5 Steps to Effective Hand-Washing

You know that washing your hands is the best way to keep from spreading germs. Now learn how and when!

By Linda Melone

Medically reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH and Robert Jasmer, MD

We’ve all heard that washing your hands several times a day can help you avoid getting sick during cold and flu season. Follow these simple tips to make it a habit and keep the germs away.

The simple act of hand-washing can help stop the spread of germs that can cause a cold or flu (or even swine flu). While we now take for granted the importance of hand-washing to prevent colds, the importance of hand-washing was discovered only 150 years ago.

"Hand-washing is still the best way to prevent colds and other respiratory and infectious diseases that are transmitted by hand to mouth or hand to nose/eye contact," says Samuel N. Grief, MD, medical director of campus care at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Soap acts as a vehicle to trap the germs (i.e. viruses, bacteria) that are loosened by the act of rubbing your hands together under water. These germs can then be rinsed away by the water."

Contact with other people throughout the day, touching contaminated surfaces, and even petting animals can cause a variety of cold-causing germs to accumulate on your hands. Then by touching your eyes, nose, and mouth you can infect yourself if you don't wash your hands often enough. Touching someone else or touching a doorknob or other surface can then spread cold germs to others.

The Best Way to Wash Your Hands

Hand-washing to prevent colds includes using soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, a cleanser you can use without water. "There is no one best water temperature to wash one's hands," says Dr. Grief. "If your hands are really dirty and greasy, use of warm to hot water will do a better job of trapping dirt and grease within the soap, allowing for a more thorough cleaning."

The type of soap also does not typically matter, according to Grief, "as long as it lathers and spreads over the hands sufficiently to trap the germs."

10 Times to Wash Hands

To prevent colds from spreading to others, practice regular hand-washing. Most importantly, wash hands:

• Before and after preparing or handling food, especially when handling uncooked poultry and meat
• Before eating
• After changing diapers
• After using the bathroom
• After sneezing, coughing, or blowing your nose
• Before and after inserting contact lenses
• After touching an animal or animal waste
• After handling garbage
• Before and after treating wounds
• Before and after touching a sick or injured person

5 Steps to Proper Hand-Washing

If using soap and water for hand-washing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the following five steps to prevent the spread of colds:

• Wet your hands with clean water — warm, if available — and apply soap.
• Lather by rubbing hands together; be sure to cover all surfaces.
• Continue rubbing hands together for 15 to 20 seconds — sing "Happy Birthday" twice in your head.
• Thoroughly rinse hands under running water to ensure removal of residual germs.
• Use paper towels or an air dryer to dry hands and then, if possible, use a paper towel to turn off the faucet.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers make a good substitute for hand-washing when soap and water is not available. A recent study from the University of Chicago showed that while soap-and-water hand-washing was most effective in removing influenza virus from the hands, using alcohol-based hand sanitizer was a close second. If you're using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, apply product to one palm, rub your two hands together, making sure to reach all surfaces, and continue rubbing until hands are dry.

Preventing a week or two of misery from the common cold or flu will be well worth those 20 seconds spent with soap and water.

This section created and produced exclusively by the editorial staff of EverydayHealth.com. The material on this web site is provided for educational purposes only and is not to be used for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.Copyright © 2015 Everyday Health Media, LLC

Eating Carbs and Fats Before a Workout? Read This

By Tiffany Ayuda

The New York Times published an article “Should Athletes Eat Fat or Carbs?” last week which was based on a study that shows a diet comprised of 85 percent fat can help improve overall performance for ultra-endurance athletes more than the traditional high-carbohydrate diet considered best for athletes. And by fat, they mean good fats that come from foods like nuts, avocados, and extra-virgin olive oil — not your cheeseburgers and French fries. But before you throw all your healthy eating rules out the window, it’s important to note that this recommendation is not for most of us — these recommendations for real athletes. We’re talking about people who exercise for a living — think NBA players, Olympic swimmers, or professional marathoners.

Let’s be honest: Most of us don’t run more than two marathons a week or work out at all hours of the day, so this way of eating is not recommended, even for high school and college players and people who exercise regularly. However, this information certainly brings into question traditional thinking and, as so often with these studies, leaves us wondering if this type of eating could benefit other types of athletes or moderately active people. We’ll need to continue to watch the research for more answers.

It’s important to remember that carbohydrates are an essential part of a healthy, well-balanced diet and provide fuel for your workouts in the form of glycogen, which is stored in the liver and muscles. Fat, however, must be broken down into fatty acids before it can be used as fuel, and only endurance athletes who vigorously exercise throughout the day are able to use up all their glycogen stores before their bodies start using fat. A ketogenic diet, like the ones the article reviews with 85 percent of the diet from fat, forces your body to use fat more readily as an energy source. This is referred to as a ‘ketoadaption’ and takes several weeks to achieve.

Still, it’s not a good idea to overdo it on carbohydrates or fat for all your meals. Fats should only comprise 20 to 30 percent of your total daily calorie intake per meal (think two slices of avocado). Carbohydrates should make up 40 to 50 percent of your meal, and sources of good carbohydrates include vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains. Government experts have offered suggestions for the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, (due to be published in the fall) which encourage Americans to cut down on meat, added sugars, and starchy, high-carb foods and include more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats into their diets.

“The move toward reducing the amount of carbohydrates recommended for the general public is because most of us are not active. We sit too much! When we don’t move, or if we move for only an hour a day, we’re not utilizing all the carbohydrates we are eating, and therefore we continue to gain weight and increase our risk for chronic diseases. For the most part, we are moving too little and eating too much and especially carbohydrates because they are easy, available, and taste good,” says Maureen Namkoong, MS, RD nutrition and fitness director at Everyday Health.

There’s a place for good carbohydrates and fats in a balanced diet. Good carbohydrates and fats give you energy, may help you lose weight, and promote cardiovascular health. But too much of a good thing can be bad — and this is true for fats and carbs, too.

Copyright © 2015 Everyday Health Media, LLC

The material on this web site is provided for educational purposes only and is not to be used for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.