appliances or utensils has the most germs? It’s not, as most people in a new survey guessed, the keypad on the microwave. Or even that gunky can opener, the second most common answer. In terms of the pathogens that could really make you ill — E. coli, salmonella and listeria — the top three offenders were the refrigerator meat and vegetable drawers, followed by the blender gasket — that floppy ring that fits around the appliance’s …

The Dishwasher Debate: Don’t Load These 6 Things

Posted on 10/19/2012 by | Personal Health and Well-being | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthForget about the presidential debate. That’s amateur stuff. If you really want to start a lively debate, let’s talk dishwashers and what should and shouldn’t go into them. There’s the classic, men vs. women debate about the “right” way to load a dishwasher (don’t get me started). And then there’s the “Do I really need to hand-wash this?” discussion. Of course, if you enjoy getting people agitated, bring up whether a dishwasher should be used to steam fish, or wash …

Flu Season is Back!

Posted on 09/7/2012 by | AARP Blog Author | Comments

Personal HealthSeptember! Already! Of course, that means a sort of unofficial start of cold and flu season. The CDC recommends that we get vaccinated against flu starting in September because the flu can start to spread as early as October. What do you need to know to keep healthy? At the risk of sounding horribly mysophobic, let’s talk about basic preventative measures from the CDC. You probably hear these things every year, but these actions should be almost reflexes. This kinda …

The Takeaway: 10 Airports Most Likely to Spread Disease (You Might Be Surprised)

Posted on 07/27/2012 by | Brooklyn, NY | Comments

News RoundupsIn the event of some terrible outbreak — SARS, “swine flu,” whatever it was Gwyneth Paltrow got at the beginning of Contagion — the airports most likely to spread disease aren’t necessarily the biggest or the busiest, according to a new study.

Germiest Things in Hotel Rooms? Stuff You Touch First

Posted on 06/25/2012 by | Personal Health and Well-being | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthWant to avoid germs during your next hotel stay? Wipe down that TV remote and the switch on your bedside lamp before you touch them. Researchers from the University of Houston took bacteria samples from several items in hotel rooms in three states, reports MyHealthNewsDaily.com. While you might expect the toilet and the sink to have high levels of bacteria, researchers found more surprising items with high contamination levels, such as the remote and the switch on the bedside lamp …

Who Has The Germiest Offices? Guys, I Think You Know

Posted on 06/5/2012 by | Personal Health and Well-being | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthWhen it comes to germy office-mates, some of us are spreading around more bacteria than others. We’re talking to you, gentlemen. A new study finds that surfaces in men’s offices are covered in 10 to 20 percent more bacteria than those in women’s offices, say researchers who swabbed chairs, phones, computer mice, keyboards and desktops in 90 offices in New York, San Francisco and Tucson, Ariz. Most of the bacteria came from the workers themselves, spread by coughing, sneezing and …

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